Buses in Devon 2019
In the non-too distant
past mention buses in Devon to a bus enthusiast and thoughts of the red and
ivory buses of Devon General will come to mind.
In fact Devon General celebrated what would have been it’s centenary, if
it was still operating, in 2019. A
superb celebratory event was organised and is covered in our DVD programme
‘Devon General 100’. In 2019 the
contemporary bus scene is dominated by Stagecoach South West, with modern buses
wearing the corporate livery, but with a number of exceptions. In the Torbay area, for example we see new
ADL Enviro400MMC double-deckers painted in a smart two-tone red and white
livery laid out in corporate style for the ‘hop12’ group of routes. There is a green version of the livery – ‘hop22’,
as well as a purple one – ‘hop2’.
Open-top buses feature a two-tone yellow and white livery (‘hop122’) with
buses in the Torbay area featuring ‘cartoon’ characters - with younger
travellers encouraged to spot these buses – these are converted Dennis Tridents
with Alexander ALX400 bodies.
We
begin
this review of buses in Devon with a visit to Exeter in June
2019. We see plenty of action in locations such as the
High Street, Sidwell Street, Paris Street and also a brief visit to the
bus station,
which will soon close for redevelopment of the entire area. In
August our cameras visited Sidmouth on the
south Devon coast. This lovely Victorian
seaside resort on the day of our filming was hosting the annual Folk
Festival
and ‘Abus’ of Bristol had supplied an Optare Spectra, (AP04 BUS) for
use as a
shuttle bus from a temporary park-&-ride site to bring the crowds
into the
town. Also in August a brief visit to
Newton Abbot was taken before visiting Torquay – the ‘English
Riviera’. Here we see plenty of action at locations
such as Cary Parade, Torbay Road, the Strand and Fleet Street.
Look out for former Southport Corporation
Leyland Titan PD2 (FFY 403) built in 1947 on sightseeing duties!
From Torquay we move onto Paignton. The busy bus station is our
main location
with plenty of action to enjoy. We also
film in Victoria Street and Torbay Road.
We continue our tour with a brief visit to Teignmouth where we see a
purple liveried ‘hop2’ Scania Enviro400 double-decker on the
Esplanade. Dawlish is our next stop, home to the unique
black swans, which we see floating along the ornamental stream.
They also feature on the ‘hop222’ yellow
liveried open-top buses. A September
visit to Exeter is then recorded. We see
the action on a busy Saturday afternoon at such locations as Paris
Street, High
Street, Sidwell Street and the bus station.
Our final location for the contemporary bus scene is a short visit to
Kingsbridge where we see buses in action along Promenade and the bus
station.
The December visit by our
cameras features an event where six ECW-bodied Bristol VRT/SL3 double-deckers
participated in a ‘Red Bus VR Revival’ running day. We travel from Exeter to Barnstaple via
Winkleigh and Bideford and then continue to Ilfracombe. To complete our programme we feature some of
Malcolm King’s cine film of Paignton bus station in the National Bus Company
era of the 1970s, then by comparison, some archive video footage shot by Martin
Curtis, also of Paignton bus station, this time in the Deregulation era of the early
1990s – just see how things have changed!