Bristol's Buses in the Rain
3 July 2022
ABOVE: Bristol Airport Bus Station, where an A1 bus, for Bristol, is now loading up. Not everyone in this queue is going to fit. Another service will appear in a moment to swallow up the rest. It’s Friday 11th March 2022.
ABOVE: Welcome to Britain: The inadequate bus station at Bristol International Airport on Friday 11th March 2022. A full A1 service to Bristol is just leaving (all of the people in the queue, plus a dozen more out of shot, have been left behind by this bus). The green bus in the background is the A4 service to Bath.
It’s raining. Heavily. My bus stop doesn’t have a shelter, so I will have to wait in the open.
I’m a few miles from Bristol City Centre; a village called Downside lies to the north-west of here (surely would be an upside compared to standing in the rain), and Lulsgate Bottom is to the north-east. The nearest settlement to the south is a place called Redhill (not to be confused with the one in Surrey).
There are many other prospective passengers having to wait in the rain with me. The lucky ones have umbrellas; most also have suitcases.
The bus we all want is just leaving; it’s full. According to the timetable, the next one will be another 20 minutes. There are enough people in front of me to fill that one as well. And it’s still raining.
This little spot that I am describing is known locally as Bristol International Airport. According to Google Maps, it has “a modern, 2-floor terminal”, which must be reassuring for those standing, with their luggage, in the open bus station in the pouring rain.
To be fair, there is a small waiting room, but it’s not practical to wait there, as not standing in the queue is likely to mean not getting on the bus. This is a very poor facility for an airport bus station, and a very poor welcome for those who have flown in. Access to the terminal seems to require a compulsory flight of stairs. I can’t see a ramp. There are no staff about to help – airport or bus.
I have come in on the A4 "Air Decker" service, operated by RATP‘s Bath Bus Company. It starts in Bath but I have boarded in Keynsham. It’s a two-door vehicle, but the middle door is not in use. The £11 single fare has stung a bit.
But now I want to get back to Bristol on the A1, the "Bristol Airport Flyer" operated by First West of England. After about 10 minutes the next one arrives, and it takes so long to load that another one pulls up alongside. This one is ready to start loading straight away, and just at the right time as the first one is now full. Ours leaves three minutes behind the previous one, at 1450. As this is a scheduled departure time, I wonder if the one that had just left was 17 minutes late? That means the one that left around 1430 was possibly the 1410 departure?
There’s a huge space next to the bus parking area; big enough to build a state-of-the-art bus station I would have thought.
I can’t see much out of the windows because of the rain. The bus, an E400 MMC, has extra luggage racks installed (and they are certainly needed)! The good news is that the two departures in quick succession have cleared the queue. But I can’t help wondering if the scene I have witnessed is a common occurrence. I’m not planning to go back to find out.
Once we get going there are few delays on the run into Bristol – until we take a detour via Temple Meads station, which adds five minutes to the journey. I reach the bus station at 1530 and seek a cup of tea in the café there, which also enables me to dry off a bit!
A couple of days earlier, and it’s raining again (do I mean “again” if it’s a couple of days earlier)? Not quite so much rain as on the day of my visit to the Airport, and not enough to put a dampener (ahem!) on my day.
In Bristol City Centre just after the morning peak, the bus on route 2 towards Cribbs Causeway is extremely busy when I board at College Green, but most of the crowd leaves at Tyndall’s Park, the very next stop, and the journey is significantly quieter after that. A very courteous driver thanks me with a “Sir” as I take advantage of First’s ‘Tap and Cap’ facility, a touch-in / no ticket operation that really speeds up boarding.
My route 2 bus is branded for route 1, as are two other 2s that I see heading the other way. They do share a common section at least! (Or does that make it worse?)
ABOVE: First 33961 (SN65 ZCV), branded for route 1 but working route 2, on Wednesday 9th March 2022.
After a tea break at Cribbs, I’m catching route 1 for real back into the City Centre! Cribbs Causeway bus station is large and spacious, but publicity in stops is poor, as I have commented on previously. The only ‘Where to Board’ information is inside the Shopping Centre; not much use if you’re just interchanging, although I doubt many do that here.
My route 1 bus is open and ready five minutes before the scheduled departure time of 1127. I greet the driver as I tap in, but get no acknowledgement.
