Buses in Cornwall 2020
The county of Cornwall
in England’s south west has always been a magnet for both holidaymakers and bus
enthusiasts alike.
A lot has changed
from the Tilling and National Bus Company days of Western National through to Deregulation
in the mid 1980s. Today in the
twenty-first century the main bus operators are ‘Firstbus’ and ‘Go-Ahead’. Up until the early part of 2020 ‘Firstbus’
(First South West) was the major player, branding some of their buses at
Cornish depots as ‘Kernow’ in a smart two-tone green livery. There are a number of variations of the
livery layout such as two-tone blue for university routes, or a turquoise
livery for the ‘Coaster’ routes many of which are operated by open-top
double-deckers. ‘First’ has invested
heavily in new buses in recent years, including ADL Enviro 400MMC
double-deckers and the smaller version of the ADL Enviro 200MMC single-decker.
However the ‘Go-Ahead’
group began to operate into Cornwall from the Plymouth area with their ‘Go Cornwall
Bus’ brand and in March 2020 ‘Go-Ahead’ won an eight-year contract to run all
of Cornwall Council’s supported routes.
The new operation is branded ‘Transport for Cornwall’ and the livery is
all-over red. Over 100 new buses have
been ordered to operate these services, the vehicles being mostly ADL
Enviro200MMC single-deckers. However,
due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic not all the buses could be delivered in
time for the start of the contract so ‘Plymouth Citybus’ had to supply buses
from the Plymouth fleet to operate some of these new services in Cornwall. In addition a number of ‘Firstbus’s 2018 delivery
of Enviro 200MMC single-deckers have been transferred to ‘Transport for
Cornwall’ and are seen in this programme.
‘First’ have also transferred a number of buses from all over their UK
businesses to run their enhanced services in Cornwall arising from the
pandemic’s requirement for social distancing.
The filming of this programme took place in September 2020. The independent transport videos cameras
will take you on a tour of the county seeking out the buses operating on a wide
variety of routes. We begin our journey
in the east of the county at Launceston and travel south west to Land’s
End. From here we continue along the
north coast and end up at Bude. Our
locations include Launceston, Liskeard, Looe, Bodmin, St Austell, Truro,
Falmouth, Penzance, Land’s End, Camborne, Newquay and Bude. You will also see a ‘Roselyn’ East Lancs bodied
Dennis Trident in St Austell that originally ran with ‘First’ in Bristol as
their 32714 (W714 RHT), a former ‘Plymouth Citycoach’ on driver training duties
in Newquay and a ‘Stagecoach’ Enviro400 in Bude, having completed its long
journey from Exeter. The interesting
variety of ‘Firstbus’ vehicles, brand new buses on ‘Transport for Cornwall’
services and with many buses running from ‘Plymouth Citybus’ makes this DVD
programme fascinating to watch.
You may like to watch the companion DVD to this
programme entitled ‘Plymouth’s Buses 2020’ and see the Plymouth buses operating
in their home city with a lot more besides…