While Plymouth Live have been reporting “Major Plymouth Bus Timetable changes” this weekend which is rather over selling things as most routes dont change at all, we do now have a few more services being run by Stagecoach this week.
Mark Bailey was out and about catching some of them on camera:
31720 on the 14
37139 on the 27
48017 on the 13
All © Mark Bailey – with thanks.
There was an open top bus popping through Derriford a couple of times today, I presume on the 1A (or the 52?)
Cracking photos with thanks to Mark for sending in.
ReplyDeleteAlways like seeing these , makes for good historical viewing in the years that follow
Totally agree!
DeleteOpen topper often pops up on 1a
DeleteHopefully Stagecoach will start investing in the Devon business again or at least get some newer vehicles transferred from other parts of the empire such as Oxford. Plymouth and the Devon fleet at wide are getting very old and tired.
ReplyDeletethey are - like in Plymouth they are getting a massive load of electric buses over the coming months.
DeleteThey are getting electric buses they don't order diesel buses any more
DeleteStagecoach have ordered electrics but plymouth wont see them from a post i saw the other day. Only electrics in plymouth will be with pcb
DeleteIts well known that the Stagecoach electrics are going to Exeter, Torbay and North Devon. As with Citybus this will see off a lot of older buses across the fleet.
DeleteMuch of the SD Plymouth fleet is buses that were brand new when they started in the city and there isn't much newer that could be moved in from the other depots, other than the 67-plate deckers in Torbay and the 68-plate E200s in Exeter, so even when the electrics arrive things aren't likely to change too much. Oxford doesn't have a lot left to release and they haven't gained from Manchester, so TPTB presumably think that 90 electrics and 20 Solos will be enough in the short term. To be honest, Stagecoach as a whole, has never recovered from Covid in terms of numbers of new vehicles and those that were ordered for Devon were diverted elsewhere due to the Zebra2 bids which were, fortunately, successful. All the big groups are massively behind in fleet renewals, some far more so than others (hello Arriva!). I would have said that Plymouth and Torquay probably have a much lower average age than the other SD depots, plus has now got some six month old Solos too.
Delete* plus *PLYMOUTH* has now got some six month old Solos. Sorry!
DeleteHi Graham,
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with this post, but this site has been unviewable these last 2 months or so on an ipad (at least the two in my household!). It only shows a little of the post then freezes. This is using safari and chrome. Has anyone else had this issue? Should I tweak something?
If I see something of interest, I use my windows laptop which works fine. Great site BTW. Paul B.
if anyone does have any suggestions thery will be welcome - not having ever used an ipad - and never will I have no idea what if anything can be done!
DeleteGoing back to the top line of this post: In Saltash it's quite a major change - they've reversed the direction of the loop, with some differences. Have they explained why, and what difference they think it makes? (Has anyone asked? Well I just have!) In any case, isn't the loop too big to be one direction only? Surely it should be both directions alternately?
ReplyDeleteStagecoach will be buying diesels for while yet. It's not possible to get charging infrastructure installed in sufficient numbers, apart from which EVs are more expensive and a lot of depots will need a lot of work to be able to accommodate them. If it was easy, there wouldn't be a need for Zebra incentives.
ReplyDeletethere was a open top running the DY1 route, could of been that one, also one was used alot on route training runs before they took on the 14 /27 at derriford, tho idk if they still are training drivers up on it
ReplyDelete