With a combination of enthusiasm and professionalism, Ensignbus took over operation of the open-top seafront service 68 in Southend last summer and over 10 weeks attracted record numbers of passengers. As JOHN G. LIDSTONE reports, the company’s initial worries evaporated as crowds flocked for a fun ride in the sunshine.
He may have been harbouring misgivings, but Ross Newman, Ensignbus’s operations director, was smiling as he began operating the open-top seafront service in Southendon-Sea in July. ‘I just love everything about it, except checking the weather every day. I haven’t done that for years.’
Not that he need have worried about the weather in what — in this part of the world — was one of the longest sustained periods of sunshine since the summer of 1976. There only were two rainy days.
Early in 2020, Ensignbus had agreed to take over the summer seafront service that Thomas Drake of Go-Ahead London’s commercial business had restored in 2017, linking Southend Pier and the Kursaal amusement park at its eastern end with Leigh station to the west.
There had been no service along the route for several years before that, and some thought it would never work, but hardy souls on the first run in drizzl…
