Trivia: Services which are run by one depot, but could be run by more

[Simon75]

Which services that are run just by one depot but could be done by more than one?

For example, First Essex:
X10 Basildon to Stansted via Chelmsford and 100 Chelmsford to Basildon are run by Basildon depot, but could run by both Chelmsford and Basildon.
What other examples are there?

 

[MasterSpenny]

Go-Ahead London: Night route N89 is ran from New Cross with hybrids from day routes. It can be ran at a push from Bexleyheath as well as New Cross, with electric buses (until hybrid buses are sourced for a day route)

 

[Flange Squeal]

Stagecoach South’s 20 between Aldershot and Guildford is operated by Aldershot depot, however Stagecoach have two depots at the Guildford end (the former Arriva Leas Road in the town centre and Stagecoach’s original Peasmarsh site). Guildford (Peasmarsh) did actually have a few workings on the route until fairly recently.

Their 503 and 523 link Guildford town centre with local villages south of the town, with both routes also passing by Peasmarsh depot. You’d therefore assume they would be operated by the Leas Road depot in Guildford town centre, or the Peasmarsh depot on the outskirts. Both routes are in fact operated by Aldershot depot though, which the routes go nowhere near. A similar thing with the Guildford local route 538, which only serves residential areas in northern Guildford, but is operated by Aldershot depot ten miles away due to interworking with the 520.

Stagecoach also have an outstation Farringdon near the town of Alton. You might therefore think this would be an ideal place to operate the Alton town circular 9, Alton College routes 113/123, and Alton to Petersfield route 38 from. The way these are worked around school/college routes though, the town circular and college routes are actually operated by Aldershot depot 14 miles away, and the Petersfield route by Portsmouth Farlington depot around 27 miles away (15 from Petersfield).

Also in this area, Guildford Peasmarsh operated 46 (Guildford to Farnham) and 65 (Guildford to Alton) both have workings that start/end at or nearer to Farnham than Guildford, with Farnham being close to Aldershot depot and one morning journey on the 46 actually starting from Aldershot. In the past Aldershot actually operated the 46, but both routes are now Guildford operated. The 65 could also be operated by Farringdon outstation, with it having two depots in Guildford at the eastern end, the Farringdon outstation at the western end, and Farnham starting/terminating journeys being nearer Aldershot midway.

 

[markymark2000]

There will be shed loads of examples. You will be here forever.

Arriva Wales has a good few. Rhyl 11 could be ran by Chester, Rhyl X51 could be ran by Wrexham. Wrexham 1 could be ran by Chester.
Stagecoach Merseyside 1/X1 could be ran by Chester. The Preston X2 could be ran by Gillmoss

Most Stagecoach Middleton routes could be ran by Hyde Road given they mostly run into the centre or run not too far from Hyde Road depot.
Stagecoach West has multiple routes which could be ran by multiple depots such as Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud have a few routes which link between them, routes could be ran by either depot.

A few routes which fits your 'or more' would be:
Stagecoach South Wales 172 (Merthyr - Bridgend) which actually could be ran by Merthyr, Aberdare or Porth depots.
First Cymru X1 similarly, could be ran by Ravenhill (Swansea), Port Talbot or Bridgend depots.
Stagecoach Oxfordshire S2 could be ran by Cheltenham (as it was previously as the 853), Witney (As current) or Oxford depots.

 

[Dren Ahmeti]

First West of England runs all their X1/4/5/6/7/8 services from Weston, as well as the 39/X39 running from Bath.

Could all be run from Bristol, and was for a time, but they are run from their respective depots for money-boosting reasons.

 

[PGAT]

Go Ahead London: The 413 uses Merton Garage even though the route itself terminates at Sutton Garage

 

[317 forever]

Arriva Merseyside routes 81/81a (Bootle-Speke/Liverpool Airport) are run by Speke depot. They could be run by Bootle.

Likewise their route 82a (Liverpool-Runcorn) could be run by Speke like route 82 (Liverpool-Speke) instead of Runcorn.

