How Quickly We Forget
Whilst bus deregulation came along in 1986, coach deregulation began six years earlier. We also had the development of National Express as a countrywide brand. Initially coaches were adorned with stripes usually appropriate to the operating company. Then came all-over white with a tiny company name ...
... followed by simple white plus the logo and double 'N' symbol..
A competitor emerged briefly in the form of British Coachways ...
... a consortium of independent operators of longer distance coach services.
The network was well publicised ...
... with an appropriate slogan.
The one drawback for the project was its London Terminus. Called "Kings Cross' in publicity, it was the site of the demolished Somers Town goods depot (former Midland Railway) next door to St Pancras station.
It was not an attractive departure or arrival point, being just a yard, and a dusty one at that.
Welcome to competitive coach travel!
The site is where now sits the British Library.
One splendid boundary wall ...
... did once remain as a memory of the vast depot.
The initial buildings of the British Library lay beyond. But today ...
... there is now no sign of this rather inadequate competitor for Victoria Coach station!
Decline and break-up
The exit from the group of Wallace Arnold and Grey-Green had seen more responsibility transferred to Shearings, now the largest of the six surviving members of British Coachways. When it pulled out in August 1982, sustaining the operations of the consortium became difficult. Morris Bros also left British Coachways in the summer of 1982, leaving the group with just four constituent companies. On 18 October 1982, the consortium found itself without a terminus in London when the site it had been using became unavailable. Services ceased operation from this date onwards
A more successful outcome of coach deregulatiion was the growth of commuter services. These evolved out if a dissatisfaction with British Railways, both in quality and price.
One area where coach commuting became big business was from Kent. At the time, the M2 and M20 were less congested than they are now and the development of Canary Wharf was more easily accessuble by coach than by rail.
Big names were Kings Ferry ...
... Invictaway, a brand of Maidstone and District ...
... London Coaches formerly a department of London Transport ...
... and, later, some smaller operators like Chalkwell.
Chalkwell pulled out in 2017, and Kings Ferry as a consequence of Covid ...
... as recorded in Roger French's blog.
The other two had faded well before.
Buses magazine carried an article wondering whether such services would soon be a thing of the past.
Well, commuter coaches still run from Kent and fbb has news of a brand new service to London, seeking to provide an alternative to the train but from another direction.
And just for the nostalgia freaks, a picture of a bus stop flag at Canary Wharf.
How many of these seven hundreds can you identify?
fbb doesn't have a clue but he can manage 'Kings Ferry'!
Clever boy!
Next Commuter Coach blog : Tues 28th July
Allover white came first, the stripes came later. The Eastern Counties coach illustrated was the very first NBC vehicle to be so painted, my gast was very flabbered when I saw that one day in Norwich Bus Station. Little did I know what was to follow.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of the commuter coaches was that typically they picked up around the estates and then went straight onto the motorway, saving the journey into town to pick up the train.
ReplyDeleteThey were largely killed off by increasing traffic, but also by computerisation in the 1990s which removed many of the lower-paid clerical jobs in the City of London and Canary Wharf - these workers formed a significant part of the customer base.