more Buses in Dorset: Part Three
28 January 2024
ABOVE: In Poole Bus Station, the driver of morebus 1193 (HF58 GZH), a Scania N230UD OmniCity, is preparing for a run on route 16 to Bournemouth. Alongside 1193 is what looks like a Volvo B7TL East Lancs Myllennium Vyking, awaiting service on route 14 to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital. All photos in this article were taken on Easter Day, Sunday 9 April 2023.
Easter Day. The one Sunday of the year when most of the shops have to be shut by law. Always a slightly odd day to be out and about on the buses. Closed shops means closed shopping centres. Closed shopping centres can mean a shortage of what I would term as essential facilities...
Fortunately, I am not in need of such facilities at the moment. Poole Bus Station is relatively quiet but there are still a few people around – some are enjoying some rare Easter Day sunshine; others have come into town having forgotten those special once-a-year rules regarding Sunday trading.
I’m just changing between buses. I don't need the shops at the moment (nor, fortunately, the facilities). I want to try out routes 16 & 17 between Poole and Bournemouth. These are run by "morebus", the operator from Go South Coast, a part of the Go-Ahead Group, that I have decided to spend the Easter weekend with.
The two routes follow exactly the same path out of Poole, although Newtown, just 11 minutes from Poole Bus Station, is only referenced as part of route 16, and not route 17, on the list of places served by buses from stand M at the Bus Station for some reason (see title picture above). One assumes that the locals know that both routes go there but not everyone is necessarily a local.
On Sundays the two routes each run hourly, so I’m quite fortunate to have arrived just in time for the 1220 departure of route 16. This is a Scania N230UD OmniCity – we leave with few passengers - the closed shops are probably costing quite a number of passengers today.
Fortunately, I am not in need of such facilities at the moment. Poole Bus Station is relatively quiet but there are still a few people around – some are enjoying some rare Easter Day sunshine; others have come into town having forgotten those special once-a-year rules regarding Sunday trading.
I’m just changing between buses. I don't need the shops at the moment (nor, fortunately, the facilities). I want to try out routes 16 & 17 between Poole and Bournemouth. These are run by "morebus", the operator from Go South Coast, a part of the Go-Ahead Group, that I have decided to spend the Easter weekend with.
The two routes follow exactly the same path out of Poole, although Newtown, just 11 minutes from Poole Bus Station, is only referenced as part of route 16, and not route 17, on the list of places served by buses from stand M at the Bus Station for some reason (see title picture above). One assumes that the locals know that both routes go there but not everyone is necessarily a local.
On Sundays the two routes each run hourly, so I’m quite fortunate to have arrived just in time for the 1220 departure of route 16. This is a Scania N230UD OmniCity – we leave with few passengers - the closed shops are probably costing quite a number of passengers today.
ABOVE: morebus 1101 (HW08 AOP), a Scania N270UD OmniCity, passes the 'Shah of Persia' stop in Longfleet Road, Poole (the pub of this name is just ahead, by the lights on the left), working a journey on route 16 towards Poole.
We pass through the Parkstone suburb of Poole, into the aforementioned Newtown and on to Rossmore. These are dense, but attractive, housing areas. They are possibly made less-attractive by intrusive traffic calming measures, which make it difficult for buses to manoeuvre - especially when two buses meet in the 'wrong' place...
ABOVE: morebus 2278 (HF12 GXA), a Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse 2, tries to edge out of the way of my double-decker, in the midst of the traffic-calming measures on Arne Avenue, Rossmore. The tightness of the necessary manoeuvres for these buses is probably not helped by the parked vehicle immediately beyond the first planter.
It is in the heart of Rossmore, at the Bourne Community Hub (just beyond the location pictured above) where the 16 & 17 diverge. From here on they take very different courses into Bournemouth. My 16 continues through the southern side of Rossmore and into Branksome, one of those areas that became a natural commuting suburb for both Poole (three miles away by the direct route) and Bournemouth (now just two miles). We re-join the main road that will take us through Westbourne and into Bournemouth.
Westbourne itself is distinctly upmarket; independent fashion boutiques, thrift stores, cafes, and pubs, as well as a covered Victorian arcade. It’s also popular for quiet strolls, thanks to its chines – dry, wooded gorges that run to the sandy beach at Alum Chine. A lovely place to stop (although I never have...).
