Western Greyhound

[james solomon]

RE: Western Greyhound
Evening all,

A bit of real-life news which has been reported over the last couple of days in SouthWest England is that, at 1am on the morning of Monday 13th May a fire broke out at the Summercourt depot of Western Greyhound, Newquay, Cornwall.

The fire, fanned by strong winds, spread rapidly and it took 9 appliances from various parts of Cornwall to put the fire out. The total loss to the company in the fire was 37 buses and it is regrettable that it is understood that vehicles lost included the company's Bristol VR (259, JWV 259W). A provisional list of other losses - posted to a forum - accounts for 22 other vehicles: In summary:

1x Dennis Javelin (DSU107, driver trainer)
2x Optare Solo SR (understood to be from the '11' plate batch)
2x ADL Enviro400 (nos. 401 & 402 from Service 510)
4x Dennis Trident (440, 442, 444, 445)
5x Mercedes Citaro (4 of the 6 Truro P&R batch + f/n 207)
8x Volvo Olympian (450 / 52 / 53 / 67 / 73 / 75 / 98 / 99)

It is understood that a number of operators and, indeed, manufacturers, have offered loan vehicles. In the meantime some routes are running reduced timetables while - at the time of writing this - 8 routes are not running due to insufficient vehicles. Some postings on a forum this evening are suggesting that Stagecoach Gloucestershire are to send a few vehicles to WGL to help out.

The cause is not yet confirmed but the fire brigade this morning (Tuesday) said that initial investigations suggested arson.