PLYMOUTH TO PENZANCE BY BUS
6 November 2022
ABOVE: Go Cornwall 2427 (WA20 DXF) changes driver at St Columb Major, at the end of a near-two-hour trek from Bude. The vehicle opposite, Go Cornwall 159 (WJ65 HMY), seems to be in use as a crew ferry vehicle. All pictures in this article taken on Wednesday 24th August 2022.
“Are you going to Bood,” asks the man who has just climbed into the front seat opposite mine? “It’s two hours, you know – TWO HOURS”!
It’s my third morning in Cornwall, and it’s the third morning on which it’s raining as I leave my hotel. And I thought Cornwall always got the best of the British weather!
I’ve popped back into Plymouth on the number 11 from Liskeard and am now on the Royal Parade for the Go Cornwall route 12. I am indeed going to … Bude. And it will take two hours and 12 minutes in fact.
The 11 has been quieter than the one I caught the previous day, and runs in tandem from Tideford with a route 72 bus (Polperro to Plymouth) all the way through Saltash and into Plymouth – a journey of about 11.6 miles / 40 minutes. Given that route 11 is hourly and route 72 is half that, I wonder whether they need to be scheduled two minutes apart, or could offer a better service by being spaced more evenly.
The 10.00 departure on route 12 has to squeeze onto the Royal Parade stop, mounting the kerb as it does so, as there’s another bus parked there that doesn’t belong there. The 12 is an ADL Enviro400 – the double-decker bus of choice in my book.
I’m embarking on a day trip that will take me right across the county of Cornwall by bus, to Penzance – although I don’t know this when I board the 12 as I only have a definite plan as far as Truro.
We leave three minutes late with about 10 passengers on board. We retrace the steps of route 11 all the way back to the Tamar Bridge and across the border into Cornwall, passing the delightfully-named suburb of Pennycomequick en route. My companion, whom I had thought was going to stay all the way to “Bood”, leaves at Saltash.
I’m now moving into new territory entirely. The 12 is a straight run, broadly south-east to north-west, across the eastern side of Cornwall.
Just outside of Saltash, in a spot called Carkeel, the bus stops right across the junction of a side road, at a bus stop whose location certainly wouldn’t be allowed in London!
It’s a lovely drive across the country, but there isn’t a lot to write about it. The scenery is delightful – open country, farms and villages. There are two towns of size on the route – Callington and Launceston. Lots of fast stretches on open roads give me the chance to lose myself – in the reasonably comfortable knowledge that my driver is unlikely to do the same.
We’re running close to the border with Devon for a lot of this journey, and there is one section, north of Whitstone, where we briefly cross back into Devon for a few miles. Based on my experiences with the Tap-on, Tap-off system, I wonder this section would still count as a Cornwall-only ride, but I've already been into Devon today so I won't find out!
Into Bood – sorry, Bude. I had been due to visit here in 2001, when holidaying in Bideford Bay in Devon, but the great fuel crisis of that year made even a local trip untenable.
“Are you going to Bood,” asks the man who has just climbed into the front seat opposite mine? “It’s two hours, you know – TWO HOURS”!
It’s my third morning in Cornwall, and it’s the third morning on which it’s raining as I leave my hotel. And I thought Cornwall always got the best of the British weather!
I’ve popped back into Plymouth on the number 11 from Liskeard and am now on the Royal Parade for the Go Cornwall route 12. I am indeed going to … Bude. And it will take two hours and 12 minutes in fact.
The 11 has been quieter than the one I caught the previous day, and runs in tandem from Tideford with a route 72 bus (Polperro to Plymouth) all the way through Saltash and into Plymouth – a journey of about 11.6 miles / 40 minutes. Given that route 11 is hourly and route 72 is half that, I wonder whether they need to be scheduled two minutes apart, or could offer a better service by being spaced more evenly.
The 10.00 departure on route 12 has to squeeze onto the Royal Parade stop, mounting the kerb as it does so, as there’s another bus parked there that doesn’t belong there. The 12 is an ADL Enviro400 – the double-decker bus of choice in my book.
