Scania Suffolk Review

Scania Suffolk - Superb or Subpar? - Trip 29th March 2021, Published - 4th April 2021

When people think of going for a transport day out in Suffolk, most people will go to Ipswich, Southwold or Lowestoft and ride Ipswich Buses, First Eastern Counties and Border Bus to name but a few operators. But what about West Suffolk? There's not an awful lot there to intrigue people is there? For the enthusiasts, a lot of Suffolk operators, as you can probably guess by the title, use Scania bodied/chassis vehicles as well as fairly modern vehicles such as Enviro 200s, Wrightbus bodied Eclipses and MCV bodied Evoras on Volvo's B7/8RLE & Wrightbus bodied B9TLs. However, my main criticism with Suffolk, in general, is the lack of integration between companies that neighboring counties Essex and Hertfordshire have with their Saver and Intalink tickets respectively and the fares, as I will reveal later on, are also on the steep side. Patronage was very low, regardless of it being the first day post-lockdown, and add the fact that many services finish ridiculously early and fairly sized towns such as Sudbury DO NOT have a Sunday Service, you can see why people suggest how "Anti-Bus" Suffolk County Council are. In this review I will be looking at Coach Services of Thetford and Go Ahead's Chambers operations.

Coach Services

After travelling up with Greater Anglia from Chelmsford to Bury St Edmunds on an Advance Single - £5.25, BARGAIN!!! - I arrived into the rather depressing Bus Station, which is in desperate need of a cleanup, to find an array of buses on stand. An 04 Reg Omnicity still with its dot matrix blind in the Orange of Mulleys Motorways, Green and White Enviro 200s with Stephensons and The unmistakable green site of a Stagecoach Cambridge N230 Enviro 400. Then, at around 08:50, with about five minutes until departure, the rather bland looking, plain-white livery of Coach Services was in sight on ex Nottingham City Transport Scania Omnidekka YT09 YHK. One thing I will definitely praise Coach Services for is the friendliness and approachability of the majority of their drivers that were working that day. However, spending nearly five minutes having to look for the £6.50 day ticket that is advertised heavily under the "Fares and Tickets" subpage on the website is not a good look at all. Whilst on the subject of ticketing, what does frustrate me a lot with Coach is the fact that this £6.50 day ticket only allows you unlimited travel along the 84/86 corridor between Thetford and Bury and on the 83 town service. However, they also operate services to Kings Lynn from Thetford as well as Brandon for Mildenhall. Surely a day ticket for the entire network would open up Kings Lynn to passengers between Bury and Thetford as well as Mildenhall and Thetford in an area already sparsely served by the train. Within an hour and a half I had ridden the aforementioned NCT Omnidekka, former Stagecoach London Omnicity LX59 CPK and another of their NCT Omnidekkas - YT09 YHN - before having a quick half hour brew break in Thetford. Thetford's Bus "Interchange" is much nicer than Bury's drab Bus Station, cleaner, brighter and had toilets that weren't "CLOSED DUE TO COVID". At 10:45, I boarded another ex Stagecoach Scania in LX59 CPU back to Bury before managing to nab a ride up to the village of Barnham on Wright Solar bodied Scania K230UB YN57 FZL - a demonstrator that had interestingly been on loan with Brighton & Hove Buses at one point. Barnham is a bit of a nothing village, two bus stops, not much to say about it but a ten minute wait for my final Coach Services bus back to Bury. This was in the form of their sole B9TL - CS63 BUS.

So what is my verdict on Coach Services? For me, they're not a bad little company. Friendly staff, a mid-life fleet, handy services. However a number of criticisms. Fares aren't that cheap (however consider the fact they are a small independent), there is no ticket integration and, something I'm yet to mention, the cleanliness of their vehicles is questionable. On one of the Omnicities I found tickets from two days before found on the floor! That is not a good advert for cleanliness when people's confidence in buses is low and is especially bad when you've not run a bus in two days! Would I ride Coach Services again? It's difficult to say I could find a use for them again, especially without any sort of integrated ticketing system such as network day ticket, however I do think they are a good little company and are still, in my eyes, one of the better companies that serve Bury St Edmunds.

Chambers

I had decided, to save some cash, to get back to Chelmsford via Chambers and Hedingham's integrated network. Both are a part of Go Ahead's "Go East Anglia" division with Colchester forming a handy interchange to access both. The "Go Anywhere" Day Ticket provides easy access between both networks at the price of £8.50 for adults, £7.30 for 16-19s, £6.30 for children and £12.50 for a family ticket (or £8, £7, £6 & £12 respectively via the East Anglia Buses App). However, whilst Coach Services have a mix of new and second hand vehicles, Chambers and Hedingham have not received a brand new bus in either of their fleets since the Go Ahead buyouts in 2012 - instead putting all of their investment 'eggs' into their Konect Bus operations in Norfolk. A mix of refurbished vehicles transferred from within the Go Ahead Empire from Konect Bus, Carousel & Go Ahead London alongside vehicles new to the firm as an independent (Hedingham only!) make up the fleet - a typical trend from the big boys in Essex and Suffolk. Chambers' fleet is solely Scania with Omnidekkas and Optare Olympuses from London's Metrobus operations and Omnilinks from the now defunct Anglian Bus operations. I rode route 753 out of Bury with Olympus 871 (Ex Metrobus 878) taking me to the village of Acton for a quick stop off to catch Omnidekka 802 (Ex Metrobus 902) to the village of Lavenham. I've been to Lavenham a few times and is lovely every time I go there. Beautiful cottages, quite peaceful and is also convenient as it has public toilets - an essential on a day out! Twenty minutes later, Omnilink 453 took me to the town of Sudbury where I had about forty-five minutes to wait. The little bus station, if you can really call it one, in the Town Centre is not the best place to wait for forty-five minutes so a trek round the Town Centre and to the train station, a victim to the Beeching Cuts in the 1960s, killed some time until it was time to make my next move. Omnidekka 805 (ex Metrobus 905) was chosen over Olympus 870 (Ex Metrobus 877) to take me to Colchester via twice a day Route 84 via the villages of Leavenheath and Nayland. Route 84 used to run on a frequent basis but this was ditched for a faster, more direct service cutting the villages of Stoke-By-Nayland and Assington off from the route. Was it a wise decision though? Only Chambers know.

This was now my Chambers odyssey complete so what was my verdict? One thing to note was the grumpy nature of the majority of the Chambers drivers experienced that day. Trying to make conversation, saying thank you, asking about frequencies were all met with the same grunt of someone who clearly did not want to be at work. Not a very good impression. Cleanliness was not great, especially in these Covid Times, however they did provide sanitizer points on some of their buses (as did Hedingham - but this report is not about them) and it would be nice if they were provided on all of their buses. Chambers are also very convenient with the possibility of going between Bury St Edmunds and Chelmsford via both networks at a reasonable price. Finally, while it is a shame there has been no investment by Go Ahead on new vehicles for their Chambers (and Hedingham) operations, the fact they still rely on Scanias show their superiority (a few drivers I know who work for Hedingham rate their Omnidekkas highly!). They have a good product but there is still much that could be improved - especially driver attitudes!!!