National Express "Rapide"

[Temple Meads]

One of the early services that started around dereg was Berry's of Taunton which still runs today (AFAIK) - did they offer a similar level of service?

Berry's Superfast still runs, and they have three routes: https://book.berryscoaches.co.uk/superfast-timetables.html

I've often wondered how sustainable the Superfast is - they withdrew the Tiverton part of the SF1 a couple of years ago, but it seems to have a loyal customer base in the Taunton area.

There is a steward service offering light refreshments, and these have always been very reasonably priced. They must feel the cost of providing the steward is justified in encouraging people to travel, as I doubt it would be making a profit.

 

[GusB]

Could we please just use the term "hosts" and not "hostesses"? I haven't travelled on many Rapide services in my life, but the second member of staff was male in all cases!

Would National express have introduced this type of service if it wasn't for the deregulator of the coach market, which allowed new comers to enter the market and provide this type of service first? It just felt like National Express was always on the back foot with ideas.

I'm not quite sure who you're referrring to as the "deregulator of the coach market", unless you mean Maggie Thatcher. I assume that you mean deregulation of the coach market.

The National Bus Company and Scottish Bus Group were both caught with their pants down when the de-regulation of express services occurred and had to react fairly quickly against the new competition. There was a small Perth-based company that started ruffling a few feathers, although its name escapes me now... I'm sure it didn't come to anything in the end.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Could we please just use the term "hosts" and not "hostesses"? I haven't travelled on many Rapide services in my life, but the second member of staff was male in all cases!

I believe in the early days most of the second members of staff were women; certainly at East Yorkshire in the 1980s they were all female, hence my reference to "hostesses" as that's how they were referred to collectively.

Did the Stagecoach services offer any frills on their London - Scotland routes?

Stagecoach did offer light refreshments on the Scotland to London routes; the sandwiches were famously prepared (and sometimes served!) by (Dame) Ann Gloag herself in the early days.

There is a steward service offering light refreshments, and these have always been very reasonably priced. They must feel the cost of providing the steward is justified in encouraging people to travel, as I doubt it would be making a profit.

Speaking from experience of the railway, the on-board catering does not make a profit, but as you say it is a feature that can help to encourage passengers to travel.

 

[M60lad]

Out of interest what was actually shown on TVs on Rapide services?

Also didn't Ribble's Preston Depot provide Rapide liveried coaches once over? I'm sure that they used to run to London then over to Hastings.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Could we please just use the term "hosts" and not "hostesses"? I haven't travelled on many Rapide services in my life, but the second member of staff was male in all cases!

In the early days, the vast majority were hostesses. After the 1985 M6 coach crash and other accidents, there was a consequent change to motorway speed limits and third lane rules so many services that had been a single driver then needed to be double crewed so hence why hostesses disappeared.

Out of interest what was actually shown on TVs on Rapide services?

Also didn't Ribble's Preston Depot provide Rapide liveried coaches once over? I'm sure that they used to run to London then over to Hastings.

Preston was/is a big depot so it may well have. However, I think most of the North West NX operations were provided by National Travel (West) from Hulme Hall Road in Manchester.

I seem to recall that Ribble's Burnley depot also performed National Express work.

 

[dmncf]

What does the cigarettes symbol mean in the advert below?

Hanes National Express / The History of National Express

This page provides the history of National Express in summary, a well known coach brand synonymous with the UK coaching industry.

www.crg163.com

 

[Lewisham2221]

What does the cigarettes symbol mean in the advert below?

Hanes National Express / The History of National Express

This page provides the history of National Express in summary, a well known coach brand synonymous with the UK coaching industry.

www.crg163.com

Looks like smoking and non-smoking areas

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Looks like smoking and non-smoking areas

Exactly - the days when the first six rows were non-smoking but smoke was no respecter of that “segregation”

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Out of interest what was actually shown on TVs on Rapide services?

I believe it was videos of then-recent movies

 

[dmncf]

Exactly - the days when the first six rows were non-smoking but smoke was no respecter of that “segregation”

On a single deck, was it non-smoking at front, smoking at back?
And on a double deck, was non-smoking downstairs, smoking upstairs like I recall seeing on buses? (Trying to remember a few decades ago!)

 

[philthetube]

For the catering Stewards/Hostesses, they used to get a retainer, say £15-20 a day from the coach operator, then all the sales ontop of that were your own - so occasionally Cash & Carry, mostly Kwik Save, fill the box up and off we'd go. 50p (later 60p) a coffee... Checking tickets, making announcements... aged 16, at weekends not only making a fortune, I had a great time in the early 90s.

I was told by a driver that the reason for the removal of hosts was the introduction of the minimum wage.

Staff being paid wages instead of commission had no incentive to push sales and so it became unviable to offer the service.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

I was told by a driver that the reason for the removal of hosts was the introduction of the minimum wage.

Staff being paid wages instead of commission had no incentive to push sales and so it became unviable to offer the service.