I’m embarking on a day trip that will take me right across the county of Cornwall by bus, to Penzance – although I don’t know this when I board the 12 as I only have a definite plan as far as Truro.
We leave three minutes late with about 10 passengers on board. We retrace the steps of route 11 all the way back to the Tamar Bridge and across the border into Cornwall, passing the delightfully-named suburb of Pennycomequick en route. My companion, whom I had thought was going to stay all the way to “Bood”, leaves at Saltash.
I’m now moving into new territory entirely. The 12 is a straight run, broadly south-east to north-west, across the eastern side of Cornwall.
Just outside of Saltash, in a spot called Carkeel, the bus stops right across the junction of a side road, at a bus stop whose location certainly wouldn’t be allowed in London!
It’s a lovely drive across the country, but there isn’t a lot to write about it. The scenery is delightful – open country, farms and villages. There are two towns of size on the route – Callington and Launceston. Lots of fast stretches on open roads give me the chance to lose myself – in the reasonably comfortable knowledge that my driver is unlikely to do the same.
We’re running close to the border with Devon for a lot of this journey, and there is one section, north of Whitstone, where we briefly cross back into Devon for a few miles. Based on my experiences with the Tap-on, Tap-off system, I wonder this section would still count as a Cornwall-only ride, but I've already been into Devon today so I won't find out!
Into Bood – sorry, Bude. I had been due to visit here in 2001, when holidaying in Bideford Bay in Devon, but the great fuel crisis of that year made even a local trip untenable.
The Strand, Bude – the town’s main bus stop is immediately ahead
It’s a lovely spot, and Summerleaze Beach, just a few minutes on from where buses drop on The Strand, is well worth a look.
I have only 23 minutes here, as I’m after another bus that only runs every two hours – the 95 to St Columb Major. This is a Go Cornwall Enviro200. The weather is improving now, so I can take a few more pictures (all my photos of route 12 have been a wash-out)!
Go Cornwall 2427 (WA20 DXF), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, in Bude, prior to starting the long journey to St Columb Major. Buses on this route now run on to Newquay, with a journey time of just eight minutes shy of three hours end-to-end
The 95 runs down the North Cornwall coast in a broadly south-westerly direction, taking approximately one hour and 50 minutes to traverse around 40 miles.
About 12 of us leave Bude. Some of the roads on this route are extremely tight, and we have to reverse three times at different points to allow other vehicles to pass, including once for a caravan.
The first place of any size along the route is Boscastle, described as a village, but one of the larger ones, I suspect – big enough to have the ruins of a castle (Bottreaux Castle) within its environs.
A view of Boscastle, as the bus ascends New Road. The bus has just run down the road in the centre of the picture (Penally Hill), prior to crossing the River Valency and turning right to start a steep ascent.
The bus needs to negotiate this hairpin bend in Boscastle, and has to reverse to complete the manoeuvre
But the big draw on the route is Tintagel, five miles further on from Boscastle. The village, and the nearby castle, are associated with the legends of King Arthur. Most of the passengers leave here, and there are never more than four passengers on board for the remainder of this journey.
More very tight roads greet us as we approach Camelford. We’re a few miles inland for most of the remainder of the trip.
The Old (15th Century) Bridge across the River Camel in Wadebridge; also known as Molesworth Street
Looking across from the Old Bridge in Wadebridge, towards the not-so-old bridge that carries the A39 trunk road across the river
At Wadebridge we take a double-run via the bus station (two stop flags, a shelter and a reversing bay at the old railway station). An old woman is smoking as the bus pulls in. She drops her cigarette to the ground, but then realises it isn’t her bus, so she carefully retrieves her cigarette off the (wet) ground and relights it.
As we pass back into the town, two young women, who have joined in Tintagel, alight. They could have got off before the double-run and saved themselves five minutes! I’m on my own briefly, but one more passenger joins for the last bit down to St Columb Major.
The timetable says the route finishes at the Cattle Market, but we don’t appear to be in the town centre when the bus suddenly pulls up and the driver leaves the cab as a new one arrives. There’s no announcement or ceremony that this is the end of the route, and neither I nor my fellow passenger know exactly where we are. The drivers are too busy chatting to impart any useful information.
