Recalling Badgerline Then & Now
The Badgerline name
first appeared on the side of buses in early 1985. It was as a result of the split of the large
Bristol Omnibus Company emanating from the 1980 Transport Act. Badgerline operated its buses from depots at
Bristol Marlborough Street, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Wells, Highbridge and
Chippenham. The subject of this DVD
programme is to recall those buses running in Bath and Weston-super-Mare with
the aid of some excellent archive video footage, shot in 1991, from the camera
of Bristol Omnibus / Bristol Commercial Vehicles aficionado – Martin Curtis and
a further short sequence taken in 1989 at Bath from the camera of transport
photographer Malcolm King. The independent
transport videos cameras have brought the programme up-to-date
with sequences shot in both Bath and Weston-super-Mare during 2019.
The archive footage
contains, as you would expect a myriad of famous bus types, now only to be
found in preservation. Double–deckers
are represented by Bristol VRTs, Metrobuses, Leyland Olympians and even a Bristol
K Type! Single-deckers featured include
the Bristol RE, Leyland National and Leyland Lynx, as well as an array of
minibuses, branded as ‘Mini Link’. Volvo
was just making an entry into the fleet with the Citybus double-decker and the
B10M-61 Van Hool bodied coach. As Bath
is a major tourist attraction for people from all over the world, it was and
still is a great place to see open-top buses operating the ‘Bath City Tour’
around this Roman city. Here we see
former London Transport ‘DMS’ open-toppers of Ryan’s Coaches competing
alongside Badgerline open-top Bristol VRTs and Bristol K5G, 8583 (GHT 127) with
an open-top ECW body dating from 1941.
Martin visits many locations in and around the city including the former
depot at London Road, Bath and the former bus station in the city that has now
been replaced. He also visits the busy
High Street at Keynsham, a town that is mid-way between Bristol and Bath. The itv
cameras bring the story at Bath up-to-date with two visits in 2019. Here we see the current operators in the
city. First West of England provides the
bulk of services, along with Stagecoach and independents, Faresaver and
Arleen. The Bath Bus Company operate the
‘Bath City Tour’ along with the ‘Airlinks’ service to Bristol Airport.
Martin
then visits
Weston-super-Mare where we see a Bristol RELL and open-top Leyland
Olympians in
action. Our cameras then record the
contemporary scene, again with two visits in 2019. Here we see a
return of Badgerline! First West of England rebranded their
Weston-super-Mare town services in August 2018 as ‘Badgerline’.
Using the green and yellow colours of the
original operator now arranged in the current corporate style of
Firstbus. We see Dennis Darts and Volvo B7TL – Wright
Eclipse Gemini double-deckers turned out in this exceptionally smart
livery. The country services are branded
as ‘Excel’ and wear a smart orange-based livery. ‘Somerset’s
Coaster’ is the brand name for
the open-toppers and closed top double-deckers that operate the coastal
services around Weston and to Burnham-on-Sea.
These buses are finished in a smart blue and orange colour
scheme. On our second visit we see former Bristol Omnibus
open-top Bristol FS6G L8579 (869 NHT) on a running day, and our cameras
take a
visit to the First depot at Weston-super-Mare to see some members of
the fleet
parked up. We hope that you enjoy this
journey into the past recalling the Badgerline days!