Cardiff's Buses 2022 - electric special
&
'bendy' bus farewell
On
Friday 14th January 2022 Cardiffbus
launched a fleet of 36 Yutong E12 38-seat single-decker electric buses. Painted in smart
route-branded liveries – red
and green for route 27, red and deep purple for routes 44/45 and orange
and
light purple for routes 49/50. Others
are painted in Cardiffbus’ latest
two-tone orange livery or in an orange and black livery and fleet
number 436 (CE71
YXV) is painted in a version of the traditional Cardiff
Corporation maroon and cream colours suitably lettered up
showing the history of Cardiff public transport in this year, 2022,
their 120th
year of serving Cardiff. Some
of the
buses had already entered service during December 2021.
We start this special DVD programme with the
arrival of this impressive fleet of electric buses as they enter the UK
from
China where they are built and assembled.
Arriving in the UK by sea they make their way to the
importer and
distributor, Pelican Bus & Coach, a subsidiary of Pelican
Engineering Co.
Ltd, at their premises in Castleford, West Yorkshire. Our northern
camera team
were out filming the buses, with the assistance of Pelican, as they are
moved
around their yard and taken out on test.
We see them gradually receiving their Cardiffbus
branding and see batches of them leaving very early in
the morning for their journey to Cardiff.
In the second part of this DVD we see the launch of these
electric buses
in the city centre. Our
cameras then go
out and about to film the electric buses that entered service at the
end of
2021 and indeed the rest of the fleet in action.
Look out for the ‘bendy’ buses, which were
only two weeks away from being withdrawn from service.
Our filming locations are Westgate Street
where the new electric buses run alongside the ‘bendy’ buses, Park
Street, Wood
Street and St Mary Street.
The
third
part of our programme was filmed on Saturday 29th
January 2022, the
final day of operation of the Cardiffbus
‘bendy’ buses. The
‘bendy’ bus fleet
entered service in 2006. Made up of nineteen Scania OmniCity CN94 UA
with
Scania AN53D bodywork, they were operated on the busy ‘Bay6’ service to
the
redeveloped Cardiff Bay area of the city, but finished their days on
the busy
17/18 routes to the suburb of Ely.
The independent
transport videos cameras were
out capturing their last day in service,
which was also augmented with double-deckers that will now take on
their
role. We take a
ride to Ely and back to
the city onboard 614 (CN06 GFK), with our cameraman in the rear portion
of the
bus to see the action and to hear the sounds of these massive buses,
which were
really quite suited for this route.
Filming takes place around the city centre capturing the
‘bendy’ buses
and of course the latest electric buses in service as well as buses
from Stagecoach and Adventure
Travel. Locations
include Westgate Street, Park Street, Scott Road, Wood Street, St Mary
Street,
Duke Street and out of the city on Newport Road, where we see one of
the new
Yutong E12 electric buses from Newport
Bus on their long established service 30 that is jointly
operated with Cardiffbus.
Our final images are of Cardiffbus 614 about to leave on the
final ‘bendy’ bus journey from
the city centre and then of it coming off the wash at the depot ending
one era,
just as a new era starts with the electric buses!