People who have known me for quite some time (those who knew me back at Secondary School) will know that for a short while I appeared to have a bit of a fixation with the 307 bus, the route which back then was between Barnstaple and South Molton, occasionally down here to North Molton, occasionally Taunton. Run by First Red Bus (whose busses were painted yellow), this small and strange fixation continued before fizzling out at some point for reasons that I cannot quite recall but for which I’m glad.
Anyway, back a little while ago, can’t recall exactly when, First Red Bus, now First Devon & Cornwall, had a change of their routes, renumbering the 307 bus the number 7, truncating it at South Molton, again occasionally out here to North Molton but not to Taunton. (The 346 service that did the same route but continued onto Tiverton became the 155 and was taken over by Stagecoach Devon.) The 7 recently became the X7 and now zips down the North Devon Link Road direct between Barnstaple and South Molton, occasionally extending to North Molton, and leaving Filleigh without a bus service as Swimbridge and Landkey are now served by either the 5 or 6 (can’t remember which) new service.
The 307, it would seem, is no more.
Except…
Recently, I have noticed a couple of Stagecoach Devon buses with 307 showing on their matrix display (‘blinds’ sounds better but buses don’t have those anymore…) and heading to Bampton. So Taunton still doesn’t have a direct bus service from Barnstaple anymore, but the 307 Bus is once more. The bus doesn’t go directly to South Molton either like the X7 and the 155 do, but trundels its way along the old 307 route through Landkey, Swimbridge and Filleigh, then continues on what I assume to be the old route (along the B3227) to Bampton.
ADDITIONAL: Yesterday (21/03) I was in London doing a Random 15 Tube Challenge and at one stage was on the Picadilly Line for a fair stretch. The train number of this particular service? Yep, that’s right: 307
