If Manchester can have Bees, so can Lincolnshire! Harrogate had them for a while as 'The Bilton Bs", a collection of minibus services to the Bilton estate ...
... for which fbb produced a leaflet hundreds if years ago. The picture above shows pre-privatisation West Yorkshire branding at Bilton.
The provider of the Boston Bs is Brylaine, a company which has been around for about 45 years. It operates a number of inter-urban routes ...
... centred on Boston; all of which, a while back, were renumbered into a tidy sequence and given a 'B' prefix, 'B' for Brylaine and/or (?) 'B' for Boston.
fbb does not know the history of the 96A, but it certainly doesn't enter Boston. 
It runs on schooldays and Saturdays with only a couple of 'short' journeys running Mon to Fri during school holidays. Sounds odd but it is rural Lincolnshire!
What you would expect to be the 'main' service 96 isn't; it is one school journey run by Stagecoach!
Brylaine also runs a significant number of school contracts.
The company began with a blue and white livery and second hand DP coach bodied vehicles; this one being a Ford, ex Southdown.
A rather unhappy and cluttered Preston Bus paint job ...
... re-appeared as a smart but non-standard yellow with lovely blue bits!
Lothian buses ...
... begat a smart, mostly red, livery with a rebuilt destination display.
The livery used to be more complex ...
... incorporating diagonal yellow flashes listing the towns served.
The 'ST' is, in fact, 'TS', standing for Transport Services - a concept which is even more baffling when the device is applied to an offside body panel!
The company provides excellent printed timetable leaflets ...
... as well as a profusion of on-line material via social media. It also advertises its own telephone enquiry service.
Well done!
Now it is a simpler red all over plus ...
... a touch of tasteful blue. The above was also known as a Konnectbus motor!
The name Brylaine derives from the first names (Bryan, Elaine???) of its founders but the logo is a bit of a mystery.
'TZ' - To the Zoo?
One disappointment for fbb is that the company on-line "timetables" page is a right mess and simply doesn't work on fbb's tablet.
Is it any better on the laptop?
Thankfully, yes. Stuff no longer covers stuff.
But of route B617, more tomorrow.
Next Boston Bs Bus blog : Weds 9th July
Brylaine may have some lovely (if elderly) buses, and produce timetable leaflets (although on my visit last year I couldn't find any), but it also runs on Mondays-Fridays only! Most of its routes are covered by other operators on Saturdays, or don't run at all.
ReplyDeleteThis is a throwback to 2021-2022, when the industry in general was struggling with driver numbers, and many were resorting to cancelling journeys at short notice. Brylaine decided to operate on weekdays only, and thereby provide a reliable service on those days.
I kind of get that, but we are now in 2026 . . . surely they could staff up another few drivers and re-commence Saturday operations . . . their route from Boston to Lincoln was observed in Lincoln last Saturday (PC Coaches) with 40+ passengers alighting from the 1150 arrival . . . that's a substantial number, and ought to make that route commercially viable!!
Missing a trick, perhaps??
I believe the yellow bus is in Bournemouth Yellow Buses livery wih all the vinyl bits removed. Is the 617 named after the Dambusters?
ReplyDeleteHi Brylaine here.
ReplyDeleteThe logo is a winged Ibex (strength, agility, protection) and Brylaine is indeed Brian & Elaine. (Gregg), now approaching their 80's Marriane (daughter), Paul (son) & Luca (grandaughter) manage the business.
Can we just say - thank you so much for taking the time to look at our history.
Rest assured we are working on the website but at £25K a pop for a fully integrated site - we are directing our passengers to the APP. :)
We are finally starting to reboot Saturday services but as you can imagine, a huge amount of ridership has been lost - whilst at the same time - other operators have won tenders to operate across what were our commercial corridors. Its complex...
If you have any questions though, please don't hesitate to reach out to enquiries@brylaine.co.uk and we will be more than happy to answer.
You might want to travel on our new 617 into Lincoln - it's 70% of the B5 but starts in Horncastle. (& operates on a Saturday).
Very best - Team Brylaine