Ryde Depot

Southern Vectis have not used Ryde bus depot for operational services for a while now, but it is still used as a centre for the coach fleet and still stores a large number of buses on the island. For the first time in a couple of years, I nipped down to the depot to take a few photos of what was there on Saturday. All views were taken from the public footpath.

First thing of note, is that Ryde depot has become London General's Isle of Wight outstation! A large number of the PVLs are stored here - some still have the boards for the Isle of Wight festival. In view in these two pictures are the following: W905WGH, W508WGH, Y704TGH, X572EGK, X573EGK plus another 5 examples at least. Marc M-H has said that 2 of them will become Southern Vectis fleet vehicles in the future to increase capacity on route 9 (Ryde - Newport) - these will of course fit in very well along Southern Vectis' native Volvo B7TLs with Plaxton bodywork, that arrived new in 2002.

Here is an overview of Ryde depot showing most of the buses and coaches stored. Southern Vectis allocate most of their Solos to school work - so therefore they are part of the coach fleet. This is why green livered Solo 2615 (R615NFX) is at Ryde depot.

Finally I thought I would post a close up of one of the coach liveries - here is 598 (VUV246) in Fountain Coaches livery parked out of service. I hope these photos have been of interest - thanks for viewing.