A century-old service quietly ended on Saturday.
The last commercially operated bus service in Ely ran for the final time to be replaced by a service supported by the Combined Authority.
The Ortona Bus Company, which was founded in Cambridge after the First World War, started their service 9 to Ely by 1924.
Their services in the area expanded, and they opened a garage in Cambridge Road in 1928.
In 1931, the company was merged with three other companies in East Anglia to form Eastern Counties.
Nationalised in 1948, the company was split in 1985, with the Cambridge and Peterborough areas passing to Cambus.
The bus on last commercial service on route 9 was still operated by Cambus, although Stagecoach bought the company in 1995 and all the vehicles now carry Stagecoach livery and branding.
Through mergers and name changes, the same company has been seen in Ely for more than 100 years.
The route has always had a nine in the number.
From 1931, it became 109 and retained that number until the 1980s.
It was number 19 for a while before going back to the old number that the route retains today.
The number will be retained for the supported service, as will the existing timetable until at least December when a new contract for the service will start.
The original route went through Milton, Landbeach, and Waterbeach on the way to Ely.
In recent years, Stagecoach has introduced more frequent links to Cambridge for those villages, and the '9' now bypasses them.
Although the journey was quicker, the frequency was reduced to two-hourly and, combined with unreliability because of the protracted Milton Road roadworks, resulted in customers finding another way to reach Cambridge.
This led to a further reduction in frequency and the introduction of some Combined Authority supported journeys to try to provide a reasonable level of service.
Let us hope that the new timetable from December will be more frequent than now.
Although the train has four trains an hour to Cambridge from Ely, Cambridge station is not convenient for the city centre and Ely and Littleport stations are not well situated for the new housing.
Have you got a story you want to share with us? Get in touch at: newsdesk@elystandard.co.uk.
Share