Liskeard to Newquay via Padstow
3 September 2022
ABOVE: Go Cornwall 2407 (WA20 DWE), an ADL Enviro200, stands in Barras Street in Liskeard.
All photos in this article were taken on Monday 22 August 2022.
All photos in this article were taken on Monday 22 August 2022.
Truth be told, I’m not feeing very well as I step onto Liskeard’s Barras Street for the first time. Something I have eaten is disagreeing with me and I don’t know whether I am going to be able to cover my full planned itinerary today.
And it’s raining. That annoying drizzle that varies from virtually nothing right through to a full-scale downpour – just heavy enough to remind me that one of the spokes of my umbrella has given up the ghost.
There’s a bus parked up outside the Post Office. It’s a reassuring sight in a way, as nothing brightens up a town centre street more than proof that there is a bus service (even if this one is “not in service”).
There’s an indicator board showing next scheduled departures from this stop. This includes an 0830 departure on route 11 to Callywith College. I doubt this is a genuine departure, as the printed timetable in the stop shows that it runs on “College Days only”, and it’s mid-August.
And it’s raining. That annoying drizzle that varies from virtually nothing right through to a full-scale downpour – just heavy enough to remind me that one of the spokes of my umbrella has given up the ghost.
There’s a bus parked up outside the Post Office. It’s a reassuring sight in a way, as nothing brightens up a town centre street more than proof that there is a bus service (even if this one is “not in service”).
There’s an indicator board showing next scheduled departures from this stop. This includes an 0830 departure on route 11 to Callywith College. I doubt this is a genuine departure, as the printed timetable in the stop shows that it runs on “College Days only”, and it’s mid-August.
ABOVE: Next bus departure display at the Post Office stop in Barras Street, Liskeard. According to printed timetables, the 0830 service on route 11 to Callywith College only runs on College Days, whilst the following departure to Bodmin Parkway only runs on non-College Days (this was the latter).
It doesn’t show. Just as well, as the bus I am after only runs on non-College days! However, while I’m waiting, two buses turn up in the other direction.
ABOVE: Two more Go Cornwall E200 MMCs: 2441 (WA70 DYH) is working route 11 to Plymouth whilst 2449 (WA70 DYU) follows behind on route 73 from Polperro. This picture is taken from just across the road from the ones above, in Barras Street, Liskeard.
The bus shelter outside the Post Office also has a reminder of the olden days, displaying the phone number for Western Greyhound, the bus company that reigned supreme here until its collapse in 2015.
My bus, on route 10 to Bodmin Parkway station (non-College Days only), arrives in good time prior to its scheduled 0840 departure. It’s a 20-reg E200 MMC of Go Cornwall, in Transport for Cornwall’s red livery (which feels very similar to that of Transport for London, apart from the dot matrix displays).
The driver welcomes me on board with a friendly smile, and she seems quite amused that I am using the ‘Tap and Cap’ facility. As I noted in my previous article, take-up of that scheme – only in place for a month at the time of my visit – has been slow.
There are half a dozen or so of us for this short journey, although we lose most at Trago Mills, an out-of-town shopping centre on the outskirts of Bodmin. I presume they are employees as it’s too early for customers.
Bodmin Parkway station only has a tenuous connection to the town of Bodmin, which is nearly four miles away. Parkway station is a tricky place for a bus, with a low bridge at the entrance restricting routes to single-deck. Buses have to drive right down the full length of the car park, then use a turning circle to perform a three-point turn, before driving back down to the station bus stop. It’s a palaver!
ABOVE: Bodmin Parkway station car park (the station itself is to the right of this picture). In the distance you can just pick out Go Cornwall 2420 (WA20 DWX), which has run all the way down from where I’m standing to where it is now in order to turn around. It will now come back to me (I’m at the bus stop) to take up service on route 10 to Padstow.
Manoeuvres completed, we’re in on time at 0903, where I am not able to successfully touch out on the exit reader. The driver suggests that I try the main ticket machine again, but that doesn’t work either. We agree that, as it’s the end of the route, it probably doesn’t matter anyway (indeed, my cap for that day will be the advertised £5).
I am seeking the connecting service 10 to Padstow, due at 0910. This bus, another E200 MMC, arrives a couple of minutes before and has to undertake the same reversing manoeuvre. The driver has to wait for the number 11 to pull off the stand before he can pull in. So great connections from the number 11 to the number 10, but not so good in the other direction.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the two routes are being merged, from 5th September, into one through service, from Plymouth to Padstow. It will be a long haul from end-to-end (two hours and 38 minutes, although many journeys will not run all the way through), but it feels like a good move.
Bodmin Parkway doesn’t really achieve anything as a traffic objective other than the rail link. Curiously, the Sunday service doesn’t run between Liskeard and Bodmin Parkway, so the revised route 11 will operate as two completely-isolated services (Plymouth to Liskeard and Bodmin Parkway to Padstow).
I have traversed the Bodmin to Wadebridge route before, although I knew it as the Western Greyhound route 555, which I used on a previous visit to Port Isaac and Padstow. My recollection was of very small, narrow midibuses just about squeezing though the tight roads, and I wonder how these much larger buses (10.8m long and full width) will manage.
We take a double-run via the Bodmin Business Park – which is a collection of industrial units on the outskirts of town. It happens to house one of Go Cornwall’s depots though, and the double-run has been useful to enable a driver change if nothing else!
