Bus services run from different depots/outstations on different days

[Simon75]

Are there many examples of current/historic bus routes that run from different depots/outstation at weekends than in the week ?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Are there many examples of current/historic bus routes that run from different depots/outstation at weekends than in the week ?

There were countless examples. For instance, Wells depot wasn’t open on Sunday so Weston and Bath did their routes.

More obviously, there were lots of changes on London Transport routes that reflected how routes were operated because of staff and vehicle availability. For instance, route 15 had various times where in addition to West Ham depot, Middle Row would not operate at weekends, and a spell when Poplar depot contributed to the Saturday service. Similarly, a number were operated with OPO deckers on a Sunday rather than RMs e.g. the 159 that was a Brixton depot operation with Routemasters but was run with OPO deckers on Sundays from Thornton Heath. The 36 was Peckham with RMs but New Cross on Sundays with Titans.

 

[SSmith2009]

unsure if it still happens but Centrebus 8 (Loughborough to Melton/Melton to Grantham) was operated by both the Leicester and Grantham depots.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

unsure if it still happens but Centrebus 8 (Loughborough to Melton/Melton to Grantham) was operated by both the Leicester and Grantham depots.

How is it different on different days?

 

[M60lad]

Before Bee Network in Manchester Stagecoach's (Now Metroline) Ashton Depot would operate 219 Ashton-Manchester service during the week but on Sundays it would be operated out of Hyde Road.

I think there might have been a few others as well but not to sure.

 

[IanMac]

I think Hyde Road also ran the 192 on Sundays pre-Bee.

 

[asb]

Back in 2000, route 113 Haverhill to Cambridge, normally an outstation route from Haverhill, was run instation from Cambridge on Sundays. 2 duties, 1 early 1 late.

 

[Old Walter]

Around 20 years ago Stagecoach’s Winchester garage did the Sunday 76/86 which was from Andover on the other days. Also due to shortages in Basingstoke for a time Winchester did the then 13 route (Town Centre - Winchester Road - Kempshott Park) during the week but Basingstoke could cover the weekends. Another one from the late nineties was the Sunday 65, operated by Guildford & West Surrey but the weekday service on the 64/X64 was provided by Stagecoach Winchester.

As above there must be loads of examples but that’s three that come to my mind easily.

Another one that’s just come to me (and a bit of an oddity) was the contract for the Portals firm at Overton. On a Sunday Basingstoke did the Andover run as well meaning an 04:00 start which was much earlier than the duties during the week.

 

[Edirim]

Lothian buses 45, Sunday service from central, other days from marine.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Leeds City Link (formerly Yorkshire Rider Leeds and later First Leeds) had an example in the mid-to-late 90s. The 50 (Seacroft-Leeds-Horsforth) was operated by Bramley garage Sunday to Friday and Kirkstall Road on Saturday.
It became Bramley's 7 days per week when the new Firstgroup standard Olympians were delivered for it.

 

[DunsBus]

Before Arriva punted its Tyne Valley services to Go North East in 2010 the 602 and Arriva's share of the 685 were operated by Hexham on Mondays to Saturdays, and by Jesmond on Sundays as Hexham was closed on that day.

 

[northern506]

I think Go North East service 12 (Winlaton-Newcastle) is operated by Riverside Depot Monday-Saturday interworking with the 10/10A/10B, whereas on Sunday it is operated from Consett interworking with the 6/X-Lines services.

 

[robertclark125]

Until it gave up lochgelly high school contracts in 1994, Moffat and williamson operated one route from cardenden from glenrothes on Monday to Thursday, and St fort depot on a Friday.

In the 90s, on the old route 34 from kirkcaldy to cowdenbeath via cardenden, run by fife Scottish, one diagram was worked by kirkcaldy depot Monday to Friday, and cowdenbeath depot on a Saturday.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Before Arriva punted its Tyne Valley services to Go North East in 2010 the 602 and Arriva's share of the 685 were operated by Hexham on Mondays to Saturdays, and by Jesmond on Sundays as Hexham was closed on that day.

That was often the case with smaller depots and outstations where it wasn't worth opening the doors and/or there were so few drivers that it was easier to come up with rosters that didn't involve Sunday working.