I definitely think that was a large part of it. I was employed on the railway in the 1990s on a similar basis to @185 above; £10 per day retainer plus commission. In a bad week you could average just £1.10 per hour, and even then the catering didn't make money.
The need to pay the minimum/living wage tipped the balance even further.
For an operator like Berry's mentioned above it's worth employing the relatively small number of hosts required as a feature to encourage more trade. However, if you consider how many staff National Express would require to provide any meaningful coverage of services it would become a huge expense, and one that wouldn't be sustainable when other operators are offering £1 tickets etc.

 

[185]

Nonsense that rumour - there were also false claims that it was due to insurers not liking people stood up on the coach... i mean, how do you visit the toilet?!

The reality was quite different, the former NEG Chairman Philip White, an accountant claimed he was trying to 'modernise the brand' (coach & bus week) and in 2000, despite passenger numbers growth being solid, he decided to start financially trimming the business. He claimed the catering service was old fashioned, out of data, people didn't want it - the public backlash afterwards was quite clear he was wrong.

- White, (on £870,000 a year) ordered the operators to fire all the staff. Some were sacked by text message. Initially, one director (Teresa Merriman) claimed to the press that all staff were being re-deployed onto coach stations, which turned out to be untrue. Two years later Megabus appeared and the train operators introduced massively cheaper Advance tickets, NX's share of the passenger market decimated.

White left NEG in 2006 to go work for a car sales and leasing company, Vantage Rentals.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

On a single deck, was it non-smoking at front, smoking at back?
And on a double deck, was non-smoking downstairs, smoking upstairs like I recall seeing on buses? (Trying to remember a few decades ago!)

Not quite because the number of lower saloon seats was quite low. As shown on this from Gobbiner...

National Travel West 113 A113 KBA waits for the call forward at the 1984 UK Coach Rally in Blackpool.

Explore Gobbiner's 13325 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

...only the rear of the top desk was permitted for smoking. On single deckers, it was rear most seats so that the driver wasn't affected by any smoke from passengers.

I was told by a driver that the reason for the removal of hosts was the introduction of the minimum wage.

Staff being paid wages instead of commission had no incentive to push sales and so it became unviable to offer the service.

Minimum wage came in 1999, whilst the era of hosts/hostesses was 1983 to 1998 (according to the NX website). Whilst it might have been the last straw, in reality, most had gone in favour of double crewed vehicles.

I travelled NX a lot in the late 1990s and invariably, it was two man crews on those and the AirLink/Flightlink routes with the exception of Bournemouth, Birmingham, and Yorkshire.

 

[Tetchytyke]

He claimed the catering service was old fashioned, out of data, people didn't want it - the public backlash afterwards was quite clear he was wrong.

Although the subsequent success of Megabus- which started out with ex-HK Olympians with a chemical toilet crowbarred in under the stairs- proves that he probably had a point.

 

[185]

1998 (according to the NX website).

2000. NX couldn't even get that right.

Edit - (at some operators, last one was April 2001. Also told some double driver manned coaches were caught still selling as late as 2003 when NX demanded operators take the servery out)

 

[lincman]

Although the name Rapide is associated with National/Trathens there was an earlier use of the name by Yelloway/National Travel (North West) when in 1974 the Paris Rapide service was introduced.

 

[Titfield]

I worked for Shamrock and Rambler from 1980 onwards and trying to get any meaningful change made was impossible. It had been obvious for the past 7 or 8 years that the business was in decline but it was all about managing the decline rather than trying new ideas. Rail fares from Bmth to London were comparatively high, there was a huge market out there but it was only with the appearance of Trathens and British Coachways that finally NExp reacted and rolled out higher frequencies and lower fares.

 

[WibbleWobble]

Also didn't Ribble's Preston Depot provide Rapide liveried coaches once over? I'm sure that they used to run to London then over to Hastings.

Yes - they certainly ran the Blackpool to London service (570 I think?)

 

[Lee Bradfield]

I remember back in 1983-84ish seeing the Armstrong Galley Clipper which was a much more colourful competitor to the Rapide on the Newcastle to London route, totally off topic I know.

 

[Djgr]

As immortalised in the famous song by The Divine Comedy:

On the National Express there's a jolly hostess
Selling crisps and tea
She'll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
For a sky-high fee...

 

[Stan Drews]

The Scottish Citylink equivalent of the Rapide concept was ‘Cordon Bleu’.

 

[Man of Kent]

I worked for Shamrock and Rambler from 1980 onwards and trying to get any meaningful change made was impossible. It had been obvious for the past 7 or 8 years that the business was in decline but it was all about managing the decline rather than trying new ideas. Rail fares from Bmth to London were comparatively high, there was a huge market out there but it was only with the appearance of Trathens and British Coachways that finally NExp reacted and rolled out higher frequencies and lower fares.

Prior to dereg on 6 October 1980 - the date on which both Trathens and British Coachways started running - NatEx's hands were tied by the need to obtain licences that controlled timetables, capacities and fares. A frequent objector to any NatEx proposal was British Rail - some cases are described in the contemporary trade press - so it was, as @Titfield describes, essentially managed decline to that point. Dereg freed NatEx as much as it did the challengers, though as is usual in these circumstances, the incumbent starts from the point of traditional working practices that make innovation less easy to achieve than for a new start up. That NatEx survived and thrived suggests that it got there in the end - Berrys is about the only other operator in England that survives from that pioneering era.

