First's Frequent Fiddling

The Story So Far

Bus routes from Glasgow via Clydebank to Dumbarton, Helensburgh and north to the foot of Loch Lomond have a tortuous history. The details might well be too much for our readers but they are most certainly too much for the decaying grey cells of your octogenarian blogger.

So let's keep it simple.

Glasgow Omnibus Company, Baillies, LMS (railway!), Central SMT, Central, Central Scottish, Kelvin Central, First Kelvin, First Glasgow.

And that's simple?

Within your author's memory Dumbarton was served by a group of routes departing from Buchanan bus station and running via the Dumbarton Road. They were numbered 130 (etc).

Here us a typical 134 at Helensburgh.

Other routes ran to Balloch on Loch Lomondside.

Locally in Dumbarton things had always been more complicated with a plethora of unfathomable local routes.

Some of them were very local but still a challenge in complexity. How about the journey from Napierston or Nobleston ...

... running via the centre of Dumbarton to Castlehill and Brucehill ...

... just of the Cardross Road and our friend the 134 to Helensburgh. Look at the number of different numbers! What glorious fun, NOT!

Of course, when First's Barbie arrived things got renumbered with routes in a 200 series.

The above is a 205 to Helensburgh.

But things were still imbued with complexity.

In the 2010s, First's craze in some areas was still their Overground brand.

This did not extend along the Dumbarton Road, being a cartographic presentation of frequent city routes. But a new brand was beginning to materialise.

"Simplicity" (Simple City?) ...

... was a scheme to group routes along some main roads to create frequent services. But in the early days of the 1 it was slightly more simple than simpliCITY!

But, in the interest of simpliCITY we had two service 1 routes going to totally different places.

But, at its core were three services each running every 30 minutes; to Helensburgh ( 1  ) ...

... to Balloch via Vale of Level Hospital ( 1 ) ...

... and to Balloch via Bellsmire and Napierston ( 1A ). 

There were two "shorts to Clydebank every hour, also route 1.

Route  1B  was a couple of peak hour extras, copied for a while by McGills competitive service, running hourly from Balloch to Glasgow but not via Dumbarton.

But simpliCITY was not to last, either as a brand or ss a fair description of the routes to Dumbarton!

Here is a later set of maps!

The 1 and 1A to Balloch remain the same but Helensburgh has become 1B; and the peak direct journeys are now 1E. 

Why not 1C, you may ask!

That's because the Clydebank "shorts" have been extended to be a 1D to Mountblow and a new 1C has appeared to Drumchapel.

Glasgow experts will wonder why yet another route to Drumchapel has been added by First. This massive housing estate ("scheme" in Scots patois) was originally served by routes from Central, Midland and the Corporation (by mutual agreement, not competition).

But the 1C, like the rest of the complexCITY 1, 1A, 1B, 1D and 1E, had a special treat for its passengers. It ran non-stop via the Clydeside Expressway. The last/first city centre stops were near the M8 Kingston Bridge flyover ...

... (below bottom right) ...

... then running fast (if the traffic was OK!) to Victoria Park ...

... (below upper left).

This would certainly speed up journeys in the few sparse hours when traffic was light!

fbb should also report that the service 1 complexCITY had eschewed the comparative luxury of Buchanan bus station for stops on Argyle Street (for shopping and Central station) and a terminus in the luxury of Osborne Street ...

... although there was more complexCITY for the buses to get there and even more perplexCITY for the unwary passenger and the bemused visitor to the city!

The city terminus in Osborne Street is hardly welcoming ...

... whichever way you look at it!

The outbound stops for the shops are dismal in he extreme ...

... bring round the back "by the bins" of the in-decline St Enoch shopping centre! You wouldn't want to be waiting anywhere around there after dark!

But, hey ho, by 2019 at least one part of the complexCITY had gone. The excellent timetable that came on an excellent leaflet ...

... shows that the 1C to Drumchapel had disappeared.

In  Friday's  blog we must now tackle the changes that happened earlier this week; assuming, that fbb's brain has stopped hurting.

 Next Hydrogen blog : Thu 6 Mar