Tuesday 10 January 2012

Farnborough trip

On Saturday, I visited Farnborough for the first time as I opened my photo account for 2012. Farnborough is served mainly by Stagecoach South (the Aldershot arm), Countryliner, and the former independent Countywide Travel, recently taken over by Stagecoach bus still running in their own guise.

The main route in Farnborough is Stagecoach Gold 1. The route operates between Camberley (Old Dean) and Aldershot at every 10 minutes, using a mixture of gold livered, leather-seated MAN 18.240/Enviro300s and Enviro300 integrals. Here is MAN 22745 (GX58MVJ) pictured outside Farnborough main rail station.

Two Enviro300 integrals entered service on route 1 in 2011, when the frequency was increased. This also marked a slight rebrand from Goldline to Stagecoach Gold. 27756 (GX11AKZ) is pictured outside Farnborough main railway station.

The secondary route that Stagecoach operate is route 2, connecting Camberley and Aldershot along different roads. This service operates every 30 minutes and tends to use Dart SLF/Pointer 2s - such as 35152 (GX56KWG), as pictured here.

Stagecoach also operate a town service - the Yo-Yo. It operates at every 10 minutes, using three Optare Solos. Some are branded, such as 47243 (GX55DXM) pictured here.

Some non-branded Optare Solos are also found out on the Yo-Yo. Here is 47312 (GX06DYP), pictured in Farnborough town centre. The January shadows were long on Saturday, but they didn't hamper photographs too much depending on where you went.

There are some Countryliner services - all of which seem to use Dennis Dart MPDs. This is DP1 (RL51CXB), pictured on route 11 outside of Farnborough railway station. As discussed, Countywide Travel (Fleet Buzz) also serve Farnborough but I posted those photos on Saturday.

I will return in a few months - (a) to see if Countywide Travel have changed at all and (b) to finally photograph in Aldershot.

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