Freedom Card

I mentioned a short while ago that new smart cards were finally on the way for Plymouth. Well now Citybus at least is beginning to push out advertising for the new cards. Freedom Cards seem to be a mixture of standard season tickets and also 'cash cards' with both types being made available. I cant say I have noticed any in use just yet but it looks like it wont be long. Having seen the system so well used in London it would be good to see a similar system in use down here although of course London is a network controlled by Transport for London which makes it a lot easier to introduce such a system.
Thanks to Terry Partridge for his help in this posting!

Blast from the past

© Ian Kirby
Volvo Citybus - Alexander
Bretonside Bus Station, Plymouth
4th February 1989
In those days, the Plymouth - Exeter/Torquay services were joint
operations - this one has just come in from Exeter. 1815 (as 32015)
is still working out of Plymouth today - but had a substantial period
at Badgerline's Marlborough Street garage during the 1990s.

Ian has been uploading some great photos recently including this one of one of my favorite buses in Plymouth.

Changes Part 4

Part 4 of this series and we are looking down at Derriford Hospital.

Microsoft have the oldest image which serves as our base for development over the past few years. We start with google Maps:

Perhaps the biggest area of change is on the right hand side of the Derriford complex with a large new building straddling the valley between the Hospital and the Tamar Science Park. This is the new University Medical School. The other new part which is slightly harder to find is the new Cardiac complex which appears as a bright square shaped block one inch from the bottom in the middle of the image above.

This new block is easier to see in the latest image which actually does not show that much change since the one above.

Changes Part 3

The third in out series of changes of the Plymothian Landscape as seen from above covers the South Yard redevelopment of Devonport where a large section of former MOD property is returned to civilian use.

Here in the Microsoft image we see the South Yard section as it was before any of the redevelopment has started. All the old dockyard buildings are still present. The old dockyard walls are still in place.

Google Maps gives us a much clearer image but you can still see little has changed which is a big contract to our next image...

In the very latest image from Google Earth we can get a much better view of the scale of the redevelopment. Almost the whole site has been cleared although much of the outside walls are still in place. This is for construction site security. There is one small new building on the top right hand side of the site which is in use as a development office and viewing area where you can get a better idea of the development. It will be interesting to see the next image update for this area!

From the web site:

Plans for the site include the provision of over 450 high-quality homes, a community healthcare centre, new supermarket and shops, offices and managed workspace.  The historic Market Hall building will be retained and key areas have been allocated as public open space.

Plymouth data has a page for this site here which is well worth a look.

Changes Part 2

The second part of the series looks at The Tamar bridge:

From Microsoft we see that there is a lot of work going on. The main area behind the offices appears to be a large construction site. Its actually in use by contractors working on the bridge widening scheme. By the time we reach our next image from Google Maps we see that the widening work has been completed.

The image is a lot clearer in Google Maps than Virtual Earth! The construction has cleared and the site returned to a car park and nice clear grass area. You can clearly see the new lines of the bridge road deck - and very elegant it looks too.

The final most up to date image from Google Earth shows one big change. The new structure over the toll booth area has been completed and shows up very nicely in the new image. You can see that some road resurfacing has taken place too. I have also noticed that the roundabout seems to have lost some of its feature plant beds too!

More Changes to follow tomorrow night...

Changes Part 1

Google Earth has just announced an update of imagery which includes new views of Plymouth which do seem really up to date. As it takes a week or two for the new images to make it to Google Maps there is the opportunity to view a few parts of Plymouth to see how much has changed. We start off with The George Park and Ride.

This really is a 'before' image coming from Multimap which is identical to the images used by Microsoft in Visual Earth at the moment. The site is still very much the green field site.

Google Maps now and we see construction of the site is well underway. The road junction is pretty much in place but the Park and Ride site itself is still a building site.

Finally the latest image from Google Earth. All up and running and even a Park and Ride Enviro sitting at the unloading stop! Notice The George Hotel also has a few new buildings on site too.

