Western Maid breaks

The Normag cruises boat the Western Maid which operates the route to Cawsand suffered engine fail in Cawsand Bay yesterday. She set out as normal heading for Plymouth. The engine is quite loud so you can hear it very clearly when all of a sudden she went silent. We thought that it was just letting something passed or in the words of local women Anette Blackwell "Maybe there are dolphins" but no. She started drifting and was doing this for around half an hour to forty minutes until she was fixed and started again by the crew.

This is the third time in a week this has happened to the ferries. Could this be SABOTAGE?

Tamar Belle breaks

The newest but not newest boat in Tamar Crusings Tamar Belle suffered a small breakdown on Wednesday as a head gasket blew. She was out of action for the rest of that day but was back the next day as good as ever. She will soon be taking over the Northern Belle's dutyies on the Cremyll ferry sometime in September.

Another non-Torpoint bus in Torpoint

Found a ticket on the floor of Mercedes Vario 50301 which was a journey from Torpoint to Tregon Hawke. It was printed on Monday and had the fleet number as Mercedes Vario 52540. So she had been brought over here to run a non-Plymouth bus which is rosstered as a Dennis Trident even though I know for a fact that two of the Leyland Olympains were sitting in the depot that day. All Torpoint ever seems to get is non-Torpoint buses.

Ticket tantrum

Over the pasted couple of weeks I have obvisously been on the buses quite a bit. Mainly the Dennis Tridents as they are nearly always used on the 81C now. But the tickets on the buses have been coming out with the wrong fleet numbers. The one below at the bottom says that it was bought on bus 34817 one of Torpoint's Leyland Olympians when it was acctually bought on Dennis Trident 32757. And earlier in the week I was on 32756 and came out with bus number 34813 on it. What is it all about?

Happenings on the ferries

Forgot to mension that yesterday was my 100th post. Doesn't seem like it. Its all gone very quickly.

As I said yesterday Plymouth Sound is currently out of action. I have been down to Cremyll today to see what was happening with Plymouth Sound. All Riece told me was she wasn't running. Luckily Luke Farley was on hand to tell me that she is currently sitting in Mashfords boatyard in Cremyll fitting the new part probebly the pipe that was ordered last night. I forgot this but Luke pointed out that they really need her running by this evening as they have some 120 odd passengers booked on the boat for Plymouth's Annual firework champions happening tonight and tommorow and they wouldn't be able to get a replacement boat as nearly every boat on the Tamar is giving opperating the show.

The Cawsand ferry Western Maid has been out of action today because of the bad weather so are having to go all the way round via the Torpoint ferry or via the Cremyll ferry.

And thee was a boat catamaran I spotted in Cremyll today being passed by the 'Spirit of Plymouth' and I have no idea what it was. If anyone knows please leave a comment. Thanks.

Plymouth Sound going down

Tamar Cruising flagship vessel Plymouth Sound today was involved in what could have been a fatal accident. She was opperating the Dockyard and Warship cruise when there was a shout to the crew that there was water leaking into the boat at the stern next to the two scania engines. The crew most likely Max got around 100 passengers on the top deck within a minuite. The helmsman Adrian was still driving along as normal and had to be told by the crew that water was coming in. Few passengers were rescued by the coastguard as luckily this happened near Cremyll so Tamar Belle was sent out to get them and bring them into Cremyll and back to the Mayflower steps. It is thought that the cooling pipe which sucks in the water to col the engine was only pumping in and not out leading to the filing up. I will bring you news as I get it but it might be a quick fix it might not. Luckily she did not sink. This could lead to the Vessel 'Silver Crest' being hired in again to cover for Plymouth Sound or Tamar Belle. As Slver Crest was hired in one afternoon about a month ago as Northern Belle had a probeblem with her engine. Plymouth Sound survived but will it happen again. An investigation is taking place tonight.

Seabus in her new home

Photo used with kind permission of Luke Farley. Copyright Luke Farley.

