Notts+Derby buses

[harry42]

Hello,

I live in Nottingham, and I know for a fact there is a Notts+Derby bus company. On there w bsite, it says they operate only 5 or 6 services however with some lengthy research they operate over 40!

Does anybody know where I can find a FULL route list of notts+derby buses?

Also, are they owned by the Wellglade Group? Any information anyone knows, would be very appreciated!

 

[bb21]

Yes, Notts+Derby are a Wellglade subsidiary.

 

[overthewater]

Best bet would be traveline, which should list all the routes.

 

[ilkestonian]

Hello,

I live in Nottingham, and I know for a fact there is a Notts+Derby bus company...

Also, are they owned by the Wellglade Group? Any information anyone knows, would be very appreciated!

Call me cynical, but I have always wondered if the reason behind the separate company is so that Trent Barton can cascade the older vehicles to Notts & Derby, run some services through this company, and by "losing" the older stuff can claim to have one of the youngest fleets of any operator...

 

[overthewater]

Call me cynical, but I have always wondered if the reason behind the separate company is so that Trent Barton can cascade the older vehicles to Notts & Derby, run some services through this company, and by "losing" the older stuff can claim to have one of the youngest fleets of any operator...

N+D operates at a lower base cost,

 

[ilkestonian]

N+D operates at a lower base cost,

Giving them options to quote for work which TB would find uneconomic?

 

[martinsh]

try www.carlberry.co.uk for a full route list (may be out of date)

 

[overthewater]

Giving them options to quote for work which TB would find uneconomic?

Bingo, most of N+D work is contracts. i doubt any of it is commercial, its a very clear way of doing business.

 

[pjnathanail]

Bingo, most of N+D work is contracts. i doubt any of it is commercial, its a very clear way of doing business.

Most is contracted for schools, derby unibus or derbyshire county council

They do have at least one commercial service, the x17, which could really be a tb one called The borrow wash flyer like the Spondon flyer but at the moment it is just x17

http://www.derbysbus.info/times/timetables/X17N_100601.pdf

 

[ilkestonian]

They do have at least one commercial service, the x17, which could really be a tb one called The borrow wash flyer like the Spondon flyer but at the moment it is just x17

http://www.derbysbus.info/times/timetables/X17N_100601.pdf

And at least one in Ilkeston

http://www.travelineeastmidlands.co.uk/em/TTB/EFA03__0000053b_TP.pdf

 

[harry42]

Thanks everyone,

I got them all of traveline, but they don't list all of the unibus services or all of the school bus services or eventlink etc in Nottingham.

Will have a look at Carlberry, thanks.

 

[trentside]

Most is contracted for schools, derby unibus or derbyshire county council

They do have at least one commercial service, the x17, which could really be a tb one called The borrow wash flyer like the Spondon flyer but at the moment it is just x17

http://www.derbysbus.info/times/timetables/X17N_100601.pdf

Didn't it spend a period under trentbarton operation branded as the Borrowash Flyer? Sure I remember a Vario in that livery!

 

[harry42]

Most is contracted for schools, derby unibus or derbyshire county council

They do have at least one commercial service, the x17, which could really be a tb one called The borrow wash flyer like the Spondon flyer but at the moment it is just x17

http://www.derbysbus.info/times/timetables/X17N_100601.pdf

They save money by not branding...

 

[MCR247]

Yes, evidently it did

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43911105@N00/7137300605/

 

[trentside]

Good, I wasn't imagining things - couldn't get the 'new' Flickr to find anything though.

I've got to say, that was a pretty terrible colour scheme.

 

[34D]

When did Notts & Derby start to exist though?

 

[MCR247]

Good, I wasn't imagining things - couldn't get the 'new' Flickr to find anything though.

I've got to say, that was a pretty terrible colour scheme.

Blue writing on a red background wasn't a good idea

 

[WillPS]

Notts & Derby is what became of the short lived Blue Apple: http://www.6lda28.com/info.html

Trent & Barton historically ran contract services with Trent and/or Barton branding. From about 1999 onwards, Trent & Barton stopped competing for this work and allowed the newly formed Notts & Derby to pick it up.

 

[34D]

Thanks willps, most informative.

 

[martinsh]

Notts & Derby actually started in 1913 ! They were a tramway company running from Nottingham to Ripley. Trolleybuses replaced trams in 1932, and ran until 1958, after which buses were run. They were in the same ownership as local bus operator Midland General, and sometime in the 1960s, Notts & Derby were absorbed by their parent. Midland General themselves were taken over by Trent in 1972.

The "new" Notts & Derby is simply the old company revived. Though it got an operators licence in 1997, it doesn't seem to have run any vehicles until 2001. As already noted, it started off using the fleet name Blue Apple.

Interestingly the Trent Barton headquarters in Langley Mill is the original Notts & Derby tram depot !