Devon General

© Brian George

Thanks to Brian I am able to bring a decent photo of Devon General DT17053 T653KPU. It has been painted into this livery to celebrate 100 years since the trams started in Torbay. A superb job has been done on this, the Trident suiting the livery very well.

More photos of this bus on Brians Fotopic site.

aecregent has a full set of photos from the event in Torquay last weekend here

Third best road in Britain?

According to This is Plymouth
The a38 between Plymouth and Exeter has been voted one of Britain's best roads.New research from YouGov, for satellite navigation company Garmin, places the Devon Expressway third in a poll with motorists. Only picturesque stretches of the A591 between Keswick and Lake Windermere and the A82 from Glasgow to Fort William in Scotland beat the A38.

At first I was quite surprised by this but I can kind of see their point. I guess I have always seen it as a really boring stretch of road which always seemed endless. It was always the necessary evil. On any long road trip away, you always felt you were 'nearly home' when you left the M5 but then it seemed to take ages!

While doing some very basic research (well a Google search anyway) I have come across a few sites that take a good look at the A38 with this gallery on Fotopic containing over 60 photos taken from a car journey along the Expressway.

There's something very pleasant about the stretch of A38 that connects Exeter to Plymouth. The homely title helps - not many new roads are bestowed the honour of a title, but this one is, and the words "Devon Expressway" are proudly displayed on signs for most of its length

This is the opening paragraph on the A38 page of the excellent cbrd web site which is well worth exploring as there is masses on information on British roads contained in its database.

The A38 has its own Wikipedia entry here.

The Sabre roads web site also has an informative page on the A38 here

Plymouth Citybus Repaints

Plymouth Citybus continue to churn buses out in the exciting (I jest!) new livery. The latest I have noted is 3 N103UTT which joins sisters 1,2,8 and 9 of the same batch.

The latest wrap-around advert is 38 T138EFJ

Certainly one of the more impressive wrap-arounds at the moment.

I have also just today updated my Plymouth Citybus fleet list which is available from my downloads site here. The previous versions are all still available so watch out for the date in the file name. The 1977 fleet listing is also still available if you are interested.

Stranger in town

I noticed something a little different at work on the Park and Ride on Friday as I went into town but didn?t get a good look. It was on its way to the George so I knew I would catch it when it returned to the City Centre, Unfortunately it was there a bit quicker than I expected so i only caught the back end of it in a very hurried photo. It was enough to at least see what it was though!

SN56AWW Dennis Trident Alexander Enviro 400 demonstrator. Presumably at least one of the regular Enviros is off the road at the moment?

December Changes

Just to advise that FDC will be operating the following from week
commencing 30 December 2007
10 City Centre - Derriford Hospital via Lipson, Efford and Eggbuckland
13 City Centre - Saltash Passage (Saturdays only)
18 City Centre - Plymstock - Elburton, Cavendish Drive
30 City Centre - Mutley Plain - Honicknowle
38 City Centre - Lower Compton
39 City Centre - Mutley Plain - Derriford Hospital - Southway
34B City Centre - Derriford Hospital via Stoke, Beacon Park, Brake
Farm, Crownhill (evening and Sunday journeys)
44B City Centre - Transit Way via Manadon Park, Whitleigh Green
46B City Centre - St Budeaux via Stoke Village and Devonport (evening
and Sunday journeys)

This confirms that FDC have indeed taken on all the extra work that Citybus have given up. It will be interesting to see what extra buses are drafted into Plymouth for these services.

Even more interesting is the (dead) link that Citybus have on their web site:

Passenger Information Service changes from the 28^th October with known to date changes from the 39^th December 2007!

Event

News of a forthcoming event courtesy of Dave Godley on the South West Buses Group:

For the benefit of those who aren't aware, one of the former Cambridge P&R
Tridents has returned from Hampshire in full Devon General BET-style red and
ivory livery. It has now received the correct BET-style Devon General fleetnames
- even DG-style fleetnumber "DT17053".

