Saturday National Holiday

I don't normally drive along Great Yarmouth's seafront on a Saturday afternoon but did so earlier today.

In addition to a few independents I found a couple of National Holidays's Tourismos parked up close to the Sea Life Centre.

For the record they were NH15GDH and NH17JFH.

Roy

Friday Tourismos

Friday morning normally sees the return home of the Great Yarmouth short stayers and the first I observed was one of Shearings' 2013 registered Setras heading west over Haven Bridge.

Arriving at the Carlton Hotel, another Shearings turned up in the form of relatively new Mercedes Benz Tourismo 149 BU18YTD.

Also observed on Marine Parade was yet another Tourismo, CR14RAM, from the Rambler Coaches fleet. Another Rambler, in Just Go branding, was awaiting me on Prince's Road. This time it was BG14OOE - a Volvo B11R with Jonckheere bodywork.

The final surprise was the arrival of three Alfa Travel Tourismos outside the New Beach Hotel; though not all at exactly the same time! BX15OED did the first pick ups to be followed by BN12CLV and BX14LCM (pictured)

Roy

Old Worthing Bus

I quite often receive emails regarding bus workings but this one came as a complete surprise. Whilst not locally related it may be of interest to our south coast readers.

John Hutchinson was recently in contact and some locals may remember the name as he was a one-time editor of  the ECTS magazine Terminus. He is now Secretary of the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich and receives all manner of requests, including the one he is about to share with us here.

"As a regular peruser of your excellent website and knowing of your interest in buses in the Worthing area, attached is a print of something a little different which I hope will tickle your fancy, namely a Worthing Motor Services bus dating from the early 1900s, apparently on its way to the Lake District!

The story behind the picture dates from last year when we were contacted by a Roger Warwick, residing, I think, in Northamptonshire. He had purchased a printer's plate on ebay showing the vehicle concerned and got in touch with us to see if we could provide a decent print of it - which we dutifully obliged him with.

Naturally, I enquired if he knew anything about the the plate and received the following reply:

'I don't know the history of the plate - I can only assume that Worthing Motor services, to whom the vehicle was new in April 1914, had the plate made for publicity purposes. The chassis of the bus was requisitioned by the Military in September 1914, so it had a very short life in the form seen on the plate.'

So, he had obviously done some pretty impressive researching to come up with that information."

My thanks to John for the information and the illustration. No doubt the journey from and to the south coast must have been 'interesting' to say the least!

Roy

Service Alterations Registered ~ 28th November 2018 (Amended)

After a quiet period regarding changes to local buses services, today's East of England Traffic Commissioner's Notices & Proceedings Report contains a number of alterations by First Eastern Counties and Konectbus.

First Eastern Counties are to amend the routes and stopping places of some of its Lowestoft based services including:-
*  99/99B Lowestoft Bus Station to Pier Avenue, Southwold
*  101 Crestview Drive, Gunton to Cowslip Crecent, Hollow Grove
*  103 Lowestoft Bus Station to Carlton Colville
*  882 North Cove to East Norfolk 6th Form College,Gorleston
*  X2/X21/X22 Lowestoft Bus Station to All Saints Green, Norwich
These changes have been made to reflect the revised town centre routing and there will be no timetable alterations. With Station Square being closed for some weeks heading out of town towards Pakefield, all buses have diverted via Battery Green southbound. This has seen a significant reduction in delays so it was decided to make this route permanent from 6th January 2019.

Konectbus is to make the following changes to timetables from 2nd January 2019:-
*  5B Horning to Norwich City Centre with revised times to and from Stalham
*  84 Harleston to Norwich including the rerouting of the 14:20 from Harleston via Trowse to cater for Framlingham High School students.
*  87/88 Bungay to Norwich - withdrawal of route except in the evenings, on Sundays and on Bank Holidays due to unsustainable losses. An hourly timetable will operate between Southwold and Bungay via Halesworth although the 15:53 ex Southwold and the 15:12  ex Halesworth are withdrawn.