The Seabus built recently at Voyager boat builders in Cornwall famous for building local cruising vessel Plymouth Sound has now been operating the route run by Strathclyde Passenger Transport from Gourock to Kilcreggan for five months now. Seabus replaced the 71 year old ferry Kenilworth 10 years younger than Northern Belle. Just a interesting part of Kenilworth's history was a radio message sent to Kenilworth at 9:40am 23rd October 2006. The message was as follows:

"Unidentified vessel approaching on my Starboard side please identify yourself. If you fail to do so we will open fire on you with live ammunition."

This came from a US navy warship taking part in training exercise 'Neptune Warrior'.

I e-mailed a William Murry a regular traveler and enthusiast where Seabus is now used asking him about how Seabus was getting on and what he thought of her. He says that she is proving to be very popular as the route transports many people who live on the north side of the river but work on the south. One of the major pluses of her is that she has a very spacious enclosed cabin which is heated and has double glazing with central heating so is welcoming when it gets cold especially as it is Scotland. But most do not like the fact that there is no open deck space and you have to be inside which is a disappointment after Kenilworth as she had lots of deck space. Probably more than Northern Belle. But he says that we must move with the times and that Seabus is a very capable boat fit for her purpose and is now an established cruiser in the area.

Luckily Kenilworth was not put onto the Scrapheap and has been saved. She now operated special school services which transport them for educational cruises in the upper part of the river. William says "Nice to think that we'll still see her around in her retirement".

If you would like to see footage of Seabus and Kenilworth in action please take a look at William's excellent films of both of them on youtube the links are below:

Kenilworth: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GGc8fEdV4QI&mode=related&search

Seabus: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bVJI6se6BiY

Opentop X80!

The route run by First X80 now competing with Stagecoach's X45 has been quite evenly matched, Well First has steped up a gear or down a gear on the hills by introdusing open top Leyland Olympians such as 34750 (follow link for picture) has been spotted running X80 as she used to back in the good old days . They are running between Totnes and Torquey as that is the most scenic part of the route. Stagecoach already opperate an open top service along Torquey so likely won't do the same. But it was reported that the service was running with little or no passeners. I wouldn't mind having a ride on an open top Olympian. Though I hope they bring one of the VRs up to run the service that would be heaven.

http://busesindevon1.fotopic.net/p32448329.html

A day Loddiswell

Today as I am a member of the WHOTT I went up to one of there stores at Loddiswell to help out with Roger. We were working on accident damage VR VDV 137S (pictured). First we cleaned the whole bus including vacuuming using baby wipes on the seats and the roofs and moping. Then we painted a couple of the wheel rims to make them look a bit more presentable. Then Roger fitted the new aluminium where she had been dented on the wall entering the farm at which she is kept. And re-fibreglassed the front side panel at the front. And I had a look round all the buses. What I didn't know was they own two of the retired First Bristol VRs the one First still owns though they only store it there and 847. Couldn't name them all but I would say there were around 30 of them. The more interesting ones were an old Bristol Loddekka (pictured) which was completely stripped out. She hadn't run for 22 years but a couple of months ago they put a bit of diesel in her and charged the battery and she started first time with no smoke and no clacking. And there was a Bristol K waiting to be restored.

Nearly forgot to mension they also store the first First Dennis Dart. And the first dart ever put into preservation.

Long delays on the 81C

Today is the day of Mount Edgecumbe car rally and there have been a lot of people attending as there is also a very large jumble sale. The main car park was apsolutely full up and the field opposite was too expensive for most peoples liking so they parked right across the road. And in some places further up parked on each side making it litirally impossible for the buses to get through. So there have been major delays of 1/2 an hour even with the 15 minuite turn around time. Nobody seems to have had the sense to come on the bus or get the Cremyll ferry right next to it.

The picture I added is of the day that Rame gig club held their regatta and people flocked to the village holding up the buses.

Ship Simulator 2008

I go and say I am going to start blogging more often and then I go and not post for 4 days. Well there isn't loads of nexs at the moment.

So today I am going to talk about Ship Simulator 2008. The game is a simulation of many different boats including passenger ferrys, tugs, water taxis and even container ships with controlable cranes. Then there are sevaral differnt places to sail such as ports (New York) and seas (English Channel). Then you can do differnet mission such as sail a P&O ferry from Portsmouth to Rotterdam or Tow a ship into dock with tug. Or you start from where ever you want and then just cruise around. There will also soon be add-ons for new boats and locations just like in Train Simulator.

