Wilts & Dorset on the South Coast
This is the second in
our series of the buses featuring the Go
South Coast Company of ‘Wilts & Dorset’, but will be the last using
that name. Wilts & Dorset has rebranded their bus fleets - those in the
Salisbury area being ‘Salisbury Reds’, and the rest of the fleet are now
branded as ‘more’. The ‘more’ brand was introduced back in 2004
for the high profile routes running between the two main towns in the operating
area of Poole and Bournemouth. The name
and a revised livery is now being introduced across the whole fleet,
eliminating the ‘Wilts & Dorset’ name, which was first used one hundred
years ago in 1915.
The filming on this
video programm e began in 2012 when the Wilts
& Dorset name was still a major feature on the buses and continued
through to 2013 and 2014, recording the transformation of the vehicles over
this time span. We have concentrated on
the main centres of operation along the south coast that the erstwhile Wilts & Dorset fleet has been a
feature of over the years. At some
locations we have used two cameras to give you the best view of the buses in
service.
We
start in 2012 at the
Sandbanks Ferry and see Scania OmniCitys with their Optare Visionaire
bodies
boarding and leaving the famous chain ferry as they operate between
Bournemouth
and Swanage in their smart dedicated livery of blue and lime
green. We then record the buses running around
Swanage, and pay a brief visit to the steam railway in the town.
Poole is our next location where we see the
very busy bus station in April 2012 and May 2013. Our footage includes
Bournemouth Yellow Buses, First buses and Go South Coast subsidiary
Damory
running alongside brand new Wright single deckers and middle aged
Optare
Spectra doubles deckers, to name but a few!
We then head east to Bournemouth for two visits, one in May 2013, the
other in September 2013. On the latter
we see newly into service Enviro 400 double deckers, branded for the X3
service
between Bournemouth and Salisbury. These
have just displaced the Scania OmniCity N230 UD double deckers of which
we see
some now on local services still branded as X3, and one in the
Bournemouth
University livery of pink and white. Our
next location is the market town of Ringwood, where there is a good
deal of interest,
including a number of National Express arrivals and departures.
This filming was done in April 2012. Our most eastern venue on
this programme is
Lymington. This visit was made in
February 2014, and we see some of the arrivals and departures in the
small bus station,
which is situated in the High Street.
To
conclude this visit to the south coast we move inland to Blandford in
April
2012, another market town that was served by Wilts & Dorset and
Damory
at the time of filming. We record the
busy afternoon scene, which includes a DAF SB220 with Ikarus CitiBus
bodywork
operated by Damory, and previously operated
by Wall’s of Manchester. Our programme concludes with some
archive
video from the cameras of Malcolm King filmed in 1989 and of Joe Ward
filmed in
1990 and 1992. These feature buses running in both NBC poppy red and
white and
the first deregulated livery of red, white and black. Enjoy your
visit to the south coast!