The well-loved and admired bus company known at Crosville Motor Services was originally based in the north west of England in Chester. Following on from deregulation in the mid 1980s the Company was wound up and the name became dormant. Moving forward to the 21st Century the name was resurrected by Jonathan Jones-Pratt for his bus company based in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset. Jonathan has a superb mixture of both vintage and modern buses in his fleet. There are vintage buses from the original Crosville Motor Services carrying their original liveries, and modern buses operating stage carriage services in the town in a smart leaf green and off white scheme with ‘modern’ Crosville fleet names.
In August 2012 the Company held an Open and Running Day based on it’s depot at Winterstoke Road, Weston-Super-Mare. Our cameras were on hand to record some of the event. Filming starts at the depot before we film on Marine Parade where we catch former Crosville open top Bristol FSF6G, DFG81 (891 VFM) for a journey to Uphill. This Lodekka is pure Crosville from the 1960s. We travel in the lower saloon to enjoy the sounds of the Gardner engine as we run along the seafront to our destination at Uphill. Here we transfer into former Bristol Tramways Bristol K5G with an ECW open top body, number 992 (GHT 127) preserved in the livery of Brighton Hove & District. Our filming concludes back at the Crosville depot.
Our cameras return to Weston on a sunny Sunday in July 2014 for another Bus Rally organised by Jonathan featuring Crosville Motor Services. This time the event is based on the Beach Lawns in Beach Road on Weston’s sea front. We start our day with a ride on former Bristol Omnibus C7246 (FHU 59D), a Bristol FLF6B with ECW H70F bodywork which takes us to the Crosville depot on Winterstoke Road for a peek inside. Here we see most of the modern fleet parked up ready for service on Monday morning. Former Southern National Bristol RELL6G, 2700 (HDV 626E) returns us to the sea front where our cameras record the action along Beach Road, Marine Parade and Regent Street. Here we see Bristol L, LS and K types, Lodekkas, VRs and an RE as well as First buses in the smart two tone green and cream livery from the “buses of Somerset” unit based in Taunton, and refurbished Enviro 400s in the ‘Express Yourself” branding running in from Bristol.
Our next and final ride is a real treat! It is on board former Bristol Omnibus Bristol FS6G L8579 (869 NHT), a convertible open top Lodekka from 1961 that was delivered to Weston-Super-Mare for the promenade service. Smartly turned out in its original livery of all over cream with black wings we can relive a bygone era as we travel from Beach Lawns to Uphill, then along the sea front to the old pier, before returning to the rally site at Beach Lawns. This is the end to a perfect day. We would like to thank Jonathan for organising these two events and using his vehicles, and to the Bristol Omnibus Vehicle Collection for supplying their vehicles. We hope you enjoy this programme – it will bring back the memories!
Produced by - Independent Transport Videos
Running time - 56 minutes (approx)
Format - 16:9 Widescreen
Filmed - 2012 and 2014
DVD only
Release date - September 2014