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Other coach routes in the UK

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Andyh82

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There are all the commuter coaches from the Home Counties to London as well.

I would say the stagecoach X5 is a bus service that happens to use coaches though
 

GrimsbyPacer

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The Red Arrow from Nottingham to Derby and Chesterfield is the best coach service. £5 fare for all TrentBartonland buses, 10-30mins frequency and faster than the train as the bus station's are more central in all three places.
 

Liam

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Prentice Westwood operate Falkirk-Bo'ness-Edinburgh services.

Also Park's of Hamilton operate services alongside Megabus and Citylink.
 

duncombec

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Kings Ferry operate a number of scheduled coach services from Kent into London AND from North Somerset into the northern parts of Bristol.

Other commuter coach services from Kent are operated by Chalkwell (Maidstone & Sittingbourne), Clarkes (NW Kent, rural south Gravesend), Reliance (Urban south Gravesend), Brookline (Kings Hill), Centaur (Sevenoaks & Tunbridge Wells) and Buzzlines (Folkestone & Ashford)
 

Martin2012

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Nobody has mentioned the recent Belles Express launched by Stagecoach which runs between North Bristol and Gloucester.

And do Terravision count?
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Pushing the coach the a little, but these are pretty long distance service. Some withdrawals others with busses with coach interiors http://www.trawscymru.info/t3/

Really, those are long distance bus services. They aren't generally expresses and are operated with buses (albeit with high backed seats). However, the 701 that parallels the T1 (operated by Bryan's Coaches) is a coach service and operates twice daily.
 

quarella

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Really, those are long distance bus services. They aren't generally expresses and are operated with buses (albeit with high backed seats). However, the 701 that parallels the T1 (operated by Bryan's Coaches) is a coach service and operates twice daily.

The 701 is registered as a local service according to the company's own website, excluding Pencoed turn up and go and accepts Welsh local authority concessionary passes so I would say that it too is a long distance bus service where the vehicle just happens to be a coach. This can apply to several other services mentioned above.
Would the acceptance of Concessionary passes without supplement be considered the criteria of what differentiates between a bus service and a coach service?
 
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Teflon Lettuce

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The 701 is registered as a local service according to the company's own website, excluding Pencoed turn up and go and accepts Welsh local authority concessionary passes so I would say that it too is a long distance bus service where the vehicle just happens to be a coach. This can apply to several other services mentioned above.
Would the acceptance of Concessionary passes without supplement be considered the criteria of what differentiates between a bus service and a coach service?

well in the days of NBC what differentiated a bus service and a coach service was that coach services were SCHEDULED to be operated by coaches.. hence Green Line services were always COACH services even if operated by a bog standard leyland national.

Of course you would then have the problem of how to define Barton's services which for many years were operated by downgraded coaches.

I think in the case of Bryan's Coaches 701/750 service it should be called a coach service as it operates on similar lines to Green Line of old in that it is scheduled to be operated by coaches and also is a Limited Stop service, in fact south of Carmarthen it could be deemed to run as an express.
 

quarella

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well in the days of NBC what differentiated a bus service and a coach service was that coach services were SCHEDULED to be operated by coaches.. hence Green Line services were always COACH services even if operated by a bog standard leyland national.

Of course you would then have the problem of how to define Barton's services which for many years were operated by downgraded coaches.
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Coach services were deregulated through the 1980 Transport Act. The deregulation of bus services was not until the 1985 Transport Act so the licensing differentiated between a coach and a bus service, not the vehicle.

The X1 Bristol - Weston-super-Mare via the M5 when it started in the 1980s was always deemed to be a bus service although it was operated by Leyland Tigers with Plaxton Paramount coach body, with the prototype Olympian Coach ADD 50Y used after withdrawal from National Express work.

Some illogical situations could arise. For example in the early 1990s you had the 100 Swansea Cardiff Shuttle non stop service operated using Duple 425 Integrals. X1 Limited stop Swansea-Cardiff bus service using various buses including the Brewers Van Hool Bus. However there was still a National Express coach service between Swansea and London scheduled to call at Taibach Rugby Club, Twelve Nights Margam and Pyle Cross between Port Talbot and Bridgend.

I was a coach driver. I have never driven a bus but I have driven bus services.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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Coach services were deregulated through the 1980 Transport Act. The deregulation of bus services was not until the 1985 Transport Act so the licensing differentiated between a coach and a bus service, not the vehicle.

The X1 Bristol - Weston-super-Mare via the M5 when it started in the 1980s was always deemed to be a bus service although it was operated by Leyland Tigers with Plaxton Paramount coach body, with the prototype Olympian Coach ADD 50Y used after withdrawal from National Express work.

Deemed by who?

Some illogical situations could arise. For example in the early 1990s you had the 100 Swansea Cardiff Shuttle non stop service operated using Duple 425 Integrals. X1 Limited stop Swansea-Cardiff bus service using various buses including the Brewers Van Hool Bus. However there was still a National Express coach service between Swansea and London scheduled to call at Taibach Rugby Club, Twelve Nights Margam and Pyle Cross between Port Talbot and Bridgend.

I was a coach driver. I have never driven a bus but I have driven bus services.

So you have the 100 shuttle operated with coaches non-stop = coach service
X1 limited stop with buses= bus service
nat ex coach service= coach service.

the criteria for what constitutes a coach service is complex... but I suppose the main criteria really should be what do the paying customers expect? do they expect a bus or a coach to turn up?

I suspect that if a coach turns up on a service normally operated by buses then the average joe will be pleased... however you only have to look at the First/ Greyhound facebook pages to see what happens if something less than a luxury coach turns up... the vitriol fired for First daring to send a 70 seat school coach has to be seen to be believed.