I have had a look at it and they have done an excellent job of it. It will be
making an appearance at the Torquay Tramways celebrations -100 Years of Public
Transport in Torbay - this coming sunday along with several preserved Devon
General buses and a free bus service will be operating along the seafront.

The vehicles will be on display at Shedden Hill Car Park from 10am until 5pm.
There will also be some stalls present.

Plymothian Bridges 024: Toys R Us

Bit of an obscure photo this one, but this is the Toys R Us end of the walkway over Union Street that links Toys R Us and the Plymouth Pavilions This is in roughly the same site of the old railway bridge over Union Street. It must be said that this area is looking rather shabby these days as the Toys R Us complex has not aged very well and has an almost derelict look about it in places. I believe there were issues over the construction and design of the building which has not helped.

Waste Transfer

Plymouth's new £4.9million waste transfer station will formally open today, ahead of the closure of the city's landfill site next year. Capable of handling 140,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, the facility at Chelson Meadow will be officially opened by Lord Mayor David James - although it will not become operational until 2008. The building will receive the city's waste before it is transferred to South East Cornwall after the closure of Chelson Meadow tip on March 31. When the 12-metre-high, 65-metre-square steel-framed transfer station comes into operation, Plymouth's waste will be transferred to the Lean Quarry commercial landfill site near Liskeard as an interim measure while the city council develops its new waste management plans. The council has outlined four possible sites for future waste facilities: at Coypool, Ernesettle, Chelson Meadow and Moorcroft Quarry. Viridor Waste Management has been awarded the contract to manage the facility and provide haulage of waste for disposal at Lean Quarry. 

This transfer is going to see a lot of extra large vehicles out on the road so expect to see more new Viridor refuse trucks hit the road.

Odds and Ends

I attended a forum at the Tamar Science Park today which was attended by the Transport Plan Coordinator for Plymouth City Council who gave a presentation on the City Councils Green Travel Plans available for employers in the City. Derriford Hospital were the pioneers of this scheme so I have been a pass holder since it started over 5 years ago. Most of the presentation was not news to me, but I did pick up one or two points of interest (to me anyway).

It does seem that the Green Travel pass will be going over to a new Smart Card system very soon - probably April next year when the current pass needs renewing. This will be a good thing as the current card passes where out very quickly and never last the full twelve months. Its about time we got full smart card technology on our buses down here.

I did ask about the real time information system and was promised that this is now moving along and will start to spread city wide shortly. The ability to text the bus stop codes for the next bus will also go live soon and there will be a web site where you can track the next bus due from your local stop. If this is indeed implemented soon -and properly it will prove very popular.

There was also news on a new 'Northern Link' being planned which seems to be a service linking the main business and the George Park and Ride in the Northern Corridor area of Plymouth. This is in the early stage of planning and going out to tender so it will be a while before anything comes out on this.

TavyLink

We got an interesting email sent around at work this afternoon. I haven't got the full text with me but the basic gist is that First Devon and Cornwall and making changes to the Tavistock routes at the end of October and that these changes have been introduced without any consultation with hospital staff and that many staff will be left seriously worse off as a result of them! A meeting with staff from First has been arranged for next week. I must admit I am not sure about this one as it looks to me like a big improvement of the service, but as I don't use it much myself I may be missing some gaps in the service at peak times? I'm not sure if I can get to the meeting but lets hope so as it could be fun - hospital staff can get very upset when it comes to the buses

Changes ahead

On the Plymouth Citybus web site there is a mysterious link in the Service News section:

Passenger Information Service changes from the 28^th October 2007 With known to date changes from the 30^th December 2007

However, this link does not actually work but there are a few hints and notes in the main timetable sections...

 

Service 10: This service will no longer be run by Plymouth Citybus from the 30th December 2007.

Service 16: New timetable from 30th December

Service 18: No longer run by Citybus from 30th December. Confirmed that First take this one over

Service 22: New timetable from 30th December and slight route change to allow larger buses - low floor soon.

