As you will see when you watch this DVD programme, the title has two meanings! The first meaning refers to the main bus company that operates in the Bournemouth area, Go South Coast (GSC), with its ‘more’ branded buses. Secondly it refers to the many colourful buses that ran in the area during 2023, not just with GSC but also with First Wessex and independent operator Transpora, who ran an open-top route in competition with GSC and also operated ‘The 2’ route with a variety of colourful buses.
Our programme takes a chronological look of the year, covering the months of February, May, June, August, September and October. Filming occurs at a number of locations in the towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch including Poole Bus Station, Commercial Road Poole, and a number of locations in Bournemouth such as Gervis Place, Westover Road, Bath Road, the Railway Station and more. In Christchurch we film in the High Street and Castle Street. Each location is visited on a number of occasions throughout the year. Our cameras take rides on two interesting vehicles. The first being a Volvo BZL/MCV B42F battery-electric single-deck demonstrator BV72 KPG, numbered 9991 for its stay with GSC. We travel on it from Bournemouth to Poole whilst operating an m2 service. Our second ride is onboard GSC’s 1716 (HJ73 JJZ), an ADL Enviro400MMC double-decker on its first ever journey from Poole bus station to Branksome Station. This is one of a batch of 28 buses allocated to the busy m1 and m2 routes replacing ADL200MMC single-deckers and 1716 was the first vehicle to enter service on 1st September at 11.15am. In October we see 1740 (HJ73 NFM) the last member of the batch to enter service by the railway station. The colourful scene around Bournemouth was made up with a number of buses drafted in from other GSC fleets. There are buses from Swindon’s Bus Company, Bluestar (Southampton), Southern Vectis (Isle of Wight), Salisbury Reds and Damory (Dorset area). Some carry ‘I'm helping out’ stickers on their sides. During the summer a small fleet of former London Scanias also arrived, mainly in London red, but also one painted overall white, and some painted in Go North West’s yellow livery for the franchised bus network in Manchester – ‘Bee Network’ that began in September 2023. ‘Cardiff bus’ also sent on loan some ADL400MMC double-deckers adding orange and green to the colour mix! We see the older Unibus ADL400MMCs – 1623-1634 in their half and half multi-coloured liveries, but as the year goes on these start to appear in the latest morebus livery of blue and red. There are also the colourful liveries of the Breezer services. In 2023 each carried a different base colour, Beach Breezer – yellow, Harbour Breezer – blue, Jurassic Breezer – pink and the Purbeck Breezers in their usual green and blue livery. These can be seen in more detail on our companion DVD “Exploring with the Breezers”. In Poole we see First Wessex buses in their smart two-tone green and yellow fleet livery and with a yellow and orange livery for the Jurassic Coaster routes. So there is a lot to discover on this DVD programme, too much to mention here, so watch and enjoy!
Produced by - Independent Transport Videos
Duration - 125 minutes approx
Region - 0 (worldwide) PAL
Aspect Ratio - 16:9 Widescreen
DVD only
Released - February 2024