Visit to Romsey

Today, as I had a few hours free in the middle of the day, I visited the west Hampshire town of Romsey. Romsey is a very interesting town bus wise. Although service frequencies are low, there are many interesting routes and various companies operating these -BlueStar, Wilts & Dorset, Stagecoach Hampshire, and even First Hants & Dorset on an Asda contract.

The main operator in Romsey is Wilts & Dorset. Wilts & Dorset operate route 65 to Eastleigh, and routes 34 / 36 to Salisbury, along with many infrequent or selected day small town and village services (routes 30, 35 and 39). These services were often worked by Optare Solos in days gone by, but here former Southern Vectis Volvo Olympian 745 (M745HDL) operates route 30. Route 30 is a circular route serving Halterworth, operating for four journeys in weekday and Saturday mornings. 

Route 65 is an hourly weekday service to Eastleigh (on Saturdays, route 34 extends at Romsey, from Salisbury, to Eastleigh at a lower frequency). It is scheduled to be operated by low floor double deckers when they are available, but due to a variety of reasons, these have been limited recently. Therefore, Romsey resembled more a town on the Isle of Wight today! Another former Southern Vectis Volvo Olympian - this time 752 (R752GDL), about to depart for Eastleigh.

Stagecoach Hampshire operate town services 32 and 33 in Romsey, which were won on tender from Wilts & Dorset. They interwork with route 66 from Winchester, allowing a swap over of buses every 2 hours, as far as I am aware. Here is former Portsmouth & Hong Kong Dennis Dart SLF 33034 (P434AYJ) which was recently transferred to Winchester depot. Seen departing the bus station on route 33 for Woodley.

It isn't often Stagecoach Hampshire operate a low floor bus into Romsey these days, so I was presently surprised and happy to see Volvo B10M/Alexander 20313 (M313YSC) turn up on a 66 from Winchester. My latest records show 20313 as allocated to Andover, so I assume there has been a very recent transfer or the journeys that don't interwork with the 32/33 are worked from Andover.

My final bus company to illustrate is BlueStar. BlueStar operate route 4 into Romsey from Southampton City Centre every half hour, using Mercedes-Benz Citaros. As far as I am aware, the 4 interworks with route 12 to Calmore in Southampton, meaning 6 buses operate the 4/12 diagram. The Citaros used are from the '06' batch new to Solent Blue Line, which are presently receiving repaints into the new dark blue livery. Here is 445 (HX06EZE).

Note: Apologies for the lack of updates recently - I've been very busy with other business. From now on I'll try and post 3 or 4 updates a week (Sun, Tue, Thur, Fri or Sat if possible).