Salisbury Reds 2015-2020
The main bus operator
in the lovely historic cathedral city of Salisbury in the county of Wiltshire
is Go South Coast, with their buses branded as ‘Salisbury Reds’. The previous fleet name was Wilts &
Dorset, well known in the area for many years.
The original Wilts & Dorset Motor Services company started
operations in 1915 and operated until 1972 when it merged with neighbouring
Hants & Dorset. The Wilts &
Dorset name reappeared in 1983 when Hants & Dorset was split prior to
deregulation and was then bought by a management buy-out in 1987. The Go-Ahead Group bought the privatised
company in 2003. This DVD programme
follows the Salisbury Reds fleet operating in Salisbury over a five-year period
from 2015 to 2020, when the independent transport videos cameras
visited the city on nine separate occasions!
Filming locations include Blue Boar Row, Castle Street, Silver Street,
Brown Street, Milford Street, New Canal, South Western Road and Fisherton
Street to name but a few. Other
locations include Odstock Road and Downton Road just out of the city
centre. Apart from the Salisbury Reds
buses we see other operators that serve the city, namely Stagecoach with their
services to Andover and Firstbus with their services to Bath and Warminster,
latterly in the smart ‘Discover’ livery.
We also see the orange buses from the Wheelers fleet, which stopped
operating in Salisbury in 2018. Other Go
South Coast brands seen are ‘Tourist’ and ‘morebus’ who operate the X3 service
that runs to the city from Bournemouth.
Operated by Ringwood depot we see ‘morebus’ liveried ADL Enviro400
double-deckers running into the city up until November 2016, as in December
2016 they were replaced by a new fleet of ADL Enviro400MMC double-deckers
complete with tables on the upper-deck and a striking new livery. The Salisbury Reds livery was all-over dark
red until the beginning of 2019 when a new dark grey and bright red livery was
introduced. We see this livery spreading
across the fleet as our visits reach 2020.
Probably the highlight of this DVD programme is the launch on Thursday
30th January 2020, of the first electric buses for Go South
Coast. Allocated to the park-&-ride
route from Britford park-&-ride site via the city centre to the
Petersfinger park-&-ride site, we film the launch of the three BYD ADL
Enviro200EV single-deckers seating 34 with space for 44 standees. Numbered 901-903 (HF69 CHL/N/O) they are part
of a £1.2m investment programme and are branded ‘electricreds’. We join the BBC television ‘South Today’
programme presenter and cameraman for a publicity journey from Britford
park-&-ride to the city centre where all three buses were on display for
the public to inspect. We take a good
look at these buses that includes another ride to Britford when we film the
driver’s view of the route.
Our
programme concludes with further scenes of Salisbury Reds buses in action in
the city during February 2020. We hope
you enjoy your visit to this historic city and enjoy the ‘reds’.