From A Wood To An Empress (3)

The special edition staff newsletter from First Hampshire was a celebration of ten years in the new Empress Road depot and HQ.

As would be expected, the main text of the on-line "publication" is penned by Marc Reddy, the boss.

Happy 10th Birthday

It only seems like yesterday when we moved the entire depot from the old site at Portswood to a purpose built, brand new depot in Empress Road – it took around 7 or 8 years to find a suitable location for our new depot and it was previously a site for a logistics operator in the area. The plan was to move the entire depot over the August Bank Holiday Weekend (this allowed us three days of reduced service levels). The move entailed moving all the buses, engineering equipment, office equipment, and also ensuring all our systems switched over seemingly, without interruption. 

If my memory serves me correctly, the build of the new depot took around 18 months.

I recall driving buses the short distance out of Portswood to Empress Road on the Saturday evening, in readiness for the run out on Sunday morning from the new depot.

Everyone worked tirelessly to make it all happen.

Of course Portswood depot had been there for many years. Originally built under local authority ownership, the depot was a very large area (in fact too big for modern day needs) and very environmentally inefficient.

There were an array of tunnels underneath the depot.

Southampton Transport Trust has seventeen pages of photographs of the depot on its web site, each page with approx 24 pictures. That totals about 400 pictures, surely the most photographed bus depoit in the galaxy, if not the universe.

There are mysterious windows below ground level ...

... steps leading down to the Stygian darkness ...

... and the tunnels which boss Marc explored.

I remember adventuring around them and came across various items including festive lights which used to be attached to buses and trams at Christmas time. 

This old picture shows the Christmas lights and tram traks at Bargate.

The tunnels also led to some strange places – I remember turning a corner, and then all of a sudden there was a small aperture where you could look through and this was in one of the engineering pits!

As part of the planning permission for the new depot, we had to install a “bird scare unit” as the depot is located on the flight path for Southampton Airport. Therefore you can regularly hear the squawking of birds of prey (from the bird scare unit) when in the depot, this is to frighten off birds which would otherwise sit or roost on the roof of the building and become a danger to aircraft!

So ten years on – some of our networks have changed as travel patterns have changed. Our fleet is far newer than it ever was when we were at Portswood depot, and we have moved into a near cashless society. We moved into Empress Road as FirstBus and now we have a strong, local, CityRed brand for our services.

Happy 10th Birthday Empress Road …… roll on the next 10!

The newsletter has lots of pictures to fascinate - including the boss with balloons ...

... and a rather large birthday card.

Two plaques remind the readers that Southampton Corporation spent some considerable sums on keeping their star depot up to date. Plaque 1 for 1979 and ...

... Plaque 2 in 1982 ...

... which records a contribution from Hampshire County Council.

Maybe amidst the sadness of the farewell ten years ago and the obliteration of all that history by a boring Sainsury's superstore, we can take delight from the fact that First Bus is still upgrading. The new depot is smaller (less buses!) but more efficient and with no mysterious tunnels!

There is a picture of the opening of the new ...

... with Marc Reddy (again!) and the honoured guest, Traffic Commissioner Sarah Bell - nice to keep in with the important folk!

And a nice little plaque of formality near the front door.

Of course, thinking about Marc's "next ten years", there is much that is speculation. First bus, even the whole of First Group, is in a state of flux, some would say turmoil. Firstly we are going to sell UK operations and keep America; then we are going to sell America and keep UK. 

"Young" Fearnley could hardly be called "young" any more and retirement must beckon in the next year or so - another opportunity for big change?

And should we or shouldn't we get out of the UK rail operations, with hardly a bouncing business anywhere on the tracks? 

So who will own and operate Empress Road at the end of those next ten years?

Hard to make a prediction.

Coming soon in these blogs, "fbb makes a ghastly mistake" and another contender for the 7Ps award.

 Next national rail blog : Friday 4th September 

From A Wood To An Empress (2)

Southampton Corporation's Portswood Depot began with horse drawn vehicles ...

... was then electrified ...

... before housing a substantial chunk of the omnibus fleet.

There was also a depot at Shirley.

By the time privatised Southampton Citybus ...

... was sold to First ...

... only Portswood remained. Very soon, the depot filled up with barbie buses and Southampton City's individuality was no more. 

In more recent times, something of the City's former transport glory has returned with adoption of the "City Red" brand for its local routes.

Even the original "the Three" has now morphed into a City Red 3.

Back at the Portswood nerve centre, First Bus management decided that the depot was too big, too scrappy, too inefficient and, more to the point, ripe for development.

So it was that First moved out over the bank holiday weekend exactly ten years ago.

Everything was moved over that weekend, buses, engineering equipment and office stuff. It was taken down St Denys Road ...

... and right at the second set of lights on to Thomas Lewis Way.

Past the footbridge to St Denys Station ...

... and left at the next lights.

A quick wiggle and you are Empress road; and there on the left is the shiny new depot.

Next we see a yummy cake!

