Coastal Coaches lose their final public bus services + impact on Rotala

[LancasterRed]

Bus Services - Coastal Coaches | Coastal Coaches of Warton

www.coastalcoaches.co.uk

From Monday 30th May 2022, Coastal Coaches will no longer operate Service 76 or 78.
Both services will be operated by Preston Bus in partnership with Lancashire County Council.
Services will continue to operate on an hourly frequency with some late evening services extended to terminate at Lytham Square.
In addition, a 2 hourly Sunday service is being introduced for Service 78, which will operate between Wesham and Lytham.
For more information, please contact Preston Bus using one of the below methods:
Telephone: 01772 253 671 (0900-1700 Mon-Fri)
Email: customer.care@prestonbus.co.uk
We would like to put on record our thanks to all our customers for their patronage over the years.

No real surprise, but will be interesting to see where this goes. I imagine deckers will be pushed onto the 31, 43, 44 and 100 but can Rotala handle the extra services? The last services they inherited from Coastal Coaches quickly ended up with Blackpool Transport.

 

[AlastairFraser]

It's an odd choice for Preston Bus to pick these up, given they don't operate anywhere near recently. Although Coastal Coaches seem to make a decent buck off Northern at the weekends with rail replacement coaches.

I think what will happen is PB stick some of their Solos from the less frequent routes on these (the 88 and 49 more likely than the 100 I think, that's going to be a lot of deckers to cover the 100's frequency. I agree about the 43/44 being potential candidates for swapping though.

Would Stagecoach not consider taking on the services or do they have too deep driver problems for that? I wonder if PB will consider registering a commercial Lytham to Preston semi express along the Riversway to cover the dead running, at least on one route or would it piss off Stagecoach too much?

 

[markymark2000]

It's an odd choice for Preston Bus to pick these up, given they don't operate anywhere near recently. Although Coastal Coaches seem to make a decent buck off Northern at the weekends with rail replacement coaches.

I think what will happen is PB stick some of their Solos from the less frequent routes on these (the 88 and 49 more likely than the 100 I think, that's going to be a lot of deckers to cover the 100's frequency. I agree about the 43/44 being potential candidates for swapping though.

Would Stagecoach not consider taking on the services or do they have too deep driver problems for that? I wonder if PB will consider registering a commercial Lytham to Preston semi express along the Riversway to cover the dead running, at least on one route or would it piss off Stagecoach too much?

Stagecoach Preston are struggling like heck already, I can't see them taking on anything else.


Regarding dead mileage, it'd be good to see such a route brought up but I can't see it. Like they have the 3 Skem buses but they don't run dead mileage trips for them. I don't think Rotala (nor most firms) like that sort of thing anymore.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Stagecoach Preston are struggling like heck already, I can't see them taking on anything else.


Regarding dead mileage, it'd be good to see such a route brought up but I can't see it. Like they have the 3 Skem buses but they don't run dead mileage trips for them. I don't think Rotala (nor most firms) like that sort of thing anymore.

That is strange for Preston Bus (PB) (or shall I say "Diamond NW" ) because Skem to Preston is a fair bit of distance, do they have an outstation instead? Have PB approached Coastal Coaches to use their depot as an outstation in the area?
I suspected Stagecoach Merseyside and South Lancs (SMCL) were struggling, but it's still weird to see them passing up an opportunity.

 

[markymark2000]

That is strange for PB (or shall I say "Diamond NW" ) because Skem to Preston is a fair bit of distance, do they have an outstation instead? Have PB approached Coastal Coaches to use their depot as an outstation in the area?
I suspected SMCL were struggling, but it's still weird to see them passing up an opportunity.

The 312/313 are run by buses running dead from Preston each day. I suspect the 76/78 will do the same. That is how Preston Bus ran things when they had all of their random Lancs Council tenders before Transdev won them.

Stagecoach are already on reduced timetables and still struggling it seems. Really poor situation with Stagecoach MCSL at the minute. It's not worth taking on more work. 6 buses more work would kill them off. Unless they could get drivers TUPEd over but I can't see that happening.

 

[Simon75]

Stagecoach Preston are struggling like heck already, I can't see them taking on anything else.


Regarding dead mileage, it'd be good to see such a route brought up but I can't see it. Like they have the 3 Skem buses but they don't run dead mileage trips for them. I don't think Rotala (nor most firms) like that sort of thing anymore.

They could have an outstation around Blackpool area ?

 

[AlastairFraser]

The 312/313 are ran by buses running dead from Preston each day. I suspect the 76/78 will do the same. That is how Preston Bus ran things when they had all of their random Lancs Council tenders before Transdev won them.

Stagecoach are already on reduced timetables and still struggling it seems. Really poor situation with Stagecoach MCSL at the minute. It's not worth taking on more work. 6 buses more work would kill them off. Unless they could get drivers TUPEd over but I can't see that happening.

That sounds a little crazy with the current price of fuel, but fair enough.
As for Stagecoach's troubles, the problems are hardly unknown at the moment, I thought they'd relish the opportunity to TUPE some drivers over.

 

[LancasterRed]

You would imagine that Coastal Coaches no longer need their Solos. I am aware quite a number of Preston Buses are at the end of their life so could see in the short term the Solos used on the 76, 78 and formerly 77 move to Preston Bus.

Or at the very least, you imagine some significant change will happen. Coastal Coaches' performance was completely unacceptable. However, Rotala lost a lot of subsidised services and the performance on them was barely better. Either way someone's getting inconvenienced and the prospects of Lancashire bus services is interesting.

 

[markymark2000]

You would imagine that Coastal Coaches no longer need their Solos. I am aware quite a number of Preston Buses are at the end of their life so could see in the short term the Solos used on the 76, 78 and formerly 77 move to Preston Bus.

Or at the very least, you imagine some significant change will happen. Coastal Coaches' performance was completely unacceptable. However, Rotala lost a lot of subsidised services and the performance on them was barely better. Either way someone's getting inconvenienced and the prospects of Lancashire bus services is interesting.

What is Coastal Coaches performance? Which bits of it were poor?

 

[LancasterRed]

What is Coastal Coaches performance? Which bits of it were poor?

The 77 had notoriously bad reliability and the ride quality at best was...scary. It's very easy to fall out of your seat on Coastal Coaches buses.

From the limited use I've had on other services the services tend to turn up when they can rather than sticking to a timetable, although I understand it is still not as bad as the services that were lost to Preston Bus the first time

 

[peterblue]

I wasn't fond of them initially, especially when they had a policy forbidding any food/drink on board, but recently Coastal Coaches were a bit better and did show some improvement.

Time will tell as to whether Rotala will do any better.