The rest of the journey is uneventful. There’s another double-run to serve Wadebridge Bus Station, which is attached to a building that was clearly once the railway station.
ABOVE: Wadebridge’s former railway station building
Wadebridge itself is a very pretty small town that sits alongside the river Camel, and the slight traffic queue on the bridge known as Molesworth Street might give regulars the hump (sorry!).
I stopped in Wadebridge previously, as this was where the 594 Port Isaac bus used to start from (and it still does – it’s now the number 96).
It isn’t a long haul on from Wadebridge to Padstow, but we are still picking up customers. The drizzle is getting more persistent. I can’t recall whether I rode this bit on my earlier visit, but I know we visited Padstow on the same day as Port Isaac, and I’m pretty sure we had to go back to Wadebridge first.
The bus stop at Padstow, for the uninitiated, appears to be half-way up a hill, on the edge of the town. But it’s as far as buses in this area can realistically get. And Padstow does appear to classified as a town nowadays – it used to be a village.
Village or town, it’s a delightful spot. Even on a wet Monday morning there are loads of people wandering around its narrow streets, and the car park that sits adjacent to the bus stop is already filling up to capacity before 11am.
ABOVE: Padstow – still pretty on a wet Monday morning!
Again, buses have to work around the cars – in this case running all the way around the car park to turn around and access the bus stop.
ABOVE: Go Cornwall 2214 (WA20 DVT), a slightly-shorter E200 than the ones above, at 9.7m, enters the Padstow Car Park / turning point at the end of another run from Bodmin Parkway.
There’s a local town service, 895, that doubles up as a Park & Ride from somewhere out-of-town. It only takes 10 minutes to get round and back again, and it runs every 15 minutes. I’m surprised to see a double-decker but, even though there are only about 15 people on each of the two runs I witness, they are making good use of the top deck.
I’ve been on a few single-decker Park & Ride services in the past that have demonstrated why a double-decker on such a service is always a good idea!
ABOVE: First Kernow 33311 (WK18 CGO) on local route 895, approaching the Padstow Bus Stop
My plan is to take the 1130 service 56 to Newquay, but, just as the departure time approaches, and after 20 minutes patiently waiting at the stop, I suddenly feel the need to take an enforced diversion to a (thankfully nearby) municipal facility.
ABOVE: Go Cornwall 463 (LX06 EZP), an early Enviro400, new to Go-Ahead London Central as its fleet number E20, at Padstow Bus Stop, prior to working a journey on route 56 to Newquay. Behind it is Go Cornwall 2420 (WA20 DWX), which has just brought me from Bodmin. The Plymouth Citybus branding shows the close links between these two Go-Ahead companies.
So instead, I’m catching the 1200 departure on the “Atlantic Coaster” service provided by First Kernow, which covers broadly the same route as the 56.
It’s a partially open-top bus (the first five rows are covered), but it’s not exactly the day for an open-top bus ride!
ABOVE: Why I didn’t sit in the open section on First Kernow 37798 (LK59 FCO) is probably self-evident from this photograph! Behind us, First Kernow 33311 (WK18 CGO) has just come round again on local route 895.
Fortunately, sitting in the front seat, there is full protection from the elements, apart from a pool of water at my feet, which swishes back and forth as the bus moves.
This is a Volvo Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, new to First London. Whether it became an open-topper deliberately or by accident is not on record – probably a deliberate conversion as most accidental de-roofings happen at the front end, which is intact on this vehicle (drivers rarely reverse under low bridges in my experience).
It’s a lovely drive, although a woman in the other front seat, part of a large family group, feels obliged to move back as she “doesn’t feel comfortable” on account of all of the narrow roads and the cars that keep suddenly appearing around the tight corners.
Whilst I am glad of the cover at the front, some passengers do venture into the open section at the back. And there’s a fair bit of shuffling about as people move back-and-forth after reassessing the viability of sitting in the open section on what is basically a wet day.
ABOVE: First Kernow 33427 (LK58 KHL) is a former Metroline Enviro400, and is working on the Atlantic Coaster, somewhere near Porth.
Around 20 minutes in, at Porthcothan Bay, the driver evidently hits a snag of some sort. The engine is switched off and on several times, and at one point he is out on the pavement talking on his phone (which means that he’s getting a better signal than I am)! After about seven minutes, though, we’re suddenly on our way again.
ABOVE: Mawgan Porth: the rain is generating mist and reducing visibility.
We’re picking people up all along the way, and we have a decent load by the time we reach the outskirts of Newquay and hit a solid traffic jam.
ABOVE: Go Cornwall 5008 (WA70 DZH) is heading out of Newquay on route 93 to Truro.
It takes a fair bit of time to work across the town to the bus station. It’s a slightly bizarre approach as we pass through the town and then seem to be leaving it again, before turning right twice and heading back loosely the way we have just come. Our arrival, at 1330 instead of 1310, is just in time for the bus to pick up its next trip back at 1335.
ABOVE: Arrival at Newquay Bus Station
And this is where I decide to call it a day as far as the buses are concerned. I wouldn’t normally stop so early, but I’m feeling fragile and instead take a slow wander across town to the railway station (very slow – the train isn’t until 1455). Back to Liskeard for an early night, and ready to emerge all the stronger for the next day’s travels…