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The Lakes by Bus
‘The Lakes by bus’ is the title given to an excellent booklet produced by Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire for their bus routes serving England's Lake District for the 2023 summer season. In August 2023 the independent transport videos cameras made a visit to the area to record the buses in this beautiful part of the country for you to enjoy. The Stagecoach buses allocated to the ‘Lakes’, mostly at their Kendal depot, are in a special green and blue livery featuring stylised decals of the surrounding countryside with ‘The Lakes Connection’ as a fleetname. A fleet of new Enviro400MMCs were introduced in 2023 with high-back coach seats and tables in the upper saloon for the prestigious 555 service that runs between Keswick and Lancaster taking in most of the Central Lakes area. There is also a fleet of seven Wright Gemini 3 partial open-top Volvo B5TL double-deckers that were introduced in 2017 and are in a dedicated livery of two-tone green with stylised decals but with ‘LAKEsider’ fleet names, all of which are allocated to the Kendal depot.
Our filming begins at Kendal in Blackhall Road, where the small bus station is located. We see some of the open-toppers heading to Bowness-on-Windermere to start their busy day as well as the early 555 buses arriving from Lancaster. Certain journeys run ‘fast’ via the M6 motorway from Lancaster to Kendal, the same later in the day from Kendal to Lancaster. Our next location is the busy Windermere bus station. Here we see the 555 passing through as well as the busy open-top Volvos on the 599 service running through to Grassmere and Bowness. Our cameras then locate to Ambleside and take a ride on 13801 (BV17 CTE), one of the Volvo/Wright open-toppers for a scenic ride on the 599 service via Windermere bus station to Bowness-on-Windermere. Here we see Lake Windermere at a busy Bowness before boarding Volvo 13806 (BV17 CTX) for the 599 service back to Ambleside taking in the views as we go. The next location is Keswick. At the town’s busy bus station we see Stagecoach buses arriving and leaving for Penrith, Buttermere and Workington as well as the 555s running through. The star of the show must be Stagecoach’s 17490 (TSV 720 – LX51 FMK), a 2001 Dennis Trident with an Alexander ALX400 partial open-top body on the 78 route to Seatoller wearing the ‘The Lakes Connection’ livery. From here we move away from the Lakes and visit Whitehaven where we see the former Cumberland Motor Services iconic bus station, now a restaurant and car park as well as the local operations of Stagecoach. Our next location is Workington where we visit the town’s excellent undercover bus station dating back to 1926, opened by Cumberland Motor Services and, as you will see still in use today as a busy bus station. We return to the Lakes and call at Windermere bus station to record the busy afternoon action and then back to Kendal to see the late afternoon activity there.
Our final location on this programme is Carlisle that our cameras visited in late 2022. Here we see the operations of Stagecoach running the town and interurban services as well as Borders Buses 12004 (YX20 ODP), an ADL Enviro200MMC on the X95 route to Hawick. There is no doubting that the English Lake District is an area of outstanding natural beauty and the best way to see it is by bus.
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| Filmed : | 2023 |
| Duration : | 56 mins |
| Price : | Within UK - £16 |
| Rest of world - £18 | |
| Format : | DVD -R |
| Picture Aspect 16:9 | |
| Order Ref : | D442 |
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