 

[bb21]

Call me cynical

Not quite. Trentbarton publicly acknowledges that older vehicles are cascaded to Notts+Derby so that they can charge lower fares due to lower operating costs and that passengers on their main network can be better served by newer buses.

 

[ashworth]

Notts & Derby actually started in 1913 ! They were a tramway company running from Nottingham to Ripley. Trolleybuses replaced trams in 1932, and ran until 1958, after which buses were run. They were in the same ownership as local bus operator Midland General, and sometime in the 1960s, Notts & Derby were absorbed by their parent. Midland General themselves were taken over by Trent in 1972.

Well remember Midland General from my school and teenage days, mainly in the Hucknall area. It always seemed a good company and appeared much more interesting to me in those days than Trent and always had very friendly staff.
I used the B8 (now TrentBarton 141) regularly to and from school. It was a slightly more regular service then than it is now with more evening services, a Sunday service and half hourly at peak times and on Saturday afternoons.

Also in the Hucknall area I remember the C8 (hourly Hucknall to Ilkeston) and C9 (hourly to Alfreton and covering frequent Hucknall local services). Now apart from the Trent Barton Amberline service (no evening or Sunday services) there are no services from Hucknall to neighbouring Derbyshire towns. I remember Midland General running a huge number of frequent services along the Notts/Derbys border serving Eastwood, Heanor, Ilkeston, Alfreton, Ripley and even out to Mansfield, Chesterfield and Matlock. They also ran frequent services into Nottingham from many of these towns.

 

[CatfordCat]

The idea of a 'low cost unit' within a bus company isn't all that unusual, there was quite a spate of it in the years following deregulation, often using older buses and in many cases having drivers on separate terms and conditions.

It's a bit less common now, as the number of potential low cost competitors has dwindled for a variety of reasons.

The first one that springs to mind (other than N&D) is Thamesdown (Swindon) who have a separate contract fleet (mainly yellow ex Lothian Olympians now - it used to be a retirement home for Bournemouth Fleetlines)

Part of the rationale is / was along the lines of "someone is going to win these tenders using old buses, we'd prefer it to be us than someone else who might then use those buses to compete with us on our main routes at times between those contracts."

 

[Wyvern]

I rode the trolley bus from Ripley to Nottingham once just to say I had done it.

The trams (the Ripley Rattler, properly the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Company) that preceded it were notorious. D.H.Lawrence wrote: "There is in the North a single-line system of tramcars which boldly leaves the county town and plunges off into the black, industrial countryside . . . . . This, the most dangerous tram-service in England, as the authorities themselves declare, with pride, is entirely conducted by girls, and driven by rash young men, or else by invalids who creep forward in terror."

Mind you, my Mum told me of when she used to catch the Leicester to Humberstone (I thinK) tram of a night she used to have to hang on for dear life. hock:

 

[edwin_m]

The most well known "low cost unit" must surely be Stagecoach's Magic Bus, which has been used in four or five cities over the years and still operates in Manchester, and according to Wikipedia in Rotherham too.

Anyone remember the Nottingham Omnibus Co who briefly appeared in about 1990 using beaten-up Bristol VRs, and quite quickly upped sticks and had another go somewhere else?

 

[Mugby]

Part of the rationale is / was along the lines of "someone is going to win these tenders using old buses, we'd prefer it to be us than someone else who might then use those buses to compete with us on our main routes at times between those contracts."

And of course a perfect example of that in Derby some years ago was Camms of Nottingham who sent over a dozen vehicles every day and inbetween school times used them to compete with Trent and Derby CT.

Perhaps Wellglade had that still very much in mind when they set up N&D.

 

[WillPS]

The "new" Notts & Derby is simply the old company revived. Though it got an operators licence in 1997, it doesn't seem to have run any vehicles until 2001. As already noted, it started off using the fleet name Blue Apple.

Blue Apple was a different company, outside of the Wellglade group; but with an agreement that Wellglade would lease and maintain their vehicles (from memory a handful of Olympians (still with the Wellglade group!), a massive amount of National Mk1s and a handful of Dennis Lances). I think they used a Trent depot which hadn't been in use for a few years.

When the Blue Apple company went bust, Wellglade seized the opportunity to run the services themselves (in much the same way they seized the opportunity to run a few bits of Premiere's empire) - after all, they had the fleet sitting there ready to go.

Since then Notts & Derby have largely concentrated back to Derbyshire; I'm not sure they have any services that run in to Nottingham any more...

 

[Heinz57]

And at least one in Ilkeston

http://www.travelineeastmidlands.co.uk/em/TTB/EFA03__0000053b_TP.pdf

Not forgeting the 12 which I think visits Cotmanhay. They also run what was Felix's share of the Black Cat (the 11) and of the Ilkeston Flyer.

I belive on paper the latter two are Midland General. But are operated by N+D Buses, and, in addidtion to the ex-Felix drivers, some N+D drivers all wearing N+D uniform