Cribbs Causeway and the surrounds are really one massive, sprawling retail area, but, apart from the main centre, everything else feels very car-centric; buses just stop on the busy roads outside. There is some housing being built; maybe that will tip the scales?
In Henbury, there are temporary traffic lights. Whilst green, a car in front holds back because there’s a Police Car coming the other way, on full ‘blues and twos’. My bus driver toots the car driver for waiting, and then proceeds to jump the light, which has gone back red, to get through.
We already know where all the branded vehicles for route 1 are (see above). Most of those on the 1 are unbranded, although one is branded for the 48 / 48a / 49.
In the City Centre, the bus stands for three minutes with the engine running. A passenger berates the driver for this. There’s a driver change at the next stop.
ABOVE: First 33964 (SN65 ZCZ), an Enviro400 MMC on route 1 on Wednesday 9th March 2022
A little after my airport excursion, I’m setting out again from Bristol Bus Station on the hourly Y4 service to Yate. There are a lot of schoolchildren about of course, and the 1605 departure leaves with about 20 passengers on board. It has finally stopped raining.
There are (at the time of my visit) half a dozen routes between Bristol and Yate, numbered Y1 to Y6. There are also two services, number T1 & T2, operating to Thornbury. All are marketed as "South Glos Lynx" (see below), and I wonder whether there is ever any confusion between T1 / Y1 and T2 / Y2. (There are U1s and U2s, and A1s, X1s and X2s as well, but at least some of those buses are in different colours.)
ABOVE: Mind your Ts and Us: 37609 (WX58 JXT), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, on route U2 in Bristol City Centre on Wednesday 9th March 2022
The majority of the buses on the T and Y routes are Scania Enviro400 City gas-powered vehicles. Mine, though, is a corporate-liveried diesel Volvo.
We just avoid the M32 motorway in favour of the roads beneath, and call in at Colston’s Independent School. There are loads more children assembled here, but they clearly don’t want the Y4. We also manage to avoid the student crowd, when I discover that Frenchay is a different place to the University of the West of England’s Frenchay campus!
Then we reach Hambrook, where our road, the Bristol Road, crosses the A4174 trunk road. The ability to drive straight across the main road has been blocked off, presumably to help traffic flow. We turn left onto the A4174 and drive half a mile down to a major roundabout (a junction with the M32 motorway); here we do a u-turn and head all the way back down the other side, just so that we can turn left. The traffic is heavy, and the whole detour has added five minutes to the journey. It’s called “progress”!
We proceed through the villages that spread across this part of the route, including Winterbourne, with its pretty duck pond, as the sun pokes out for the first time.
By the time we reach Yate Bus Station, the crowd has thinned out to just me. Nowadays, drivers record on their ticket machines how many people leave the bus at each stop. This keeps a tally of how many people are on board, to inform those “next bus” displays at bus stops that show how busy the bus is going to be.
This driver’s ticket machine currently records no passengers on board. So, he may have got his sums wrong, someone may have boarded without him registering it, or I’m invisible. I like to stay anonymous so invisibility is near-enough!
As I said earlier, the T and Y routes, respectively serving Thornbury and Yate, are marketed as “South Glos Lynx”, with an image of a big cat (presumably a Lynx). The "Glos" is obviously Gloucestershire, and one assumes that “Lynx” is a play on “Links”. It’s a good brand.
I’m heading back to Bristol on the Y3 service, which runs to Bristol “Direct”. This is the official type and has next stop announcements.
ABOVE: First 39458 (YN20 CCU), a Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBG, leaves Yate Bus Station on Friday 11th March 2022.
These confirm the limited stop nature of the route when, miles from anywhere (actually just before the A4174 junction again), the next stop is suddenly “Cabot Circus”. Sure enough, we head straight down the motorway into the city centre.
As I leave this bus, the machine says that there are “5 on board”. A quick check of those on board confirms that this driver is spot on!
As an interesting footnote, the bus ticket that I have been using all day (except for the A4) carries a less-than-useful telephone number for enquiries…
As a company that shuns printed publicity, this may be a ploy to reduce phone contact as well? I hope not!
NB: Some of the services in this area have changed since my visit in March. Check before you travel!