The Round O & Travel Wishart - Your New Look Arbroath
Yesterday's changes included the relaunch of Strathtay's Arbroath Town network - the 41-45 - as The Round O (see last week if you need the explanation of the name!), and new Service 35. This also was the date of the new tenders on selected evening, Sunday, Saturday morning services, and it also marks Travel Dundee's Angus outpost (Travel Wishart) winning Services 37, 46, 49, 50 (which require two buses - well, one and a bit buses, for most of the day).... In time for The Round O launch and marketing campaign, Strathtay now finally have a website!
Firstly, I took former 713 on the 39 from Dundee to Arbroath, then I got to the Bus Station. This is the offside of a "RoundO" Dart - as you can see, standard Stagecoach livery, and a "blob" in almost identical a location to the blob on the Fife express coaches, just at a higher angle. The roof route branding reads "Timmergreens . Warddykes . Kirkton . Cliffburn", with a "blob" on the front, and another on the back window, with stick map.
I then went around to the Morrisons store, to snap up one of Travel Wishart's (ex-Travel London from the C1) Optare Solo's on the 46, which was due (no sign of JP's 53 all day, and it should have been in the store just before this was. Guess the summer has ended early?) As you can see, S233 EWU (ex London 233) is in the 90-degree-angle version of Travel West Midlands/Dundee livery, and the bus has an orange LED display. The driver slowed down quite well when he saw the camera, but there is an adjacent Stagecoach Strathtay advertising board for The Round O - can someone snap a Wisharts bus passing it?
As I hinted at briefly, yesterday Strathtay introduced a new Service 35, linking Arbroath bus station, the waterfront (back via Millgate Loan), past the Red Lion, Westway, and into Hospitalfield. The bus is timed to be worked off the 27 (Arbroath - Forfar - Kirriemuir) most of the time (2/3 Forfar, 1/3 Arbroath), which is similar to what some journeys on the 50 done before. As a result, the 35 now leaves at almost exactly the same time as the 50, and the digital display buses (Darts, Volvo's etc.) show Hospitalfield/via Red Lion 35. The journey I was sampling was the 1256 from the Bus Station. That arriving 27 carries onto the Bingo, so Arbroath depot supplied a minibus for this one rounder. The bus was 42231, which displayed Red Lion Caravan Park 35 - with the driver specifically winding past Hospitalfield ! In addition to myself, a handful of other passengers were picked up, and when we got to the Dundee Road opposite the Red Lion, driver told the passengers that this was as far as they went i.e. not turning into the caravan park, but the bus would on the way back. He continued to explain it was a "new idea they've had" and made no comment about the company losing the gig for the 50 in the first place... I was the only one up to Hospitalfield (that may change if/when the Asda store opens at Westway), and the only one back. Roadworks on Westway held up the bus considerably. Ironically, any other hour, I wouldn't need to worry about missing the connection, because I was going for the 27! We did make it back to the bus station in enough time.
Before I left the bus station, I took this back end shot to illustrate the rear & nearside of The Round O promotional lettering. I then carried on to Kirriemuir on the second last through 27 of the day, on 21046 (former 606). Another one that I'd often passed when in Kirriemuir was Barrie's Birthplace - a small house on the Brechin Road, where JM Barrie lived when young, and what gave him the inspiration for stories about boys who never grew up, etc. As it's a residential area, photography inside is limited, but it's worth going in for a nosey one day, if you've never been before (watch out for the local cat, which seems to like coming in free for a lie-down!) See the official NTS page here.
After that, I took former 952 on the 20A from Kirriemuir to Dundee, then Dart 317 on the 16 to Perth Road (picking up the balance of my prescriptions from the end of last week), then 16935 on the 73 to Ninewells Hospital. I killed some time up there with pictures, before carrying on into the evening with a Travel Dundee evening saver (after 6pm) in which I took Volvo 62 on the 1807 14 from Ninewells to Kingsway West Retail Park. There, I saw two Bova coaches from Smith & Sons on farm worker contract hires (to take them to/from the superstores). Then I took similar 61 on the 14 to Kingsway Fire Station, before walking down Strips of Craigie Road (sending texts to someone who still isn't listening - see Saturday's post!) to Broughty Ferry Road, getting 47224 on Strathtay's 75 to Broughty Ferry (same driver who had me on the 16 earlier on!), then a Travel Dundee Gemini on the 10 to Barnhill, and another Travel Dundee Volvo single back to Dundee City Centre on the 9.
posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:00
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