Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire

[cumbria0902150]

RE: Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire
It depends what day you'll be here.
Windermere has 599 (5 open tops Monday-Friday, 6 on weekend, every 20 minutes each direction), 555 (6 Scania's every hour each direction) and 505 (hourly, B10M's but may get a Solo). On a weekend you also have service 508 (2 B10M's on Saturday, 1 B10M and 1 Solo on Sunday, running every 2 hours). There's also Reays 55 service, only 3 return trips per day, 4 on a weekend, with their summer timetable starting (2 buses instead of 1, on a slightly more frequent timetable) early July.
If you go up to Ambleside, you'll also get to see service 516 (B10M or Solo).
As for riding, service 599 is usually a must, being open top. 16393 is still there on loan for now, but will be out of service when 17221 is finally on the road.

I'd also recommend you visit Kendal for photo's, only about 20 minutes on 555 from Windermere. You'd get a B10M on Stagecoach operated 106 journeys, and a Solo or Versa on Apollo 8 Travel journeys (shared council contract, 1 operator from each end of the route), along with B10M's on service 551/552 and 567. May also get a Leyland Olympian on service 530. I'd recommend taking photo's of the town services as well, for reasons which will become apparant in a couple of months. Service 755 is also in Kendal, to Morecambe, and is usually operated by a Volvo Olympian, but could get a Trident on there, and there's also service X35, which is supposed to use council owned Tridents, but they're rather unreliable so could get a refurbished Volvo Olympian or 6/6A branded Trident (from Barrow depot).

Depot's, Kendal depot is in Kendal Town Centre, they will let you stand outside the gate or garage exit door to take photos of the vehicles inside, as long as you don't obstruct vehicles moving in and out the depot. In Ambleside, there's usually something parked up on the coach park, which is the Lakes outstation. A few buses stay out there to start early morning duty in Ambleside or Windermere, to save running to and from Kendal early morning.