This is in celebration of the first ten years at Empress Road and with it came a special edition of the First Bus Hampshire staff newsletter.

We will enjoy this publication as part of tomorrow's blog.

Buses Of Somerset - A P.S.

Correspondent Peter (from Yeovil) was justifiably enthusiastic about the July 2020 leaflet, available at his home town's bus station. fbb was slightly less ebullient, being concerned that this expurgated version of the normal timetable book might soon become the norm.

As it turns out that won't be happening yet-a-while.

Sadly, from yesterday, parts of this lovely leaflet became out-of-date.

Correspondent David, who dwells in Minehead, reports that his local route 28 ...

... shown as hourly on the "reduced" leaflet was improved from 1st September.

A half hourly service operates from 0925 to 1325. David assumes that the lack of improvement at other times is because anything that can be spared is carrying non-socially distanced school kiddies back with boundless enthusiasm to their classes.

David does not know, and fbb has not had the time to audit the changes, how many other services in the July leaflet have changed.

In this case, the change is obviously extra to the existing timetable, so, in that sense and for the 28, the leaflet is still valid - incomplete rather than incorrect!

Will we ever see an end to the environment of change after change after change?

Painting Projects At Peterville.

fbb has never been very good at painting his models. In his teenage years he was slapdash and unconcerned. The models (Airfix kits at two shilling a piece) were the wonder; what they looked like was less important!

In his old age, and sixty years later, the concern for good results is powerful, but the skill is less than ideal. A combination of a very shaky left hand and a lack of practice in the intervening half century plus, make the results less than perfect.

But the water tower is beginning to look like a poor quality model of a water tower rather than an assemblage of plastic.

And the Hornby Dublo buffers are looking just a bit less like their as-sold counterparts. With a few weeds and a bit of "rust", they will do - and, of course, they won't blow away.

Please Note

Blogging may be reduced in scope for the next week

or so, as further work on GoTimetable updates is

under way to improve the presentation, now that

services are returning to something like normality.

 Next Wood to Empress blog : Weds 2nd September 

From A Wood To An Empress (1)

You wood would never know!

Gazing at this modern Sainsbury's store, you would never guess what stood there before the retail emporium was built.

Of course, going back far enough, it would have been open fields, with Southampton port's wood as part of the verdant countryside to the north of the town and to the west of the river Itchen. But the town became wealthy, and the more well-heeled locals built their grand villas and select residential properties around Portswood House.

Portswood House is upper left; but to its right, focus your attention on the triangle of roads that fills the top right hand corner of this map. Also note the blank expanse at the bottom, separated from the marshy area by the railway line. And halfway down the right hand edge is St Denys railway station.

Now your bearings are in place and well greased, we can, through the wonders of the interwebnet, begin to morph from the late 1800s to the present day.

We can see a diverted road passing through the "upper triangle" and another new road to the west of the railway. As we complete the transmogrification ...

... there is the re-routed St Denys Road alongside our Sainsburys supermarket The new road paralleling the railway is Thomas Lewis Way, Southampton's fast (if you are lucky) link to the M27.

A Google Earth view might well fill in the gaps.

Sainsburys is clearly new (top) and another large and obviously new building sits at the bottom, on what was the open land in the old map above. It was here that the legendary Bevis of Hampton (the Hampton in the North was unknown to the legend's authors) reputedly built a mound of earth to prevent the Danes crossing the River Itchen.

The housing area and the much later industrial estate ...

... gained the obscure name of Bevois Valley in recognition. Below, Bevis ...

... kills a lion; as you do ...

... if you are a legendary war hero, suffering from slightly dodgy historicity.

The Google Earth view also provides a good view of St Denys Station, separated from its former main road entrance by Thomas Lewis Way (footbridged) ...

... but the "back door" remains unimpeded and guarded by the South Western Arms (pub). 

No sign guides you to the station access via the footbridge, round the back of the pub and to the right.

Maybe, once upon a happier time, St Denys had a proper eastern entrance, now boarded and barred.

A solitary bench remains outside the unused down side (eastern) station buildings.

But fbb rambles alarmingly off-piste.

Sainsburys at Portswood stands on the site of the former First Bus depot, occopied by the city's public transport for 131 years.

Diamonds For The Bosses ...

... but not quite what you might think. The new water tower for Peterville Quarry Railway needed some brackets to compensate for the missing bracing, removed to allow the structure to span the tracks at the entrance to the rebuilt carriage shed.

It would be good, thought your elderly model bodger, to add some typical Victorian embellishments.

Next door neighbour Denise does "Diamond Painting" which has nothing to do with diamonds and isn't painting.

Ask Denise for some "diamonds" (hers are simple round blobs) ...

... with which to add the bellishments to those brackets.

And on the girder as well.

Once it is all painted they will hardly be noticeable. But fbb enjoyed the idea and it's tricky but successful outcome, thanks, in part, to the loan of Mrs fbb's eyebrow tweezers.

It's good to have all the right tools available.

 More Wood & Empress blog : Weds 2nd September