100 BRITISH BUS ROUTES: ROUTE 19
Cribbs Causeway to Bath
27 November 2022
ABOVE: First West of England (or is it First Bristol, Bath & The West) 36232 (BD12 TCV), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, on route 19 at the Portland Street stop in Sandwell. All pictures in this article taken on Friday 12th August 2022, unless otherwise stated.
Operator: First West of England
Runs: Daily
Weekday frequency: Roughly hourly, with a limited evening service on Mondays to Saturdays
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: five buses
Off-peak journey time: 105-115 minutes
Estimated route length: 18 miles
Runs: Daily
Weekday frequency: Roughly hourly, with a limited evening service on Mondays to Saturdays
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: five buses
Off-peak journey time: 105-115 minutes
Estimated route length: 18 miles
NOTE: As of January 2023, route 19 runs only between Bristol Parkway and Bath, and no longer serves Cribbs Causeway.
I’m pondering whether to write an article one day about rides that I have not enjoyed. There have been a few. At one stage I wondered whether route 19, from Cribbs Causeway to Bath, was going to be included.
I boarded an evening departure at Cribbs one weekday evening a few years ago, where the bus had come in just after the time it was due to leave. It should have got me into Bath with a nice 45-minute interval before the train home – plenty of time for a light meal, after which I would have time to stroll over to Bath Spa station, get my ticket and clamber up to the platform.
In actual fact, having left Cribbs five minutes late, the driver decided to crawl all the way. The journey dragged on and on and, to add insult to injury, on the outskirts of Bath City Centre, he pulled up and waited at a stop for five minutes – presumably to inflate his overtime payment a bit more. The bus arrived in Bath half an hour late, and my light meal and leisurely stroll to Bath Spa became a frantic visit to the Sainsbury’s opposite the Bus Station for a sandwich to eat on the train!
There had even been an earlier trip on the route, in the other direction, and that was disappointing too. A single-decker with inadequate legroom, and another long drag.
So it’s fair to say that my expectations are low as I arrive by train from Cardiff into Bristol Parkway on a scorching-hot Friday morning. (I’m not one for the easy option – I’m going home so I could have got the train all the way to Paddington)!
On this occasion I have bypassed the section from Cribbs Causeway, which starts with a contraflow bus lane and then passes the entrance to some of the 7000 car parking spaces that exist at this shopping complex (all free – how can we get people to use the bus)?
I boarded an evening departure at Cribbs one weekday evening a few years ago, where the bus had come in just after the time it was due to leave. It should have got me into Bath with a nice 45-minute interval before the train home – plenty of time for a light meal, after which I would have time to stroll over to Bath Spa station, get my ticket and clamber up to the platform.
In actual fact, having left Cribbs five minutes late, the driver decided to crawl all the way. The journey dragged on and on and, to add insult to injury, on the outskirts of Bath City Centre, he pulled up and waited at a stop for five minutes – presumably to inflate his overtime payment a bit more. The bus arrived in Bath half an hour late, and my light meal and leisurely stroll to Bath Spa became a frantic visit to the Sainsbury’s opposite the Bus Station for a sandwich to eat on the train!
There had even been an earlier trip on the route, in the other direction, and that was disappointing too. A single-decker with inadequate legroom, and another long drag.
So it’s fair to say that my expectations are low as I arrive by train from Cardiff into Bristol Parkway on a scorching-hot Friday morning. (I’m not one for the easy option – I’m going home so I could have got the train all the way to Paddington)!
On this occasion I have bypassed the section from Cribbs Causeway, which starts with a contraflow bus lane and then passes the entrance to some of the 7000 car parking spaces that exist at this shopping complex (all free – how can we get people to use the bus)?
A trio of First West of England buses are parked up in Cribbs Causeway Bus Station on Monday 7th March 2022. Nearest the camera is 37416 (MX58 DYH), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, advertising Bristol Care Homes but showing no care or consideration for customers who want to see where they’re going, or even where they are! To the right is 36232 (BD12 TCV), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 on route 19, and behind that is 35145 (SN65 OMO), a Wright StreetDeck about to start on the long cross-City run to Hengrove on route 75.
It’s tempting to say that we go into overdrive here but that’s not true – Over Drive is the name of a road that runs parallel to the Highwood Road that we are using.
The main road continues, taking with it the m1 Metrobus service towards Bristol City Centre and the 73 (Cribbs Causeway to Bristol Temple Meads); we will meet both again. We take a right turn down the Charlton Boulevard, which takes us into a new, and still developing, housing area.
We then join the dual-carriageway A38 for a short stretch, remembering to leave at the junction for Little Stoke and Patchway, after which there is a complex series of junctions to navigate, in order to cross over the A38 and turn towards Little Stoke itself.
Having headed north on the A38, our route is now mainly southwards. We’re partly in residential territory here, but there are several green spaces as well. At least for the moment; given the amount of flat building in this area, I wouldn’t be surprised to come back in five years’ time and find it much more built up!
The locals will know Bristol Parkway as Stoke Gifford, as that’s where the Parkway station is geographically.
Before I join my bus, I have the chance to grab a cuppa at the station café, which overlooks the bus station. Services on route 73 seem to be the most prominent here, and indeed some terminate here from the City direction.
It also gives me the chance to check which of the three bus stops my service will depart from – and that’s where I learn of the existence of a fourth stop that I never knew existed.
