A £2.4mil investment. In Swanage. Wow. With the arrival of the first Wilts & Dorset Scania/Optare Olympuses, the conversion of an entire garage from the rather ordinary… to the very exciting is now well underway.
Buses for the W&D Swanage services are progressively entering service, not in the red & dark blue you might expect, but a modern and wholly appropriate mid-blue and light green that compliments the vehicles’ modern looking front and the routes upon which they will work: the 50 Bournemouth-Sandbanks-Swanage and 40 Poole-Wareham-Swanage.
And very striking they look, too. The name “Purbeck Breezer” takes its cue from Southern Vectis, as does the individual branding though, of course, SVOC itself has moved away from what it felt was a once fashionable route branding—with the exception of the open tops, in SVOC’s case to differentiate step entrance buses from a low floor standard brand.
Three are conventional for use on the 40 and six are convertibles. That leaves three and these are the most interesting. They are semi-open tops with their lockable doors that mean the upper open element can be made inaccessible. This is a pragmatic solution avoiding the need to remove and refit roofs while providing more capacity in winter than a midibus. Open top transport can then be provided at the shoulders of the season, as weather permits. In their winter format, are these Dorset’s first double deck midibuses?
As you can see from the pictures, the bus and Impressive livery are very much in balance.
And there’s a certain irony in the investment when you consider Transdev Yellow Buses will no longer operate open tops. But there are good reasons why one should be expanding while the other contracts. The results is a seasonal half-hourly service where once it was hourly.
Just think, it wasn’t so long ago that Hants & Dorset operated Bristol/ECW LHs with cutaway fronts (without ferry lifts) on the Sandbanks ferry. Buses seating just 43 as once the Bristols did can no longer cope on hot sunny days on the 50 (147 & later 150 back then). More on this conundrum in the recent & valuable comments to this blog post. (Thank you to all who’ve commented).
If passenger growth of the kind experienced on sunny days (without the largest weather-related spikes experienced on the Isle of Wight) can’t justify such a hearty investment here, where can it?
Friday, 5 June 2009
The Wow Factor
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6 comments:
My guess is that the semi open toppers with their upper locked doors can also be used for school movements.
Just a thought, but is there an emergency exit upstairs in the locked off arrangement?
Locked in sense that it would be alarmed and openable in an emergency
Why do they need to lock the door in the winter?
I for one are one of the plonkers that would happily sit on an open top bus in the freezing cold!! SV ran the Sandown Bay tour in the winter.
Surely as long as the door is closed it is fine?
The vehicles are pretty, but I do wonder about the advisability of the branding of the bus stops along the 40 route -- predominantly green flags atop green poles. Given the rural setting, many of them are now pretty well camouflaged!
Locals and tourists alike may well wonder who is this new blue and green operator called Purbeck Breezer.
Even 'more' and the other recent rebrandings elsewhere admit to W&D operation more publicly than just the legal lettering alone. Strategic move, high and mighty designer,or oversight ? Red Rover is quite right,the stops are virtually invisible at present,defeating their purpose surely ?
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