As I leave the vehicle, there is a group of passengers waiting to board, and the display is changed to read “Bude”, so I conclude that this is the end of the journey.
A subsequent analysis of a map and Google Streetview confirms that the stop the bus has terminated at is called “Trelawny Park”. It’s a quarter of a mile or so short of the Old Cattle Market where I had expected to land.
There’s a two-minute connection to route 93 to Truro at the Cattle Market, and I am relieved to discover that the 93 also comes to Trelawney Park. The Go Cornwall website is at great pains to say that “connections are not guaranteed” – in other words, the 93 won’t wait if the 95 is late.
Not a problem today, as there’s a real-time departure board indicating that the 93 that is due about now is actually 14 minutes away. As it’s coming from Newquay, with the heavy traffic that I had found there two days previously (see my previous article), I’m not surprised if it’s late.
I pass the time by looking at the bus stop timetable to see if there’s an alternative ride on offer. The only one is a service 405, operated by Travel Cornwall, to a Caravan Park about 20 minutes away. It only runs once a day in each direction but is due before my number 93.
At roughly the appointed time, a vehicle passes by at speed. As it goes through, I notice a card in the window saying “405”. There’s no way I could have caught it even if I had wanted to, as the driver is clearly in a hurry.
But what was it? Certainly not a bus in the conventional style. My over-riding sense from that fleeting glimpse is that it was some sort of people carrier. The other thing that struck me as it passed was that it was empty! Can this ‘car’ possibly have had contactless Tap-On, Tap-Off available?
My 93 turns up 20 minutes after its scheduled time. Every other bus on the route is a double-decker, but mine is another Enviro200 single.
The normal face of the 93 – Go Cornwall Enviro400 MMC 5013 (WA70 DZN) squeezes out from Trelawney Park, St Columb Major, en route to Newquay. My bus in the other direction to Truro will be a single-decker.
We run down part of the trunk A30 road, where signs urge drivers that the local road network “may be unsuitable for through traffic”, and to “stay on A30 – ignore Sat Nav”.
Back in Truro and there’s definitely time for one more run, so I opt for the T1 service all the way to Penzance. I’m switching here to First Kernow which seems to have dominance of the buses further west, where those east of here have almost all been Go Cornwall.
We run down part of the trunk A30 road, where signs urge drivers that the local road network “may be unsuitable for through traffic”, and to “stay on A30 – ignore Sat Nav”.
Back in Truro and there’s definitely time for one more run, so I opt for the T1 service all the way to Penzance. I’m switching here to First Kernow which seems to have dominance of the buses further west, where those east of here have almost all been Go Cornwall.
A view of Truro Bus Station, taken from the café in Marks & Spencer. I have no idea what the “School Bus” to the left of the picture is doing here in the middle of the August holidays!
Whilst Go Cornwall buses have all been liveried in a Transport for Cornwall (London-style) red, First seems to have a multitude of different liveries on the go across the county.
The T1, and companion route T2 to St Ives, are marketed as The Tinner, and use ADL Enviro400 MMCs, although this bus, a Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, is in corporate First Kernow colours. It broadly follows the railway route all the way to Penzance, calling in at all of the places we hear name-checked on a Cornish train journey – Redruth, Camborne, Hayle and St Erth.
This is going to be another hour-and-three-quarter journey – assuming that is, that the bus will go!
I’ve boarded the 1615 departure from Truro Bus Station. Departure time has come and gone but we have not. The driver is worried about something and keeps leaving the cab to have a look at the engine.
A full fifteen minutes pass. The driver has allowed more people to board but still isn’t happy about something, and leaves the bus again. A female colleague of his comes out and (as far as I can tell from the top deck) gets into the cab and does something, which solves whatever the driver was worried about in 15 seconds flat!
The now very-busy bus departs to a round of applause from downstairs!
