Reductions in Salisbury & Weymouth / Mini Link fills a gap

First of all, thanks for your kind comments to the previous post welcoming this blog back.

Thanks also to the Hampshire Bus Blog, which popped up while we were away, to fill the gap. Looking at its posts, it's doing a fantastic job and I hope it keeps going even though the initial intention was for it to be temporary. It covers the local bus scene in similar way to this blog, but also adds some extra analysis and insight that this blog, being written from outside the region, cannot do, so I encourage all my readers to bookmark it and check it regularly.

A couple of actual bus updates too:

Salisbury Reds have temporary timetables on most of their city routes as of last Sunday 16th January. These are mainly frequency reductions due to staff shortages.

In Weymouth, First Wessex have new timetables from today, Sunday 23rd January, on route 4, which has a weekday daytime frequency reduction to every half-hour due to staff shortages, and on the Jurassic Coaster X51/X53 in order to better connect with the trains in Axminster.

In Southampton, we have a new operator since October, in the shape of Southampton Mini Link. The Hampshire Bus Blog has been covering them since they launched. It's run by Simon Gard, who previously ran Gardbus of Ringwood and then Southbourne Buses in Bournemouth. True to form, they tried to revive a route between Southampton and Ringwood but alas, it has already been suspended. It would be good to see such a route succeed, but Ringwood and Southampton have been without a direct bus connection for so long now, that most people travelling between the two will have made alternative arrangements long ago and any new service will need to run consistently for at least a couple of years in order to gain any traction.

Mini Link's only service for now is the 13A, which provides a Sunday service between the City Centre and Harefield, via Woolston, Merry Oak and Bitterne. First City Red 9 and 13 cover the route Mon-Sats but neither runs on Sundays, so for Harefield and Merry Oak especially, the 13A is a real improvement. From 5th February, it will be running on Saturdays too, despite City Red 9 and 13 also running. Again we wish it well, but realistically, most passengers will probably stick with First on Saturdays. Here's the route of the 13A: