Tuesday 18 June 2013

The First Hants & Dorset Enthusiast's Website

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with a little self-publicity. Therefore, this post is dedicated to my First Hampshire & Dorset Enthusiast's website, which has recently been woken up, refurbished and upgraded, with further changes to come in the future.

Firstly, the home page has been refreshed. I've added an introduction, as I realised the last version didn't actually introduce you. Along the bottom are menu columns taking you to various parts of the website, and one box which tells you what is updated most recently.

With recent problems involving our previous forum provider, local enthusiasts and IT guru Matt has created a new forum for First Hants & Dorset enthusiasts. Membership is free and you can sign up yourself, for those interested. With Southampton taking over the management of First Berkshire, we are especially looking for a few Slough, Bracknell or Reading members, so if you fancy joining a friendly forum then please feel free to create yourself an account. The rules and guidelines are available on the forum, but are based on usual enthusiast etiquette.

The fleetlists are all up to date at present across First Hants & Dorset's Hilsea, Hoeford, Empress Road, Weymouth and Yeovil* depots. In the coming weeks, either the photos will be re-uploaded since fotopic's demise, or I will change the layout to include the history of a bus. I'm not sure what to do yet - time will decide. *Note- Yeovil buses still have FHD legals on the side, so we are still counting them as FHD at present.

Finally, a new feature launched with the refurbishment are my FHD route guides. These are perfect for the visiting enthusiast, documenting what routes are operated in the town or city, what buses operate the route, the estimated PVR from enthusiast observations, and good places to take photographs. These are regularly updated with sightings from members of the forum. Southampton is being created offline, and may be later than the other three areas due to the forthcoming service changes.

All comments are welcome, from existing or brand new visitors. I hope enthusiasts find this website helpful. Finally a huge thank you to the members of the FHD forum, who make my life running this website very simple - your efforts are much appreciated.

4 comments:

  1. Decided to join as BigDocFan, my prefered account

    Are you on there bus80d?

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  2. Been on it before, but couldn't access the forum. I will take a look at the new style.

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  3. The first rule of self publicity is to provide a link (or at least the address). ;-)

    www.freewebs.com/firstprovincial/

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  4. I wondered if any members had details of the alledged additional open top vehicles to be used by FHD for the 2021 revised services? From another web group there is a suggestion that one or more Wright Gemini's are being converted to part open top ( to join the existing ALX400s) for use on the new X52. opinions, thoughts etc welcomed.

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