Thoughts from Southwestbus

Whilst I'm a keen non-follower of current affairs, especially when it concerns our 'Government' and their sponsored mouthpieces in the form of the mainstream media one cannot help observe the recent announcement about a new National Bus strategy. This, upon further examination is not a reintroduction of the Leyland National, just as the final example are withdrawn from our railways but a more exciting passage of a new bus strategy adopted by our 'Government' as our 'Prime Minister' (he who invented an entirely new bus for London to solve a problem that never existed which has cost £15m more than otherwise would have been spent on conventional vehicles).  As John Cash wrote in the Autumn 1996 Buses Focus article on Yelloway - the one certainty about new legislation is that it ensures the passage of the next piece of legislation.  No, there is new money available to improve bus services across the UK. £3bn in fact. On a recent holiday to Cumbria the local radi...

Over the summer, well the three weeks of excessively humid weather we call summer, we've been creating a network map and town services maps for the towns we operate buses in.  The network map and Bridgwater town map were created on the first May bank holiday (which was very sunny, liquid variety so conducive to indoor pursuits) and it's taken me two and a half months to get round to sorting out the Taunton and Yeovil maps. All have been created in MS Paint 3D, which is a sort of upgrade on the original MS Paint. I guess, with some finance and proper artistry software you can produce really accurate maps which set new standards of cartography.  Whereas, we aim for a new low each time.   Over the years Southwestbus has been operating, we've had a number of hand drawn maps which don't really pass muster as a professional looking piece of publicity. The network has expanded and contracted over the years, but we're now running the final form of the network and we don...

As we've bumped along during the summer, we are almost at September and with it the final piece of the jigsaw with our mainline service, the 15 which runs between Wellington, Taunton, Bridgwater and Burnham on Sea.  In some respects the route mirrors the original WebberBus commercial bus service launched in 2007 that saw them diversify into providing local bus services. Originally that service ran between Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton and Bridgwater before extensions to the service saw it go to Highbridge and Burnham on Sea, and later still, Wellington and Rockwell Green.  The county's main hospital wasn't linked by a through bus, you had to get the 21 and change buses in the Town Centre, so the route offered a link that didn't exist. This arrival managed to wind up First to the point they retaliated, though their retaliation merely served to encourage WebberBus to expand onto another service, the 28 which they operated as an 18 in 2009. Their route was targeted at lo...

Here's something I've also sent in for the MBF Journal, which is in the queue waiting for the opportune moment to print. The editing comes courtesy of Yorkshire Area Secretary John May, but the words and photos are my own.  Hopefully it lifts the lid on why there's so many Routemasters in the fleet.  Click on the photos for a larger view.  "My interest in Routemaster buses goes back 15 years when I conducted some of them during a summer job in Cornwall. In my first job after graduating from University I conducted some of the fleet of Classic Bus North West on weekend hire work before I relocated to the South East when I joined Stagecoach as a bus scheduler.  Up until I conducted RMs I never really 'got' the fascination the enthusiast world has with them. Now, there are around 30 Routemaster buses in my Southwest Buses model fleet.  They are generally ones that have a personal connection for me and use identities of buses I've conducted.  Most of them have...