ABOVE: The main routes between Bournemouth and Poole are the m1 & m2 services. Here, morebus 239 (HF18 CHJ), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, works an m2 service passes along Poole Road, near the junction with Clarendon Road and Queens Road on the edge of Bournemouth.
The 16 takes just 39 minutes on its Sunday timetable to whisk us back into Bournemouth town centre, where I take a tea break. Fortunately, restaurants are not restricted by Easter Day trading so the Exeter Crescent area of Bournemouth, a recent cinema and restaurant development, right in the heart of the town centre, gives me plenty of scope for a cuppa and a comfort break. The Costa Coffee branch actually sits within the entrance of the cinema complex. I can see ticket machines, and the inevitable popcorn kiosk, but I can't see anything to tell me what's showing. Curious...
Afterwards, I am back on Westover Road, just around the corner from Bournemouth Square, waiting for the number 2 bus towards Castlepoint Shopping Centre (although I am only heading to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital).
I need stop 1 and, whilst the stop flag does include the words “Stop 1”, the number 2, which represents the main service from this stop, is far more prominent, which I think could be confusing, especially when another route number is shown lower down the flag.
The bus arrives in good time for its 1345 departure. I am the only person waiting as it pulls up, and the driver tells me that we are waiting for his relief driver. He's "a miserable one," apparently. "He'll ask me [the previous driver] why I'm not wearing a face mask." He explains that he has tried to tell him that mask-wearing is no longer a requirement, but it cuts no ice, apparently.
A moment later, the relief driver arrives, looks his colleague squarely in the face and says "where's your face mask"? Other pleasantries are exchanged, the changeover is effected and we're ready to go.
Just around the corner, as we set off, is the gothic-style St Peter's Church, where Mary Shelley, the author of "Frankenstein" is buried, close to her husband, the poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. And right alongside it is "The Mary Shelley" Wetherspoon's pub, complete with "Franky" on the pub sign.
A little further along is the imposing Lansdowne building of the Bournemouth & Poole College. No surprise that this structure, with its imposing Clock Tower, is a Grade-II listed building.
ABOVE: A view towards the Lansdowne building of the Bournemouth & Poole College, showing the Clock Tower
My route 2 bus is an ADL Enviro400MMC in a pink-based Unibus livery. Unibus is another Go South Coast company, and another good reminder of the work that morebus had to undertake in short order when the rival Yellow Buses operation collapsed in August 2022 (read all about it here, or in the February 2024 issue of Buses magazine). Route 2 was a Yellow Buses service before morebus stepped into rescue it, and, on this day, it's host to a mix of vehicles in a mix of liveries:
ABOVE: Damory Coaches 1260 (BL61 ADZ), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, is working morebus route 2 towards Bournemouth when seen at the Capstone Place stop on Holdenhurst Road, to the north-east of Bournemouth station
This is a very quiet run via Boscombe Bus Station, which backs onto a shopping centre. The centre is eerily quiet and I can't tell whether it's even open (there might be a coffee shop or similar trading)...
On one of the other stands is the 99 bus, a summer service down to the beach at Boscombe, a fair old stroll from the town centre here. This service was introduced for the 2023 season, but time will tell whether it returns for 2024.
ABOVE: morebus 2710 (HW64 AXA) is the dedicated bus for summer-only route 99
Incidentally, there's a very confusing presentation of the timetable for route 99 on the Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) Council website. Basically a circular service from Boscombe Bus Station via Pokesdown Railway Station to Boscombe Pier, all stops from Boscombe Bus Station to Boscombe Pier are listed twice - presumably to show that you can travel straight from Boscombe Pier to, say, Corpus Christi School without having to change bus. I would have thought that a "continues to Pokesdown, Corpus Christi and Boscombe Pier" footnote would have sufficed!
The timetable remains available from BCP as I write this, three months after the service stopped for the winter.
It takes 34 minutes to get to Royal Bournemouth Hospital on route 2. I leave the service here as it continues for its last 11 minutes to Castlepoint Shopping Centre - another place that won't have much going on with all the shops shut. Incidentally, if you're tempted to follow my footsteps, route 2 has since been renumbered 22.