Almost immediately we have to make two reverse manoeuvres as we traverse the narrow streets of Truro City Centre. It’s slow to get out of Truro, as the evening rush hour descends. And, as the bus is 15 minutes late and runs at this time on a 20-minute headway, there are a lot of people about, and the service is filling up rapidly.
All except for two of the four front seats that is. There are two children there – under tens, I would say – with Dad and a female friend sitting behind. (I know she’s not ‘Mum’ because the man makes a phone call during the journey to talk about the painful divorce he is going through – why people insist on doing these things in public I have no idea!)
The children are unruly and Dad has no control over them. At the start of the journey, they are sitting one on each front seat. As the journey continues, they start running across the front of the bus, to and fro.
As the bus fills up, they continue to hog the four front seats and Dad does nothing to help make a couple of those seats available for other passengers. Later in the journey they start ringing the bell for no reason, but still Dad does not intervene.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to be relieved when they all get off in Camborne! A lot of others leave the service here as well, and things are much quieter – in every respect – from here onwards. As I secure the front seat, the rain comes down again…
Whilst Go Cornwall buses have all been liveried in a Transport for Cornwall (London-style) red, First seems to have a multitude of different liveries on the go across the county.
The T1, and companion route T2 to St Ives, are marketed as The Tinner, and use ADL Enviro400 MMCs, although this bus, a Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, is in corporate First Kernow colours. It broadly follows the railway route all the way to Penzance, calling in at all of the places we hear name-checked on a Cornish train journey – Redruth, Camborne, Hayle and St Erth.
This is going to be another hour-and-three-quarter journey – assuming that is, that the bus will go!
I’ve boarded the 1615 departure from Truro Bus Station. Departure time has come and gone but we have not. The driver is worried about something and keeps leaving the cab to have a look at the engine.
A full fifteen minutes pass. The driver has allowed more people to board but still isn’t happy about something, and leaves the bus again. A female colleague of his comes out and (as far as I can tell from the top deck) gets into the cab and does something, which solves whatever the driver was worried about in 15 seconds flat!
The now very-busy bus departs to a round of applause from downstairs!
Almost immediately we have to make two reverse manoeuvres as we traverse the narrow streets of Truro City Centre. It’s slow to get out of Truro, as the evening rush hour descends. And, as the bus is 15 minutes late and runs at this time on a 20-minute headway, there are a lot of people about, and the service is filling up rapidly.
All except for two of the four front seats that is. There are two children there – under tens, I would say – with Dad and a female friend sitting behind. (I know she’s not ‘Mum’ because the man makes a phone call during the journey to talk about the painful divorce he is going through – why people insist on doing these things in public I have no idea!)
The children are unruly and Dad has no control over them. At the start of the journey, they are sitting one on each front seat. As the journey continues, they start running across the front of the bus, to and fro.
As the bus fills up, they continue to hog the four front seats and Dad does nothing to help make a couple of those seats available for other passengers. Later in the journey they start ringing the bell for no reason, but still Dad does not intervene.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to be relieved when they all get off in Camborne! A lot of others leave the service here as well, and things are much quieter – in every respect – from here onwards. As I secure the front seat, the rain comes down again…
First Kernow 33454, an ADL Enviro400 MMC, in the official “Tinner” livery for routes T1 & T2, passes the Camborne Passmore Edwards Free Library / Town Council offices, on an end-of-day short working from Penzance
The T1 is an interesting ride (one I am destined to do again the following day, although I don't know that at this point), and I will give it a more detailed review in a future article.
Despite all of the extra passengers due to the late running, and half a dozen unnecessary stops (due to the little darlings’ bell-ringing), we don’t lose any more time on the trip, and arrive into Penzance at 1815 – 15 minutes later than scheduled.
Penzance Bus Station’s parking area only has three vehicles present at 6.15pm – First Kernow 37791 (LK59 CXH), which used to run around my local area for First / Metroline in West London; First Kernow 32637 (WX05 UAG); and Go Cornwall 2452 (WA70 DYX).
It takes up to two hours to get from Plymouth to Penzance by train. My trip by bus has taken something over eight hours, traversing well over one hundred miles. But what a delightful journey - even on a predominantly wet day!