South West Water

It was only when I was looking through the pictures taken this morning in really poor weather that I noticed the bonnet on this new van! Obviously had a bit of a bump in its short life so far.



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Fergusons

Fergusons Transport is a large haulage company mainly based in the North East of England but with a large base here in Plymouth. Typical of the smart fleet is this Volvo W367PCN, fleet number 367.
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Blue Line

Seen passing through Plymouth International this morning is this Mercedes on the 6 route. This route still being marketed as the Green Line Overground low floor bus route. As you can see - this is not low floor! This bus has been seen on this blog before in my first post to this blog.

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South West Water

South West Water have their Plymouth HQ just behind where this picture was taken. Just having left this site is LandRover WA52DKO towing an exhibition unit

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Sky

Sky Television have recently placed a large fleet of new vans on the road in special liveries promoting the programs shown on Sky. Caught this new Vauxhall van two days ago in Sky Sports livery. There are several others in the Plymouth area yet to be caught by my camera!

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Stagecoach X38

I know this picture is taken in Exeter but it is of a coach on its way to Plymouth.
This batch of Volvo coaches P801-6XTA have been regulars on this service since they were new and are both quiet and comfortable buses. This service has settled down to an hourly one with coaches used. It used to be every 30 mins with Mercedes Minibuses at one stage! For a while we had a 90 minute services using two articulated coaches which were great to look at but not ideal for this route. I think they came off back in 2003. Back then the fare was £6 day return whereas now with the Explorer ticket its only £5 which is a bargain.
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Hovis

Caught this one on camera yesterday. A Leyland Daf of Hovis is being towed by this old ERF tow truck. The "British Bakeries" sign above the cab suggests a connection with Hovis and I guess this is an 'in-house' recovery vehicle.
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22nd June 2005: First Mercedes 709

Many of these buses have been taken out of service now but a few soldier on. K620ORL is on the 48, a school working which yesterday was covered by a Solo but can be just about anything from the First fleet.
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21st June 2005: Langdon Transport

Fairly rare in Plymouth is this massive Renault Magnum of Langdon Transport seen this morning heading towards the city.
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20th June 2005: Optare Solo

Several of these distinctive buses have now been transferred down to Cornwall as they have been replaced by new low floor Darts on Plymouth routes. Some remain in Plymouth though. 53014 is seen heading towards Saltash having just left Derriford Hospital on the 52 service.
This service is unique in Plymouth in that it is one route split into two. First run from Satash to Derriford and then Plymouth Citybus run from Derriford to Plympton. Both routes still run as the 52 service!
When First decided to drop the Plympton end it was hoped that Stagecoach Devon would come in and they even got as far as publishing timetables leaflets for the service and preparing two Darts for the route. This was halted at the very last minute on objection from First who didn't like Stagecoach extending the service into the City Centre via Milehouse. Citybus were instead brought in by the council to see if they could make the route work. This was back in December 2004 and the route still survives today.
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19th June 2005: Handside

This is another local haulage and recycling concern based at Ivybridge. Back in 2004 they had a fleet of 16 lorries and 5 CAT excavators. The lorries I have seen have all been smart DAF 75 tippers such as this one.


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18th June: Glendinning

Glendinning have a base on Embankment Road. They describe themselves as "one of South West England's leading and largest independent quarrying and road surfacing companies" with a fleet of over 50 vehicles, all in this smart cream and red livery.

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17th June 2005: TJ Brent

TJ Brent operate a large fleet across the south west with a large base in Plymouth. Owned by May Gurney since 2004 they had previously been part of South West Water group.
More photos in the Brent gallery

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16 June 2005: Sainsbury's

Typical of the Sainsbury trunk fleet is this smart Volvo FM12 in full livery as supplied by Excel Logistics.
see my High Street gallery for further pictures of supermarket lorries
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15th June 2005: Exel Tradeteam

Exel Tradeteam deliver beverages across the country and supply many of the larger national brewery chains. They have recently taken delivery of a large number of new Volvos such as this one - more details of which can be found here.

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14th June 2005: DHL

A set of photos from the many lorry fleets that are regular visitors to Plymouth. For today we have DHL which back in April 2003 rebranded into this smart yellow livery.

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Plymouth City Coach

Plymouth Citycoach run a very smart fleet of coaches all in this neat and effective swirl livery. They are also all Volvo / Plaxton coaches now so look almost the same. Typical of Plymouth Citybus really - smart but boring! R309STA is on a school run in this picture.
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13th June: Hovercraft under Laira bridge

This was a real surprise for me today. I have not seen a hovercraft in Plymouth before. It spent about half an hour messing about on the River Plym. It is seen here heading back out to sea having just passed under the old Laira Railway bridge. It is just about to pass under the nwer road bridge to the right of this shot.
In the background behind the hovercraft are the remains of the original road bridge where you can still see the original plaque commemorating its being built.

There is a page on the Plymouthdata web site which gives a bit more detail on the bridge along with a photo of the crossing before the new road bridge was. its well worth a look!


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12th June: Plymouth City Centre Company

Yesterday in town I noticed this LDV Convoy waste truck was carrying a new logo - for the Plymouth City Centre Company. This is the red circle seen on the cab door. It has been very crudely stuck over the former City Council logo with half of it still showing! They also operate at least one Schmidt sweeper although that does not carry this logo. didbygraham

11th June: Citybus new livery

Got the chance to get a better photo of 41 X141CDV in the new livery for Plymouth Citybus. I had actually just got off this bus and was lucky it stayed at the stop long enough to get this shot. Its certainly a big improvement on the previous dull livery, but we are still waiting for another repaint.
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9th June: Tinknell Fuels

Tinknell Fuels distribute Shell products across the South West. A fairly recent addition to the smart fleet is this Volvo FM9 tanker.
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8th June: Plymouth International Traffic Lights

Nothing much to see here is there? Well, No there isnt really. It does though illustrate the buses now entering the Plymouth International Business Park. They started on Sunday with two First services the 6 and the 17 providing 4 buses an hour from Derriford Hospital into Town. Coming up from the City Centre and heading towards Derriford Roundabout the buses have to use this awkward Right turn into the estate. It is traffic light controlled and when the lights work the buses should be able to stay in their bus lane and turn right across all the traffic. At this time though the lights are not working so buses have to get into the right hand lanes - not always easy to do from the bus lane in heavy traffic. Several buses have ended up missing the turn and just carry on down to Derriford Roundabout as they used to. With the traffic lights out of order for a few days it is causing the buses problems although, ironically for other traffic it is actually improving things as there is less of a queue to turn right here than normal!
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7th June: Yorkshire Vario

After yesterdays Yorkshire import we have another, more recent transfer. 50305 S411GUB is one of a large number of Varios being brought in from several First Group fleets. This one is in the pink fade Barbie livery - several different variations are carried by these buses which I will illustrate over the next few weeks or so...
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6th June: FDC Olympian

34491 FUM491Y is one of a small batch of elderly Olympians transferred in a few years ago. They are only just a year or so newer than the VRTs!
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More new buses in Plymouth!

Its not just First who are running new '05' buses into Plymouth. Western Greyhound operate a very smart fleet of Mercedes Varios on the 593 service which acts as a direct link from Plymouth to the Third World. Hopefully will get more chance this week to post more regularly
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Incoming

SN05EAA is fleet number 42924
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Not had much time to blog recently so thought I'd get a few pictures posted tonight. A few more of the new Alexander-Dennis Dart buses being placed into service by First Devon & Cornwall. we start with 42563 SN05DZZ
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