Service 23 24: From the 30th December 2007 First Devon and Cornwall are taking over the operation of the Service 10. Following the withdrawal by First Devon and Cornwall in the joint ticket arrangement which passengers in Mount Gould have been able to enjoy for many years it has been decided that from the 30th December Plymouth Citybus will increase the frequency of the Service 23 and Service 24 to every 20 minutes all Day Monday to Saturday with extra journeys in the morning. In addition to this Plymouth Citybus will also introduce a Sunday Daytime Service 24.

Service 28 29: New timetables from 30th December

Service 30: No longer run by Citybus from 30th December

Service 34. 34B. New timetable from 30th December. This is also interesting as the 34B is no longer run by Citybus but the 34 is extended into the evening and Sundays along its normal route. Citybus also comment that they are spending an extra £1000 a week trying to improve reliability of the service. I have noticed that the Enviros don't seem to stray out on Sundays, with Citybus preferring to run Darts instead.

Service 35: New timetables from 30th December

Service 38 39: No longer run by Citybus from 30th December

Service 42 42B: New timetables from 30th December with the 42B no longer run by Citybus

Service 43 43A: New timetables from 30th December

Services 46 47: Timetable change from 30th December and route change - no longer serving  Stoke Village

I am sure that as more news comes out there will be plenty more comment on these changes over the coming months. The comment by Citybus on the 23/24 timetable is interesting as it is an escalation of competition between FDC and Citybus. Marc Reddy hinted that they were taking over a few route tender wins from Citybus a while back.

Is this the start of FDC building up again after a long period of cutting back?

New Blog on the Block

© budgie/ Rich B

TV3) VDV782 Plymouth garage 26-8-80

The "TV" numbering series was applied to most (though not all) of Western National's dedicated driver training vehicles. Here we see TV3, a Bristol LD6G / ECW at the company's Plymouth depot in August 1980. In its revenue earning life this bus had carried fleet number 1948. It has received a yellow waistband as opposed to the all-over yellow usually applied to trainers brought in from other operators

Posted here because its a great photo - and to point out that he has a new blog which some of you may be interested in: Buses in the South West

Its early days - but its already got plenty there to keep me coming back!

Do drivers always know best?

Well I am back in Plymouth after a very successful course up in the big city of London. I would like to say it was a very relaxed trip with all the transport links working brilliantly. I would like too - but it wasn't all plain sailing. In fact to be fair most of it was excellent with the train journies both running exactly to time, with plenty of room and no problems whatsoever. The buses in London were brilliant with a great value day ticket for £3.50 and buses seemingly all running full all through the night. Even my few trips on the Tube were great with no problems at all. Sadly the one bit that let me down was right here in Plymouth.
I had arranged to catch the 14:03 service 86 from Derriford Hospital as it stopped at Plymouth Station. This would give me plenty of time to get some lunch etc. before getting on the train. At 14:06 service 7 came in and sat at the bus stop for a few mins. Right behind it was the 86, just a few mins late. I stood behind the 7 and waved at the driver expecting him to pull in behind the 7. Sadly he decided I didn't need to catch his bus, and just pointed at the 7 and drove straight past. It was clear that he expected me to catch that one and not bother him. I was rather angry at this to say the least and had a good moan at the other driver who at least was still sat there. She tried to excuse the driver by saying that they both went the same way anyway so it wasn't a problem, until I pointed out that she didn't go the the station - then she understood why I was angry. I did catch my train on time, but only after a 15 minute dash down from North Hill leaving me no time for a wander around the station shops. Not a good start to the trip!

I will be sending in a complaint as it did make me very angry and was totally needless as the driver of the 86 was only a few mins down and could have stopped quite easily - I would have been the only passenger getting on and I had a pass so no need for the driver to stop and count out cash and issue a ticket or anything.

Like I said, everything else that First ran for me over the days went brilliantly and I will be posting a few photos during the week when I get chance to process them.

In the meantime here is another one of aecregents excellent photos he has posted on Flickr. If this one had turned out on the 7 I probably wouldn't be complaining about having to catch it!