Maybe some Stagecoach cross-city routes in Newcastle could run from opposite garages, so Slatyford instead of Walkergate or vice-versa?

 

[90sWereBetter]

Arriva London South runs the 250 (West Croydon-Brixton) from Thornton Heath depot, roughly about a third of the way along the route northbound. It also passes Brixton depot and Brixton Tram Depot, both also run by Arriva. South Croydon depot isn't too far away from the southern terminus either, and Norwood depot isn't a million miles away from Streatham High Road too.

There we have it, the 250, which can conceivably be run by all four Arriva London South depots.

 

[SCH117X]

Transdev work the York-Ripon-Knaresborough solely from York even though that involves empty runs to and from Knaresborough where the Starbeck Harrogate depot is nearby. Matters of differing driver pay rates no doubt being a factor - they could use genric Transdev Go liveried vehicle to overcome livery issues.

 

[route101]

First Glasgow route 6. Run by Scotstoun but passes close to Caledonia.

 

[Roger1973]

There must be a lot of routes in London that pass other companies' garages, and a fair few that pass, or go close to, another garage of the same company (London Central's 171 until quite recently terminated on the premises of Stagecoach's Catford garage - not sure there are many arrangements like that left now.)

It used to be quite common in London for multiple garages to have buses on one route, although not always all on the same days of the week, as it was not uncommon for some garages to have a weekend only allocation on a suburban route, to balance the proportion of weekend work between garages. From memory, route 12 had 4 garages involved in to the 90s, and may have had more garages involved in earlier decades.

There is a tendency in the industry to concentrate routes at a single garage / depot, so that the local manager is responsible for the financial and operational performance of each route, rather than just responsible for getting x number of buses out every day, so the practice has become a lot less common, both in London and elsewhere.

The most geographically obvious garage in terms of efficient bus workings does not always lend itself to the most effective driver duty schedule - an obvious one would be a route that takes about 3 hours for a round trip is awkward if the garage is at (or close to) one end of the route, as doing 2 round trips doesn't really make up a full day's work, but doing 3 is too much unless there's a local agreement for a rota based on 4 long days a week.

I have encountered a couple of cases where multi-depot operation has gone wrong at the scheduling stage, with one or more journeys being left with no bus, and both depots assuming the other one does it. One came to light on the first day of a new schedule, another (a fairly obscure tendered service) wasn't noticed for a few weeks, and that service didn't last long after the county council found out...

Another one was somewhere each depot manager was allowed to make their own decision whether to run a Monday - Friday or a Saturday service during the weird bit between Christmas and New Year (or it may even have been during that area's traditional industrial holidays) and the two depots involved in one route each did different things. With the result some journeys didn't run at all, and some had two buses. Oops.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

There will be shed loads of examples. You will be here forever.

Absolutely - they'll be hundreds.

First West of England runs all their X1/4/5/6/7/8 services from Weston, as well as the 39/X39 running from Bath.

Could all be run from Bristol, and was for a time, but they are run from their respective depots for money-boosting reasons.

Not only those ones but also
522 is run from Bristol and not from Bath
172 is run by neither Bath nor Bristol but by Wells (god forbid that generates another thread)
173/4 is run by Wells not Bath
77 is run by Yeovil (Buses of Somerset) not Wells
19 is run by Bath and not a Bristol depot (mainly in Lawrence Hill's patch)
376 is run by Wells and not Bristol

So that's 15 just with a single Opco

For Go South Coast, where do you begin...

 

[JD2168]

First South Yorkshire:
Some X78 particularly early morning & late evening that run dead to/from Sheffield to Doncaster depot could easily have a Olive Grove operated round trip on it to save dead mileage.
Services X1 & X10 some journeys start & finish at Maltby resulting in a long dead run to/from Olive Grove, these journeys could be run by Doncaster as this depot is much nearer.

Stagecoach Yorkshire:
226 is run by Rawmarsh depot, but no journey’s run near the depot, some could be run by Barnsley depot instead.