This may be related to the proposed new Metrobus route m4, which is due for introduction next year and will link Cribbs Causeway with Bristol Parkway. Certainly the new stop looks much smarter than the other three.
First West of England 39463 (YN20 CDE), a Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBG (gas-powered vehicle) turns at Bristol Parkway station in a photo taken from the station café. To the right is the ‘new’ stop 4, built to Metrobus standards by the look of things.
This fourth stop is the one I need, and my bus turns up on time at 1014. It’s a 10-year-old Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 in standard First colours, as are all of the buses on this route.
I have a small case with me but that’s not going to stop me getting up the stairs to the front. And nor is the blistering sunshine. One might question the wisdom of taking a front seat on a morning journey that is broadly heading east. (You’re waiting for the but – but there isn’t one!) The heat may explain why the lower deck is busy but the upper deck is not – or that might just be to do with the time of day and the demographics of the passenger load.
We head out of the Parkway Bus Station via a back road that I never knew existed! First point of note is the University of the West of England’s Frenchay Campus – a busy bus station here has six stops for all the various services that call in. On this occasion, because it’s August, perhaps, we pass through non-stop. That’s never happened to me before! There’s a Megabus coach parked up carrying the name Tom Cruiser...
UWE Frenchay bus station seems to have just one intending passenger, rather than the hundreds that are normally to be found here – but it is the middle of the August holidays! First West of England 33930 (YX66 WKS), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, takes a break between trips on route 48A from Bristol City Centre.
We cross the M32 motorway and pass the actual village of Frenchay. Technically Frenchay campus, even though it has taken its name from this village, is in Stoke Gifford.
Shortly after is the annoying Hambrook roundabout. I say ‘annoying’, as the option to cross the major A4174 dual-carriageway from Frenchay, or to turn right, as we need to, has been taken away, and all traffic must now turn left and travel the quarter-mile to the junction with the M32, before traversing the whole roundabout and reversing its steps.
It’s not a simple roundabout either – it’s one of those with the motorway crossing on a flyover above our heads – probably as far round as it is to get there. And it’s congested, with lots of traffic lights. So it’s probably about three-quarters of a mile, and several minutes, out of our way. I believe this is called ‘progress’.
Into Downend, where the Horseshoe public house provides a timing point, and a significant upturn in passenger traffic. I have company on the top deck for the first time, although no-one wants to sit at the front and face the sun.
The Horseshoe public house (centre) in Downend
We cross a busy high street at Staple Hill but I don’t get attached to it. Just south of here we cross the Bristol and Bath Railway Path, built on the track bed of the Midland Railway Mangotsfield and Bath branch line, which fell to Beeching. You wouldn’t know it was there, though, as it seems to be in tunnel at this point.
We come into Kingswood and stop outside the Kings Chase Shopping Centre (which Google describes as “compact”)! It’s a busy suburb of Bristol and half a dozen bus routes come here. We stop for several minutes, giving me time to reapply suncream. I’m not quite sure if we are having a driver change, or if the driver is just stretching his legs, as he does seem to be on the street for a few minutes. The delay is just long enough for me to wonder whether there’s a problem. But no, we’re off again!
Hill Street Kingswood, at the junction with Woodstock Road, looking east across the hills
First West of England 39447 (YN69 EHZ), another Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBG, on route 42 (Bitton, Cherry Gardens to Bristol)
We pass through Cadbury Heath, where I get a fellow front seat passenger for the first time. She only makes a short trip, though, and spends the entire journey engrossed in her phone.
The focal point for buses in Cadbury Heath is Park Crescent. Two services from Bristol City Centre (43 and 44) come in here via different routes to terminate, and use the Crescent to turn, and the 19 picks up here as well.
At Bitton we turn onto the A431 Bath Road. It’s still a fair way to go but we’re on the road that will get us there now. The general direction is now south-east, which means that, as we move towards midday, I’m still facing the sun!
We’re in the open country now and are often close to the River Avon, although it isn’t really visible and it meanders a lot more than we do.
We pass the tiny village of Kelston (population: 248), with its distinctive Tower House:
There’s an important Y-junction about one-and-a-half miles outside Bath City Centre, where we join the A4 road to Bristol. Whilst we have been clinging to the north side of the Avon, this other, arguably more direct road, is mainly on the south side.
Approaching Bath
And then it’s all downhill (literally in parts) into Bath City Centre, terminating at the Bus Station.
On the Monday to Friday timetable, many buses arrive here just as a Cribbs service is departing. I presume that the drivers take a break here. This is why I have estimated five buses for the full vehicle requirement. Slightly shorter running times at the weekends (and the hourly service runs seven days a week) mean four buses might be sufficient at these times.
And here we are in Bath: “a wellbeing destination since Roman times,” as Visit Bath proclaims. This delightful historic City Centre couldn’t offer much more of a contrast to the modern out-of-town retail complex at the other end of route 19. For me, the Abbey stands head-and-shoulders above everything else (again, that’s quite literal), but there’s lots to choose from!
Plenty of choices from the Bus Station as well.
Bath Bus Station – all of the buses in view are operated by First (other operators are available). It doesn't look like the bus on the extreme left will be going anywhere today!
The Bath Ales building, in the background, now houses a number of bars and restaurants, including Graze, which stands adjacent to the Eastbound platform at Bath Spa station.