Back in the 1980s, the service up Coquetdale was operated by United's Rothbury outstation every day except Sunday which was done by the parent Morpeth depot. Same happened with the 474 Coldstream service that was a Wooler depot route except for a single journey on a Sunday performed also by Morpeth. Or the Northallerton to Bedale service that after 1981 (I think) saw Northallerton depot closed on a Sunday so it was a Darlington depot operation.

As I mentioned above, it was quite prevalent in London Transport/London Buses days where you had crew operation on other days but OPO on Sundays. Another example of this was the 8 which was RMs from Bow garage but was operated on Sundays with OPO Titans from West Ham.

 

[43055]

Diamond has a route 66 in Tamworth which Monday to Saturday I believe it's run from the Tamworth depot (Diamond WM) but on Sundays it is run from Burton (Diamond EM)

 

[150249]

Not different days but the 6A in Devon has one working in each direction operated by Plymouth with the rest operated by Exeter. I guess you could say that on weekends it's only operated by Exeter.

 

[Whisky Papa]

Back when the Hebden Bridge local minibus services were in Yorkshire Rider / First Calderline hands, they were worked from Todmorden garage - apart from after 1900 on Sunday, when Halifax sent a bus empty up the valley to work them. This was because Todmorden could not cover this work if sticking to the standard rota plan of working only alternate Sundays - we already had two minibus late turns covering the services in Todmorden. However, Tod covered the work on those public holidays when a Sunday service ran.

A couple of works contracts also varied by day: C70 from Sutcliffe's, (a clothing manufacturer in Mytholmroyd) to Todmorden was for some years worked by Halifax Mon - Thu at around 5pm, but by Todmorden garage for the factory's early finish on Friday lunchtime. Meanwhile, the C74 from Volex (Mons Mill) in Todmorden to Halifax was worked by Todmorden, apart from the Friday lunchtime finish which Halifax covered! Morning journeys on both routes were run by Todmorden.

 

[py_megapixel]

Sheffield 83 and 86.
Stagecoach for whatever reason doesn't provide a Sunday service so First runs a very limited one to fill in the gap.
Of course this arrangement means that that Sunday and Mon-Sat services are from different depots - Olive Grove and Ecclesfield respectively.

 

[stadler]

Brighton & Hove run their entire operation out of Brighton (Lewes Road) depot on Christmas Day and Boxing Day every year. This includes routes that would normally only run out of Hove (Conway Street) and Newhaven (Beach Road) and Whitehawk (Whitehawk Road) depots. They do this so that they only have to open up one depot (instead of all four depots) for the very limited service that operates on these two days.

 

[Ballyheigue]

Leeds City Link (formerly Yorkshire Rider Leeds and later First Leeds) had an example in the mid-to-late 90s. The 50 (Seacroft-Leeds-Horsforth) was operated by Bramley garage Sunday to Friday and Kirkstall Road on Saturday.
It became Bramley's 7 days per week when the new Firstgroup standard Olympians were delivered for it.

Was this because Bramley were running the 18 all day on a Saturday as I'm guessing it'll be to do with Bramley having an additional service to run all day Saturday?

 

[YX73OUB]

Diamond Bus East Midlands service 66 operated by Tamworth depot in the week but Burton on a Sunday.

 

[WM Bus]

The Diamond 3 & 52 operate from Redditch depot on a Sunday when Kidderminster is closed. 3, 52 (&52a) are Kidderminster operated Monday to Saturday.

 

[317 forever]

Before Bee Network in Manchester Stagecoach's (Now Metroline) Ashton Depot would operate 219 Ashton-Manchester service during the week but on Sundays it would be operated out of Hyde Road.

I think there might have been a few others as well but not to sure.

Yes. Route 42a was Hyde Road on Monday-Saturday but Stockport on Sunday, and single-deck on Sunday only until a few months before franchising.

 

[Simon75]

Boxing day/New Years days services from Frist Bradford and Leeds Hunslet run from Leeds Bramley

 

[Roger1973]

Outside London, route allocation by depot / garage has tended to be less rigid, but there must be a lot of examples. Going back to the pre-NBC days, companies that had outstations, the outstation crews / drivers often didn't work Sundays so a service that had a part / whole allocation from outstation was worked from the major town end.