 

[higthomas]

The Stagecoach X5 (and now the 905 which has replaced one end of it) is a very long route run out of Bedford despite having other Stagecoach depots at Oxford and Cambridge. Means very uneven last/first bus times.

The busway routes out of Cambridge are similar, which again mean very uneven last/first buses, although make less difference as the traffic is much more one-way.

 

[Llandudno]

X17 Wirksworth-Matlock-Chesterfield-Sheffield-Barnsley
Operated by Chesterfield depot, but part could easily be operated by either of Stagecoach’s two Sheffield depots or Barnsley depot.

 

[KGGXXXY]

First Glasgow route 6. Run by Scotstoun but passes close to Caledonia.

same with the 3, passes the driver change point of the 57s, 38s

 

[DunsBus]

Borders Buses service 60 between Galashiels, Duns and Berwick is worked on Mondays to Saturdays from the Berwick end and on Sundays from the Galashiels end.
Prior to Covid, service 67 between Berwick, Kelso and Galashiels was run entirely from the Berwick end.

 

[GCH100]

Vantage services V1 and V2 could operate from Wigan Depot equally as Bolton.

 

[Deerfold]

Many years ago route 669 Keighley - Burnley was run from what is now Transdev's Keighley Depot. The last bus back from Burnley was around 2300.

Now, having been numbered (amongst others) the 20, 21, 22, 25 and X43, it's now the M4 run by Transdev Burnley from their Burnley depot. The last bus from Keighley is at 2212, but the last from Burnley is 2030, which is a shame, as there's a nice venue in Colne.

 

[bussnapperwm]

I'm surprised that the Birmingham Outer Circle doesn't have input from Perry Barr, especially as the route near enough passes that depot as well as Acocks Green

 

[WM Bus]

I'm surprised that the Birmingham Outer Circle doesn't have input from Perry Barr, especially as the route near enough passes that depot as well as Acocks Green

It probably makes sense operationally to have it ran from only one garage.
They swapped the 14 and 94/95 over so both routes are only run by one garage last year and 12/13 became fully WB operated.

Perry Barr Garage - Page 321

Perry Barr Garage - Page 321

wmbusphotos.com

Because it makes more sense operationally to have a complete route at a garage

Couple that have journeys run by another depot:
X8 Birmingham to Wolverhampton: West Bromwich (morning peak) and Wolverhampton Garages.
3 Kidderminster to Arley Kings 52 Kidderminster to Redditch: Kidderminster Garage Monday to Saturday and then Redditch Garage on Sundays when Kidderminster is closed.

 

[Statto]

Arriva 10, 10A Liverpool - St Helens could be operated by Green Lane depot too, but the whole route is operated from Arriva St Helens depot

Arriva 47 Crossens - Liverpool & 300 Southport - Liverpool could be operated by Bootle as well as Southport depots

Funnily enough in the early days after the Stagecoach X2 Preston - Liverpool, was introduced, this used to be operated by Gillmoss & Preston, it's when Stagecoach increased the frequency, & replaced coaches with deckers the X2 as mentioned in post 4 they're now solely operated by Preston.

Stagecoach, Liverpool - Birkenhead - Chester (now 1, X1), used to be operated by Rock Ferry & Chester depots, as mentioned in post 4 they're solely operated by Rock Ferry.

 

[Mwanesh]

Arriva Luton once did a few 101 trips to Stevenage. When they failed you ended up driving dead to Luton to cover the trip. Don't know about the 301 and 300 Centraline. Hemel and Stevenage used to share it.

 

[Kaliwax]

Wakefield area
126: Run by Dewsbury but could be run by Wakefield, they used to share the duties with Dewsbury until 2015
148/149: Run by Wakefield, but could be run by Castleford, I think itd make better sense 148/149 to be run from Castleford
231/232: Run by Wakefield, but could be run by Dewsbury and used to years ago
268: Operated by Heckmondwike, but could be run by Wakefield or even Dewsbury
212: Ran by Wakefield but can be easily run by Dewsbury and it used too if I remember.