Saturday 7 November 2009

Western Greyhound's new service


Western Greyhound recently took over the Bude to Callington section of FDC's 76 from Plymouth. But now WGL has taken full control of the route, and I must say its a very impressive start.

I was presuming to see a usual Vario on the service, though in fact it was being operated by one of the brand new '59' registered Optare Solos. Apologies for the bad photography, I was playing about with the camera too much, and the torrential rain wasn't helping! Shutter speeds can be such a nightmare in the rain!

Western Greyhound have also introduced serveral new routes down in Cornwall and are making a big impact on the county's bus travel. Great to see!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry to be so negative, but your post is very misleading, wg have not taken full controll of the route as you say, you should have said they are competing against first on the callington to plymouth corridor, if you can call 6 journeys competing?
i am a first driver and have been suprised by wg dirty tricks (normally a citybus trick) several passengers have told me they were told first were pulling out by wg drivers, this is not playing fair, and your post reflects this

Laurence Mayhew said...

The post was not focusing on the Plymouth to Callington corridoor but on the whole Plymouth to Bude section - which WG has now taken control of. Apologies if it sounded as though they had taken control or this section.
Indeed FDC are providing a more frequent service as far as Callington on the 'commercial' side of the route, but really this only provides a service for 1/3 of the route and therefore many would use WG simply because of the area covered and therefore would continue with them for the full journey.
Indeed I had seen that FDC has responded to the cheaper fares offered by WG by introducing some special offers and I'm sure many people on the Callington section will still prefer to use FDC through trust gained over the years of running the full 76.
As too dirty tricks is this neccisarily the companys fault? True this may have a harmful effect on the passengers carried by FDC though if FDC continue to run a good reliable service then I'm sure many will stick with FDC for this section of the journey.

Anonymous said...

Impressive start? It's a Solo. Fine for many bus journies but Plymouth to Bude - I don't think so. Obviously WG are using new buses but since you are focusing on the Plymouth to Bude section I fail to see that the use of a Solo is in any way impressive.

Laurence Mayhew said...

From a standard passenger, operator, and council perspective they're perfect. They're brand new, very clean and tidy, modern looking, guarantees low floor on the route and provide the correct capacity for the journey. Seems fair to me?

Anonymous said...

I don't want to labour the point but I don't think anyone would have described it as impressive if FDC had stuck some equally modern looking 'V' plate Solos on the service.
I think i'm a fairly standard passenger and I am quite happy with my daily 30 min each way commute on a 58 plate Solo, but 2 hours? OK, but not impressive.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to labour the point but I don't think anyone would have described it as impressive if FDC had stuck some equally modern looking 'V' plate Solos on the service.
I think i'm a fairly standard passenger and I am quite happy with my daily 30 min each way commute on a 58 plate Solo, but 2 hours? OK, but not impressive.