 

[Titfield]

Prior to dereg on 6 October 1980 - the date on which both Trathens and British Coachways started running - NatEx's hands were tied by the need to obtain licences that controlled timetables, capacities and fares. A frequent objector to any NatEx proposal was British Rail - some cases are described in the contemporary trade press - so it was, as @Titfield describes, essentially managed decline to that point. Dereg freed NatEx as much as it did the challengers, though as is usual in these circumstances, the incumbent starts from the point of traditional working practices that make innovation less easy to achieve than for a new start up. That NatEx survived and thrived suggests that it got there in the end - Berrys is about the only other operator in England that survives from that pioneering era.

Yes prior to deregulation express services were all licensed by the Traffic Commissioners. British Rail and other operators objected to virtually any changes proposed. Tom MacLachlan in his excellent book Grey Green and Contemporaries Vol 2 1961 to the arriva years describes the stratagems used to get changes approved until by the 1970s the number of objectors had declined and the Traffic Commissioners were far more inclined to approve changes simply reflecting that changes were needed to keep the services running rather than simply ceasing to operate.

As is recounted in the book about Stagecoach by Christian Wolmar, Brian Souter was shocked at the overheads that NBC subsidiaries were carrying. In part these were caused by a failure to downsize the administrative and supervisory sides of the business as fleet size and passenger numbers fell from the late 1960s onwards. There was also a tradition of doing everything inhouse (engine and gearbox rebuilds for example) rather than using an external supplier. IIRC Brian Souter reckoned that an NBC reconditioned engine cost twice what it was to buy in from an external supplier. IIRC after being split off and being sold nearly all the NBC engineering subsidiaries ceased to trade.

 

[185]

Although the subsequent success of Megabus- which started out with ex-HK Olympians with a chemical toilet crowbarred in under the stairs- proves that he probably had a point.

The belief of many of us at NX operators regarding Megabus was that passengers would probably be just as happy to sit on a decrepit F-reg Leyland Olympian after management destroyed the well respected NX Rapide brand and turned it into the same class of travel as the big red number 13 to Golders Green.

Used to be 4 hours 20 Liverpool London with Stoke MK & GG. Lord only knows how long nowadays, with 45 in a service station.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Used to be 4 hours 20 Liverpool London with Stoke MK & GG. Lord only knows how long nowadays, with 45 in a service station.

Between 6 hours 5 and 7 hours 45 according to bustimes, depending on route. Certainly not Rapide!!

 

[185]

Between 6 hours 5 and 7 hours 45 according to bustimes, depending on route. Certainly not Rapide!!

In 1998, with the state of our railways, it was not unusual to see business travellers with laptops bringing their office with them as the railways were so bad... our 4h20 wasn't much slower than the railway after all their speed restrictions & works.

In about 1998 I recall a certain owner of a certain coach operator became the laughing stock for using a train from Runcorn to London - only to get stuck in the midlands and miss his meeting... had silly Selly jumped on the 550 picking up from outside his own depot, he would have made it.

 

[Statto]

Between 6 hours 5 and 7 hours 45 according to bustimes, depending on route. Certainly not Rapide!!

All coaches now call at Birmingham for 15 - 20 minutes too, although there's no timed refreshment break at Motorway Services on route

In 1998, with the state of our railways, it was not unusual to see business travellers with laptops bringing their office with them as the railways were so bad... our 4h20 wasn't much slower than the railway after all their speed restrictions & works.

In about 1998 I recall a certain owner of a certain coach operator became the laughing stock for using a train from Runcorn to London - only to get stuck in the midlands and miss his meeting... had silly Selly jumped on the 550 picking up from outside his own depot, he would have made it.

Bet he felt like a right idiot after that, & yeah it was as cost & time affective catching the coach as it was the trains in the 90s, the trains were 2 hours 45 minutes London - Liverpool back then, with the coach at just over 4 hours, the trains now take 2 hours 15, & coaches take over 6 hours

 

[Titfield]

The belief of many of us at NX operators regarding Megabus was that passengers would probably be just as happy to sit on a decrepit F-reg Leyland Olympian after management destroyed the well respected NX Rapide brand and turned it into the same class of travel as the big red number 13 to Golders Green.

Used to be 4 hours 20 Liverpool London with Stoke MK & GG. Lord only knows how long nowadays, with 45 in a service station.

The success of low cost airlines has proven that a very large number of customers put price above all other considerations.

The introduction of advance fares by the Train Operating Companies must have taken away quite a lot of NExp customers.

 

[ian1944]

One of the "benefits" of having a catering crew member, male or female, was the driver advertising the service over the PA. I recall one painful trip from Blackburn to London where "Fluff" ("I call her that because she gets right up my nose") was announced periodically as about to circulate. It stopped being even faintly amusing from the second time on, but the gent concerned persisted to the end.