Off to London

This is going to be the last posting on Plymothian Transit for a little while as I am off to London for a few days on a course. Its my first trip to the big city for years and I hope to get a little bit of time to take photos while I am there. Who knows, the new buses I take photos of may well end up down here at some time in the future! It will also be my first proper train trip for over 30 years so quite an adventure for me really!

I should be back posting again on Sunday at the latest.

Ralph Davies

Thanks to Ryan Senior for alerting me to operator of the mobile MRI scanner that I have often observed at the Nuffield Hospital but have never managed to catch of camera.
He states:
Felt you may like to know that Nuffield have a MRI scanner in their car park on Mondays, coming down from Cheltenham on Sunday night. It should be set up by 7.30am and goes fom 7pm in the evening.

He provided links to photos of the truck in question here and here.

Thanks once again to Ryan for these links. I am always keen to hear from anyone who has something they feel might be of interest for this blog. Feel free to email me on

didbygraham at blueyonder.co.uk

Plymothian Bridges 023: Coypool

There are actually two bridges alongside each other here, each one carries a separate carriageway of Plymouth Road over the old branch line which now just serves the China Clay Works at Coypool. Coypool road runs alongside the track.

The top photo shows the Plymouth bound side, which is the more modern bridge of a typically bland concrete style. The level crossing still sees occasional use as far as I am aware. Quite how much longer this will be the case I am not sure (assuming it is still in use?)

Behind me, is Tavistock Junction which I hope to feature in a posting shortly.

Looking back from the other side of the road, on the Plympton bound side, we see the original bridge which is a much more traditional stone built structure although you wouldn't know it from the main road itself. There used to be a station here when this was a main branch line to Tavistock.

Incoming

© Thrash Merchant 40580 in York

Marc Reddy gives us this news on incoming buses for First Devon and Cornwall:
Just to advise everyone that 7 x B6BLE's 51 plate registration (sorry cannot remember fleet numbers, they are back in the office !) from York are arriving in FDC for the operation of the new Tavylinx branded services between Plymouth and Tavistock. The corridor will have an increased frequency from every 20 minutes to 15 every minutes and is one of the DfT's kickstart funded schemes - all kicks off on 29
October 2007

Also to note, a Volvo Citybus, (D-reg, again can't remember the fleet number) ex Weston Super Mare is near completion to be a permanent open top vehicle for next summer.

It is believed that the batch comprises 40580-6 YJ51RHX, RHY, RHZ, RJO, RJU, RJV RJX Volvo B6BLE with Wright 38 seat bodies new September 2001 which join 40570 YJ51RCZ which has been in the fleet for some time. Some of these at least will carry full TavyLinx livery (not just vinyls) with 40570 already being reported as carrying a purple based livery.

This will add even more colour to the streets of Plymouth.

Plymouth in Bristol

© Ian Kirby
Leyland Leopard PSU5/Plaxton Supreme IV
Whitson Street, Bristol
27th August 1985

The day after a Bank Holiday was always a good chance of interesting
vehicles turning up on National Express duplicates and this day was no
exception. Plymouth Citycoach 354 was a former National Travel South
West vehicle in any case but it was always interesting to see familiar
vehicles with new owners.

Its good to see a few more bus photographers making the move to sites like Flickr as it allows use of the excellent blog this feature to highlight great shots like this one by Ian Kirby. I always liked this Citycoach livery. More of this excellent photos here

Abercrombie Awards

Online voting for the Abercrombie Design Awards is now hotting up.More than 1,500 people have already voted to choose a winner of the People's Choice Award at the website

As well as the chance to vote, the site has photos and a brief description of each of the nominated schemes.

As well as voting on-line, people can also send their votes to the Civic Centre.

There is a quick photo line up of the nominees here

The one thing that has struck me is how many well designed new buildings we have going up at the moment. It does seem that Plymouth is doing well and the mediocre is not so well tolerated these days. It is a shame that a building like the Staples store was allowed to be built in such a prominent location, but these examples of poor design are no longer the norm for Plymouth these days.

