National Express to relaunch south coast service

[whole diary]

[bradshaw]

Until a few years ago there was a daily service Helston to Eastbourne before being cut back to Plymouth Bournemouth and ceasing presumably due to the pandemic.
From June 21 National Express are launching their M-F 190 service from The Hard, Portsmouth to Plymouth. There is a 1 hour stopover in Bridport to change crews and PNB^▸ (Personal Needs Break). The intermediate stops are generally pick up or set down.

https://timetables.nationalexpress.com/routes/NX/190/Plymouth-Portsmouth/O/2021-06-21--2021-08-29

[ChrisB]

Seems to run 7 days a week

[bradshaw]

Apologies, you are correct. I could not get the weekend tab to open so assumed that it did not run.

[rogerw]

Probably a printing error, but the stops at Bridport in both directions are shown as set down only. A bit like "The Hotel California", you can arrive but never leave

[TaplowGreen]

Plymouth to Portsmouth.....the sublime to the ridiculous! 

[eXPassenger]

Plymouth to Portsmouth.....the sublime to the ridiculous! 

Useful for the Navy.

[CyclingSid]

Hopefully be able to make sensible connection with the Stagecoach 700 Coastliner from Portsmouth to Brighton
https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/south/unpublished-coastliner#
It used to be a single service, but as the map suggests this has now been divided into separate sections.

[Oxonhutch]

Useful for the Navy.

Haven't they got boats for that? 

[IndustryInsider]

Plymouth to Portsmouth.....the sublime to the ridiculous! 

Proper naval town, Portsmouth! 

[Surrey 455]

Hopefully be able to make sensible connection with the Stagecoach 700 Coastliner from Portsmouth to Brighton
https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/south/unpublished-coastliner#
It used to be a single service, but as the map suggests this has now been divided into separate sections.

A few years back, buses from Dorchester / Weymouth to Axminster showed Bridport as the destination. Bridport was at or near the midpoint and buses stopped at Bridport for about 10 - 20 minutes before the display was changed to the ultimate destination and the bus continued. I seem to remember reading somewhere it was a ruse to get round EU^» (European Union - about) regulations though I can't remember what those regulations were.

A look at the current X51 / X53 timetable shows a dwell of only 4 minutes at Bridport bus station now so I wonder if the ultimate destination is now shown throughout the journey.

Anyway seeing the post about the 700 made me wonder if that really is split in two, or if it has a break at Bognor / Littlehampton before continuing.

[grahame]

A few years back, buses from Dorchester / Weymouth to Axminster showed Bridport as the destination. Bridport was at or near the midpoint and buses stopped at Bridport for about 10 - 20 minutes before the display was changed to the ultimate destination and the bus continued. I seem to remember reading somewhere it was a ruse to get round EU^» (European Union - about) regulations though I can't remember what those regulations were.

Swindon to Devizes and Devizes to Trowbridge are both route 49 ... and the diagrams are worked out such that a Swindon to Devizes vehicle carries on as a Devizes to Trowbridge a few minutes later.   I'm told that's because they are both local buses because their journey is under ???kms so they avoid a raft of long distance admin / regulations / fitting that are needed primarily on long distance lorries, but got written zealously into British law as any long distance heavy vehicle.   Now - that's what I was told; please tell me if I was fed a porkie!

[bradshaw]

The journey way Weymouth to Exeter, I think, and it was broken into shorter sections as a result of EU^» (European Union - about) rules. There were concerned with defining local or long distance journeys and I think there was a financial incentive to splitting the route. The split was at Seaton I believe but this was later reduced to Axminster.
Later the X51/X53 routes were linked, the former was Axminster to Weymouth, later reduced to Dorchester South to improve timekeeping. The latter was Weymouth to Axminster via the coast road. In summer they were hourly, giving a 30 minute service Bridport to Axminster. In winter the service was halved.
The pandemic produced a revision.
The current summer service has two hourly X51 and X53 with resultant hourly service Bridport to Axminster Station. The X51 has been extended back to Weymouth.
An additional bus X52 is an open top service from Monkey World via Tank Museum, Weymouth, Abbotsbury, West Bay to Bridport, four services running every two hours.

[GBM]

Haven't they got boats for that? 

SHIPS!  

[paul7575]

This will be of no use to the majority of RN personnel.  There’s always been regular flows at weekends between Portsmouth and Plymouth, predominantly westbound Friday and return Sunday, because almost all training establishments are in the Portsmouth area.  But how many people are actually able to travel mid day and mid week? 

People travelling for short term duty will invariably use hire cars, or their own cars on mileage allowance.

It isn’t the 1960s either.  The absolute number of naval personnel needing to travel has seen massive reductions, at the same time as car ownership has seem massive increases…

[GBM]

Didn't Alphaline (?) run a train service from Portsmouth to Penzance many years ago?