In London, as others have said, until the 1980s at least, a lot of routes had Saturday or Sunday allocations that were from another garage, in part at least to balance out weekend work - some suburban routes had a higher vehicle / crew requirement on Saturdays than on Monday to Friday. A few I can think of - Muswell Hill had a part Sunday only allocation on route 102 (I think the 43 didn't run on Sundays or only ran a small part of the route), Upton Park had a Saturday allocation on route 86 (off the route 15 weekday allocation, Middle Row in turn did more 15s on Saturdays, and Poplar were somewhere in the mix with a Saturday allocation on route 23 as the 40 had a heavy weekday peak.) Elmers End had a small part of the Saturday allocation on route 54 (off the route 12 rota) and the whole of the Sunday service which went OPO on Sundays only in the early 70s (Elmers End operating it on Sundays continued after the weekday service went OPO in 1978 - Elmers End's Sunday allocation later moved to route 75 and in turn to Croydon Garage when Elmers End closed.) New Cross had a Saturday RM allocation on route 89 alongside the daily RTs from Bexleyheath, Catford did the whole of route 192 on Sundays.

In the 1990s, when routes started going OPO on Sundays only, other garages would sometimes be involved - New Cross doing Sunday 36s and others have been mentioned - again to balance the amount of Sunday OPO work at each garage. Merton's Sunday (part) allocation on route 22 started like this and hung on for quite a long time after the weekday route went OPO. Similarly, some routes were midi-bus on Sundays (in an era when Sunday shopping didn't exist) and some of these were from a different garage - if I remember right, Plumstead midi buses did the 54 on Sundays for a while, for example.

And with tendered routes, there were some odd arrangements - the 19 had its weekday Routemaster allocation from (what was initially Kentish Bus) base in Battersea, but the OPO Sunday service ran from Kentish Bus Leyton, then later other garages including Grey Green Stamford Hill, Arriva Tottenham and Brixton garages.

Boxing Day (in the 1990s / early 00's) before Sunday service became standard brought some one-off allocations because some garages didn't open for the day - there were a few extremes involving Boxing Day only routes - Ensign / Capital Citybus ran an 86B on boxing day for a few years, and others included Metrobus running the 208 once or twice.

 

[CN12 AWU]

I believe Preston Bus 319 (Skem to Kirkby) is currently operated by Diamond Eccles Depot

Not sure if this is a tempory thing until Preston have enough drivers or a permanent thing

Regulally see bee network uniformed drivers on 319's

 

[Stan Drews]

McGill’s Buses 153 (which is an SPT contract) operates from Inchinnan depot for the Mon-Sat evening timetable, but Johnstone depot provide all the Sunday journeys.

 

[etr221]

A curiosity in London in 1961, during the trolleybus replacement programme, was that trolleybus route 609 (Barnet-Moorgate) was operated by FY/Finchley garage Monday-Saturday, but HT/Highgate on Sundays. HT became a motorbus depot under Stage 10, at the end of April, but FY did not change over until stage 12 in November: between April and November 609 remained as a trolleybus route, but on Sundays was operated by Routemaster motor buses.

 

[Tom B]

South Yorkshire had a huge number of examples of this during the first 20 odd years of deregulation. Typically, SYT / Mainline would operate the Monday to Saturday service, and evening/Sundays going out to tender. Some of these were won by Mainline but others were won by independents including Leon, Wilfreda, Tracky etc.
For a memorable couple of years, there was quite a mess on the 191 to Finningley. It was a Leon route (had been for about 80 years at this point), but the evening tender went to Mainline. The Sunday tender was seemingly separate and that went to Tracky. Mainline then started up a competing service during the daytimes, but only so far as the RAF base.

 

[Roger1973]

South Yorkshire had a huge number of examples of this during the first 20 odd years of deregulation.

Yes - and many other places around the country.

Although some counties used their own route numbers (Surrey tended towards having 5xx numbers even if the route was the same as the daytime commercial 4xx)

A few examples I can think of -

Around Swindon, during the early 00's at least, Thamesdown (broadly) operated the contracted Sunday service on some of Stagecoach's rural routes, and Stagecoach operated the contracted Sunday service on Thamesdown's town routes.

In the early 90s, round Crewe, Potteries and Midland Red North seemed more often than not to operate the contracted bit of each others' routes. And (I can't now remember what route it was) in North Staffordshire there was one route where PMT operated the commercial bits, and there were separate county council contracts (all on the same route number) with three separate other operators for the weekday evening service, the Sunday service, and a few journeys early on Saturday mornings.