A very good game. I would definately recommed it.

It is avalibe for around £25.

http://www.shipsim.com/

Enjoy!

The routes of Penzance

Around Penzance they have been replacing the older Dennis Darts and Leyland Oympians and the departed Bristol VRs with mostly '53'reg Dennis Darts with various route branding for different places. As is shown with the picture above of route branding for routes 14 and 18 Penzance to St Ives. This is all done as part of the rural bus scheme. Its all very good but I would much prefer as a bus spotter to have a big long rural route linking everything up and with the old buses like the VRs. I know its not practical but they shoild do it just for us.

30065 where she is now

Spotted in St Ives today on route 314 ex-Torpoint Leyland Olympian 30065 (Sorry I didn't get a picture) was spotted going to Camborne. She was transfered to Plymouth early this month and has now been trasfered to a depot somewhere near the bottom of Cornwall. She will probebley be running routes like the 301, 314, and 2 which are often covered by Leyland Olympians. So they are not done with her yet. I think the Olympians will last quite a lot longer down there.

I am back!

Hello.

I am back again. This time I will be doing news from deepest Cornwall in short blogs instead of 1 big blog and I will now try to be a bit more constant with my bloging as I haven't been at the moment.

So here we go.

Optare Solo for Torpoint

Just to let you kow I am on Holiday again until Friday so I will not be posting. I will bring some news back from there.

And to let you know another Optare Solo was seen at Torpoint on Friday and Thursday. The rumour is Torpoint might lose its Varios and be replaced with Solos. We will have to wait and see. I would probebly prefer the Varios

Plymouth Hoe bus rally

Today was the 22nd annual Plymouth Hoe bus rally which saw around 40 buses attending with about 8 of them doing trips around Plymouth but more frequently this year in place of the runing day on Saturday which didn't go ahead. There were also Limos on display, fire engines and a few stalls. And to finish it all of the weather was lovely. And I was wrong about the Torpoint VRs not being there. Colin Billington speciallly MOTed LFJ 847W just for the rally this week. Well done Colin it was lovely to see her again.

34002 returns again

Hello.

34002 the Torpoint Volvo Olympian has returned from her short visit to Callington. She has now been fitted with an LCD blind. She has been working the Millbrook school run in place of a Trident because of a Trident shortage at the moment. And has been used on 81C.

Plymouth Hoe bus rally

On Sunday the 2007 Plymouth Hoe bus rally will he held on Plymouth Hoe. This will be held from 10am until 4.30pm with a few free rides thought THE SATURDAY RUNNING DAY IS NOT HAPPENING. There will be stalls which will sell model buses, programs, DVDs and other memorabilia. There will be around 30 buses a bit down from usual. There won't really be many real local buses as OTA 290G won't be there, LFJ 844W is waiting for painting and is in so fit state to be on dosplay, and LFJ 847W has no licence at the moment. I am sure it will be a good day just without the real highlights that I love about the show.

No OTA 290G

Preserved series 1 Bristol VR 1056 (OTA 290G) will likely not be running this weekend at the Plymouth Hoe bus rally because of recent problems involving her gearbox. The gearboxes for series 1 VRs are in very short supply and it will be very difficult to source one. And the gearboxes have little or no resemblance to those in previous models. The gearbox has probably been warn out simply because the bus has been well over used for such an old and fragile machine. The top windows also are having to be replaced because they have been smashed. Its a shame because they were the bus’s originals as well and have now had to be replaced with series 2 windows.

No stagecoach buses at Plymouth Hoe

Stagecoach Devon have been a regular provider of a wide range of buses at the Plymouth Hoe bus rally each year. But they will not being showing anything this year because of new tachograph rules brought in recently now allowing the buses to travel from there home in Torquay to Plymouth because they are limited to 35 miles away from the depot. This will mean that the rally will have around 5 less vehicles than usual. Stagecoach says they have done this because of law and not because of heated competition with First Devon and Cornwall