Local News Catch Up

After two days with no posting due to work commitments its time for a quick run down of a few stories in the local press over the past few days:

From This is Plymouth:
On the transport front, more than £28million is to be invested in improvements including bus facilities for the mobility-impaired, better bus information systems, pedestrian safety schemes, park- and-ride, road repairs, road safety schemes and cycling facilities.

It interesting that better bus information systems is still listed - these are long awaited. We were promised the full bus stop real time display would have been up and running a year a go. The scheme to be able to send an sms text and get the next bus times from any bus stop should have been up and running last year. Lets hope that this will finally come into being at last. The current half baked system is only of use in the City Centre - there is nothing at Derriford which is the second busiest bus stop in Plymouth - after Royal Parade!

"If Plymouth wants to make an impact, one of the best things it could do is to close the airport and install a huge wind farm," he said. (Roger Creagh-Osborne, area co-ordinator for the Campaign for Better Transport)

"That would make Plymouth into a real flagship and provide a significant part of the city's energy needs. It would be a real statement that would put Plymouth at the forefront and bring people here to see what can be done."

Plymouth does have to make up its mind what to do with the airport - either expand it or close it down completely but replace it with a wind farm? It does seem strange to me that a group campaigning for better transport wants to close down the airport. A wind farm is going to do nothing to improve transport anywhere. High speed rail links are never going to happen.

Staff at Derriford Hospital will have an easier time getting to work if plans by the city council to extend the George park-and-ride car park are approved.The council wants to bring the car park up to 731 spaces, and of those 250 would be for hospital staff

Its good to see that plans to expand the site are at last being put forward. There is plenty of capacity on the excellent bus service. Lets also hope that this includes the promised plans to open up access into the site from all directions and not just City bound traffic.

Fifty Parade

Sometimes you just get too much choice when you want to catch a bus. I have realised recently that there is an extra 50 leaving Derriford Hospital at around 17:10 which is a double decker. This brings out the anorak in me so I have started to leave work a bit earlier to try and catch it as I prefer the Volvo's to the plastic Darts any day, Because this run is an extra bus it does often follow a standard low floor Dart on the 50 run anyway. This means I have to let the single deck 50 go by and then hopefully flag down the double decker - one more than one occasion the single decker has pulled up to the stop and the double decker has overtaken.

Tonight there was really heavy traffic around Derriford so I expected a bit of fun - I was at the bus stop watching three 50s all following each other coming towards me. This time there was a bit of a gap between them so i let the two Darts go by and managed to get the proper bus to stop. Driver was amused I had let the Darts go by but understood my preference for real buses. We then followed in typical leap frog fashion with all three 50's in convoy. Each having a fair load of passengers but they could all have fitted onto the one double decker.

Having arrived home in style and having a joke with the driver about the situation I was even more surprised to find another 50 right behind us. These four 50's will then have travelled all the way into town in convoy. Great fun for me - but surely there must have been a lot of passengers getting cross tonight as somewhere there must have been a 45 minute gap in the service at least!

A750VAF

25658 A750VAF Ld ONLXB/1R ON911 H45/32F 9/1983 Western National 1800

© aecregent
One of two First open top buses plying their trade betweenPaignton and Torquay. This bus was delivered new to Western National in 1983, but recently was deroofed trying to get under a low bridge, and has been converted to a permanent open top bus as seen.

This is the 750th posting on Plymothian Transit so I thought it would be good to celebrate with a few photos of A750VAF the first of Western Nationals batch of Olympians.

(The Jeff Lloyd collection - used with permission)


August 2002 (one of mine!)


© Simon Coates November 2006

Other photos:
Nigel Hall - Western National blue and cream livery - nice)

Blue and white:

Mark Amis February 2004
Mine October 2004
Bristolvr - November 2004

Barbie
Peter Wearne February 2005
Chris Martin May 2006
The Depot September 2006

A750VAF on this blog: December 2006

and finally
perhaps the most bizarre page to feature A750VAF... (you cant trust computers to select your content!)