My wife (Barbara) and I have been holidaying in Bournemouth for over 35 years. During that time I have watched with much interest the comings and goings in the bus fleets locally.
For most of that time, competition for ‘Bournemouth Corporation Transport’ has come from ‘Wilts & Dorset’ (WD).
With a history going back to 1915 ‘WD’ was at one time part of the ‘National Bus Company’ and these days is part of ‘Go South Coast’ which is a subsidiary of the ‘Go Ahead’ group.
In 2012 ‘WD’ adopted ‘More’ branding for its Bournemouth and Poole area operations whilst adopting ‘Salisbury Reds’ for its Salisbury area services.
Bournemouth and Salisbury are linked hourly by service X3.
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A Dennis Trident 2 with Alexander Dennis Ltd. (ADL) Enviro 400 bodywork which is based at Ringwood.
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Another Dennis Trident 2 with Alexander Dennis Ltd. (ADL) Enviro 400 bodywork which is based at Ringwood.
An earlier generation of double deck bus is represented by
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A Scania N94UD Omnidekka with East Lancs bodywork seen in the ‘More’ livery.
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A Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Myllennium bodywork seen in the blue ‘New Forest Tour’ promotional livery.
The lugs along the roofline are for removing the roof to allow the buses in this batch to operate as open toppers.
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A Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Myllennium bodywork seen in the old ‘W&D’ livery.
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A Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Myllennium bodywork seen in the green ‘New Forest Tour’ promotional livery.
Apart from their own services, ‘W&D’ operate services on behalf of ‘Bournemouth University’ (BU) in ‘BU’ livery.
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A Dennis Trident 2 with ‘Alexander Dennis Ltd,’ Enviro 400 bodywork in the ‘Bournemouth University branded livery’.
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A Scania N230UD OmniCity with East Lancs bodywork in the ‘Bournemouth University branded livery’.
‘W&D’s service 50 the ‘Purbeck Breezer’ operates between Bournemouth and Swanage via the Sandbanks chain ferry and is one of the ‘Must Do’ journeys in the UK.
To be held up on a double deck bus by a cross channel ferry as it sails out of Poole harbour is an experience not to be missed !
Operated with a fleet of Scania 230UD’s with Optare Visionaire bodies which can work in open or closed top layout depending on the weather.
The Swanage terminus and ‘W&D’s depot is located in the old railway yard and is at the side of the preserved ‘Swanage Railway’ of today.
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The bread and butter routes are the m1 and m2 which operate from Poole to Bournemouth and then on to the Castlepoint shopping complex (m1) and Southborne (m2).
Operating with buses up to every few minutes across the day and night.
The majority of the buses in use are Volvo B7RLE’s wit Wright Eclipse Urban 2 bodies but there are also Scania CN230UB’s OmnCity’s in regular service.
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A Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse Urban 2.
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Another Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse Urban 2.
The livery is quite stylised however at least one of the B7RLE’s wears a silver variation on the standard livery in celebration of 10 years of the m1 and m2.
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A Scania CN230UB OmniCities.
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An Optare Solo.