My plan now is to head back to Poole on route 14. This is only an hourly service but I have timed the half-hourly 2 to drop me off only 16 minutes before the 1435 departure. The good news is that the bus, which starts here, arrives several minutes ahead of the scheduled departure time, and the driver is content to allow passengers to board.
ABOVE: morebus 1407 (HF59 DMU) is a Scania N230UD Optare Visionaire. It is seen here at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, about to start the journey back to Poole.
This is a rare Scania N230UD Optare Visionaire, with a detachable roof (which is in place today).
The bad news is that I have a couple of yobs for company on this trip - the kind of teenage boys who shout and swear a lot, play-fight and play their music out loud in public. They jump in, run upstairs and swipe the front seats, as I sit much, much further back. They don't give me any direct grief but it's not very pleasant company - there are only the three of us on the top deck for this trip. They stay most of the way as well which is annoying.
The bus is "old and rattly" according to my notes (it's a 59-reg, so 14 years old). It's also in desperate need of a sweep-through; there's a half-eaten pizza, still in its box, on one of the seats, looking distinctly like something from Saturday night rather than today. So untidy, and I don't understand the concept of not eating the whole thing...
Route 14 avoids the centre of Bournemouth, instead working its way around the northern suburbs of the town, from the hospital north-east of the centre, in a route resembling a pair of spindly legs, to Poole. We pass Castlepoint, where the Shopping Centre is obviously deserted, then Moordown, before passing deep through the residential areas of East Howe, Kinson and West Howe (where one finishes and the next begins, I have no idea).
There are still a few Yellow Buses signs around:
As we come into Alderney, the 14 joins the route of the 16 / 17 back into Poole.
I'm seeing a lot of evidence of inter-working between routes by morebus, on a Sunday at least; all in the interests of scheduling efficiency. If one looks, on BusTimes.org, at the activity of morebus vehicle 1101 on Easter Day, it shows how the bus jumps around between routes all day - route 3 from Poole to Wimborne; route 4 back to Poole; 17 to Bournemouth and 16 back; 4 to Wimborne and 3 back; then a round trip on the 14. No wonder, then, that there seems to be a mix of single- and double-deck journeys across all of these routes.
ABOVE: morebus 2278 (HF12 GXA), a Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse 2, crosses the Parkstone Roundabout, en route to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital on route 14
And so I'm back at Poole Bus Station, just under three-and-a-half hours after I was last there. And again, I have managed to time a decent connection onto the 'other' service I want to ride back to Bournemouth today - the 17.
The 1550 departure is another Scania N230UD OmniCity, and it's another bus that needs a clean.
We start along the same roads I covered on the 16 earlier in the day (and also partially, in reverse, on the 14 just now).
ABOVE: morebus 1193, the vehicle I started this particular jaunt with a few hours earlier, heads back into Poole at the end of a run on route 17 from Bournemouth,
Once again, we contend with the traffic calming planters of Rossmore...
ABOVE: Arne Avenue, Rossmore
As I said earlier, the 16 & 17 part company at the Bourne Community Hub - presumably the two routes battle out for supremacy here. Whilst the 16 heads straight back to the coastal road, the 17 initially veers to the north, to serve the locale of Wallisdown and the Talbot Campus of Bournemouth University. There's an impressive "Bus Hub" for the University, which, on Easter Day, looks incredibly underused, by buses and students alike!
ABOVE: There's no-one about as a Unibus ADL Enviro400 MMC calls into Bournemouth University on route 6 (Wimborne to Bournemouth). Hardly surprising on a holiday Sunday.
The detour to the university means that the 17 takes 50 minutes to complete its journey to Bournemouth, as compared to the 39 minutes of route 16. Our route crosses the northern suburbs of the town centre, bringing us into town from the north-east, rather than the north-west as with the 16. Buses switch between 16 and 17 at the terminus in Bournemouth Square, which conveniently means that they don't have to turn around, as they arrive conveniently facing the way they are going to depart.
It's been a lovely afternoon exploring the local area - yobs on the 14 aside. None of the journeys have been remotely busy, and I can't help wondering whether things are different on a 'normal' Sunday when the shops are open. Something else has felt fairly unusual to me - a dry, warm Easter Day. But don't worry - the next morning, the heavens well-and-truly open for Easter Bank Holiday Monday!
