Service Buses on Coach Workings

[BULLSAREMAGIC]

Might be wrong but I thought confessional fare can be used on redarrow or atleast a few years back to Nottingham but not from Nottingham as derbyshire sees it as a bus service and Nottinghamshire sees it as a coach service but may be wrong (NOTE I may also got it the wrong way around as in derbyshire sees it as coach, Nottingham as bus im not 100% sure)

Concessions not valid on Red Arrow for some time, Neither Notts or Derbys county council support it

 

[CMBS]

West Coast Motors services 23/423 is generally operated using coaches however E200's commonly run on the service and there have also been occasional cases of Solo SR's on the service.

 

[RJ]

I once drove an emergency rail replacement service from Finsbury Park to Peterborough in a London spec Citaro. To be fair it was only summoned to run as far as Hitchin, but it turns out the onward trips from Hitchin to St Neots, St Neots to Huntingdon and Huntingdon to Peterborough was all the same bus which was a no show. There was a stop for fuel a passenger comfort break on the A1 near Biggleswade! Definitely a run for a coach but sometimes it's hard to get anything at all to cover with no notice, especially in the middle of the night.

 

[pjnathanail]

I once drove an emergency rail replacement service from Finsbury Park to Peterborough in a London spec Citaro. To be fair it was only summoned to run as far as Hitchin, but it turns out the onward trips from Hitchin to St Neots, St Neots to Huntingdon and Huntingdon to Peterborough was all the same bus which was a no show. There was a stop for fuel a passenger comfort break on the A1 near Biggleswade! Definitely a run for a coach but sometimes it's hard to get anything at all to cover with no notice, especially in the middle of the night.

In a similar vein, many years ago, I drove an Optare Solo from Nottingham to Ely, calling Grantham, Peterborough. It was one of those sunny Saturdays where everything had gone wrong crewing wise and Control were taking anything with seats and wheels. Far too long to spend on a Solo really, but it did the job and it was that or nothing!

 

[The exile]

Not quite the same thing but many years ago, I was involved in a journey where a coach was hired in Germany to bring a group to the UK. What arrived was most definitely a bus - complete with route number and destination blind. Bus seats - though with seatbelts - stop buttons and all! Various letters of complaint were written afterwards.

 

[Eyersey468]

On at least one occasion Skills have used their 17 plate decker on a National Express service. It is coach seated and capable of 100k

That's interesting as NX won't let us use deckers on our runs even as a shuttle service to Leeds

 

[Poiuytre]

I believe that Stagecoach Soith West have used deckers on their Falcon service before.

I also recall seeing a photo of a Stagecoach SW Scania E400 on a Megabus service (to Manchester I think?) I can't remember the full details but it was over 10 years ago

 

[aswilliamsuk]

In the early days of Megabus, I had booked a morning coach back from London to West Yorkshire - amazingly a bus seated Volvo Olympian/Alexander from Chesterfield's allocation turned up. It wasn't the most comfortable journey, I can tell you...

 

[SSmith2009]

I know of at least one occasion when First Leicester ran the Aircoach services down to Birmingham Airport one of the Streetdeck Electroliners was used due to a shortage of the minibus/breadvans normally used.

 

[LiviCrazy]

Back when First Bus ran the Glasgow Express Services from Bathgate and Livingston, they had a number of wheelchair accessible coaches for the routes (Plaxtons I think).

However, First seemed to have no bus allocation system, pretty much whatever came first. So we’d end up with Volvo Olympians and Omnidekkas on the motorway while the coaches did the busier town services. The Omnidekkas did great on the motorways, the Olympians not so much.

 

[Ribbleman]

Were they weekend runs to the likes of Blackpool and Morecambe? Most of LCT's double deckers had "Glasgow" available on the headboard scrolls for the same job. I presume the Morecambe council buses which preceded them had the same

I doubt it. Morecambe & Heysham Corporation’s most modern double deckers were Leyland PD2s from 1962. They never bought a rear engined double decker.

 

[JD2168]

I have known occasions when Stagecoach Yorkshire put a YN59 Enviro 400 on a Megabus working

 

[Temple Meads]

I believe that Stagecoach Soith West have used deckers on their Falcon service before.

I also recall seeing a photo of a Stagecoach SW Scania E400 on a Megabus service (to Manchester I think?) I can't remember the full details but it was over 10 years ago

They haven't used deckers, but there was a short period of 26-series E200 MMCs on the service due to a shortage of coaches.