The full Notices and Proceedings Report will soon be available to view on the Gov.uk website

Roy

Worthing Week

As mentioned in the previous post, I have been on a short break staying in the Worthing area and it would be rude not to include some highlights of the stay!

On my first morning there (19th), I went to Brighton Road to get my paper and found the road completely blocked. Apparently an RTA on the A27 caused the chaos and I got this photo of the 700 Coastliner 10946 SN18KNK stuck in traffic. Chatting to the driver I found that he had travelled around a quarter of a mile in just three hours. Despite that he was cheerful and said that, as long as he his flask of coffee to see him through, he was a happy man!

Compass Bus driver trainer 310 S516JJH which had a similar role with Reading Buses.

Later that day we had the trek over to Durrington Tesco for supplies, whilst yours truly opted out and disappeared to the Compass Bus depot on Faraday Road. Again I was warmly welcomed by the staff with one even remembering me from last time! They were very helpful in making sure I was correctly attired in my hi-vis tabard!

I was told that they were currently trialling a tri-axle Irizar bodied Scania, with an option to purchase, which was due to return shortly. I noted Enviro200 4111 GX13FSL was awaiting repairs following front end damage and that long withdrawn Dart 4003 VX05UHS was being used as a temporary dry store for children's Christmas presents prior to scrapping. Unfortunately the Scania didn't return before I left.

Later in the week (23rd), I observed activity in the Worthing seafront area and caught some interesting workings. First up is another driver trainer and this time Volvo B10M-62/ Jonckheere Mistral 52623 456CLT headed east out of the depot. Using an ex Routemaster plate, it was new to East Kent in October 1998 as S903CCD

Next is Metrobus Scania OmniCity 6556 YN55PWU which has received a livery celebrating the 70 years of Crawley New Town. It arrived on the mainly half hourly 23 service from the town.

Meanwhile, South Downs green liveried ADL Enviro200 27198 SN63YPU was working off route on the Pulse service in South Street.

Roy

Brighton Buses

Regular blog visitors will probably note that it's been a little quiet on here lately - there's a good reason for that as I have been on a short break down on the south coast. Whilst there, a visit to Brighton was in order last Wednesday (21st) and naturally some photos were taken.

The first shows Big Lemon ADL Enviro200 YX10FEJ on the 47 to East Saltdean, though not in in the traditional Big Lemon colours as it still wears its Abello London red.

Since our last visit, Compass Bus has secured a contract to operate the Brighton & Hove tendered 37/B service. Four new Citybuzz branded Dennis Enviro200 MMCs have been purchased for the work and seen in North Street was 4303 YX68UJW which has been named Honey Bee. It is being passed by Brighton & Hove Wright StreetDeck 926 BX15ONA.

The other major operator in the area is Metrobus and its Scania N270UD OmniCity 6977 YP09HWJ is nearing its journeys end passing Steine Gardens. It was previously Brighton & Hove's 722.

Brighton & Hove (B&H) are currently using well travelled Wright StreetDeck Demonstrator 703 SN64CTU. It is currently enjoying its second stint with the operator and is covering for warranty work on similar vehicles in the B & H fleet.

A notable vehicle making regular visits to the Steine Gardens area during the day was this Irizar bodied Scania K250UB4 registered SC13BUS. Lucketts Group subsidiary Worthing Coaches has acquired the former demonstrator from the Scania dealer at Worksop to provide contracted service UB1 for the University of Brighton. Its light blue livery has slogans 'Where the Curious Connect' on the offside and 'A place like no other' on the nearside.

As it began to get dark there was the opportunity of getting some photos of Brighton buses under the Christmas decorations and Brighton & Hove's Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini 407 BJ11XHG is shown on Western Road heading for the station.

Apologies for the comparatively poorer quality photos which were taken on my mobile phone as I had left my camera at home.

Roy

Service Alterations Registered ~ 21st November 2018

For the second consecutive week today's Notices & Proceedings Report, published by the East of England Traffic Commissioner, contains no relevant alterations to the local bus network. However, the full report will be available soon on the Traffic Commissioner's website

Roy