Thursday 5 July 2012

Transformed Trident

With many thanks to the First HD forum, via Luke Farley, I am able to post this photo of the first Plymouth bus to be painted into the new First Group livery (excluding the Enviro 400s for the Olympics of course), this being Dennis Trident WJ55 CSF, 32763. Unfortunately, 32763 is no longer based in Plymouth! She has just been transferred to Weymouth for the up and coming sailing events within Weymouth and Portland, and it is rumored that 32763 will be gaining branding for the 10/X10 which runs between Dorchester, and Weymouth and Portland. A shame therefore that Plymouth has lost this one, the 55 reg batch are a lot better than the W reg batch also used on X80s. It will be interesting to see if any of the other X80 Tridents are also moved to Weymouth in the coming weeks as well, as I'd doubt one decker would be satisfactory to the upcoming pressure that will be placed on Weymouth's network. This will of course mean Olympians will be playing an even more important part in the day to day running of Plymouth routes, as already, Plymouth is struggling not only for double deck capacity, but capacity in general. It has been reported that coaches have now also been escaping onto the Bude route, the 76. This of course was once quite common, particularly when the X8 variant was still in operation, but it is of course much rarer to find a coach operating in service today. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's for use on a school contract and peak extras by all accounts. New Olympic deckers will be used on the key local services in Weymouth during the Olympic period.

Anonymous said...

I believe this may also have acquired 'Wessex' fleetnames ?

Ian said...

Yes - it has Wessex fleetnames. It seems to turn up all over the network at the moment - I photographed it in Poole working from the outstation there on Friday and at Axminster on Monday!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iantherev/7628812874/in/photostream