I believe that the criteria for this thread is customer expectation so I would include the Green line 757 but NOT the 724 which for many years has been operated with service buses.

I would also include the X5 Oxford- Cambridge but NOT the X4 Milton Keynes- Peterborough...
 

Bletchleyite

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I suspect that if a coach turns up on a service normally operated by buses then the average joe will be pleased... however you only have to look at the First/ Greyhound facebook pages to see what happens if something less than a luxury coach turns up... the vitriol fired for First daring to send a 70 seat school coach has to be seen to be believed.

I personally believe it should be illegal to use those 3+2 seated coaches for transporting adults (be that on a coach/bus route or as rail replacement). It is impossible for anyone even of average height to sit properly in the seats (both in terms of width and legroom), and therefore to wear the belts correctly.

It would perhaps make sense to have a couple of rows of 2+2 at the front for any teachers being transported.
 
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quarella

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Deemed by who?.

Bus drivers employed by Bristol Omnibus I knew for starters. Anyway by 1987 the route was via the A370 using the Volvo/Alexander Citybuses that now work out of Penzance so was definitely a bus route by then, and has continued to be so with various double deckers allocated over the years to the X1 and and it's equivalent.

the criteria for what constitutes a coach service is complex... but I suppose the main criteria really should be what do the paying customers expect? do they expect a bus or a coach to turn up?
I would also add the category of express bus service. Limited stop. Hail and ride, pay the driver etc but may be a slightly higher spec vehicle. Dual Purpose vehicles used to cover it.

Two routes I sometimes drove were barely 3 miles in length. On one of them it was 0.8 miles from the last stop I picked up at to the terminus according to Google maps. Destination board up front, tickets issued on boarding. Using your criteria these were coach services as the passenger expectation was a coach. A coach was guaranteed as there was nothing else in the fleet.
I suspect that if a coach turns up on a service normally operated by buses then the average joe will be pleased... however you only have to look at the First/ Greyhound facebook pages to see what happens if something less than a luxury coach turns up...
..
Average Joe on a bus is one of the buggy brigade who won't be impressed!
THe Greyhound is not a luxury coach. It fails on something as basic as seats lined up with airvents.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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Average Joe on a bus is one of the buggy brigade who won't be impressed!
THe Greyhound is not a luxury coach. It fails on something as basic as seats lined up with airvents.

That appears to be a bit of a bigotted view of bus passengers..not ALL passengers are pushing buggies... in fact most aren't!

and following the criteria of average joe the Greyhound coaches ARE luxury coaches... leather seats, extra legroom and wifi... as I said you only have to see what happens when a school coach turns up to see what passengers think... God knows what would happen if a dennis dart appeared on the Greyhound! (it hasn't happened yet to my knowledge but with First anything is possible)
 

Bletchleyite

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Average Joe on a bus is one of the buggy brigade who won't be impressed!
THe Greyhound is not a luxury coach. It fails on something as basic as seats lined up with airvents.

Perhaps an irritation, but the reason for this is because they took seats out and spaced the rest more generously.

On the general point (or something similar to it) I wonder why there are so few services like the X5 (other than the other X5 in the Lakes). They are an ideal way of filling gaps in the rail network, and can even carry things like cycles (the X5 does) and attract people who wouldn't be seen dead on a bus because of the quality vehicles - and it is highly profitable for Stagecoach Bedford.

It's a shame the Trawscambria/Trawscymru routes were not of that type.
 

A0wen

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well in the days of NBC what differentiated a bus service and a coach service was that coach services were SCHEDULED to be operated by coaches.. hence Green Line services were always COACH services even if operated by a bog standard leyland national.

Not quite - the Green Line routes were limited stop, longer distance routes. So for many of their corridors they ran alongside 'bus' routes but with quicker timings by virtue of being limited stop.

To separate them they were numbered in the 7xx range, rather than the 3xx or 4xx range of bus services.

Whilst they were officially rostered for Green Line vehicles - which for a long time meant essentially the same vehicles as the bus routes but with a different livery - which included RTs, RFs, RMs and Nationals. In the late 60s / early 70s the only 'Green Line' specific vehicles were the Reliances (RC / RPs) and the SMAs. It wasn't until about 1978 when the RS and RBs turned up did Green Line move to having genuine 'coach' vehicles on all routes, with buses only used when the rostered coach was unavailable. And until the demise of the TLs and TPs on the 724 - all routes continued to get 'coaches' rather than bus seated coaches - then in about 2000 Arriva replaced the ageing TPs with the DAF buses which have been subsequently replaced with Citaros.
 

Bletchleyite

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Because the Welsh Assembly believes that long distance coach services should be operated by low floor buses...

Accessibility is of course a good thing, though all the new X5 coaches (and the old ones now being used on the MK-Luton 99 and a new route around Bristol) have wheelchair lifts.

I wonder will someone at some point build a low-floor coach? I mean by that actual coach quality - things like proper coach seats with recline, double-glazed windows, aircon, no rattles like buses have - that would work on this kind of service (I don't just mean buses with high back seats like Stagecoach Gold etc). I suppose Merc Citaros are almost there if you spec them right up as they do on some German regional services.

Luggage space might be an issue, but not so much on this kind of service provided there are reasonable overhead racks (perhaps with doors on for safety) and racks by the entrance doors.
 
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Teflon Lettuce

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I wonder will someone at some point build a low-floor coach? I mean by that actual coach quality - things like proper coach seats with recline, double-glazed windows, aircon, no rattles like buses have - that would work on this kind of service (I don't just mean buses with high back seats like Stagecoach Gold etc). I suppose Merc Citaros are almost there if you spec them right up as they do on some German regional services.

Luggage space might be an issue, but not so much on this kind of service provided there are reasonable overhead racks (perhaps with doors on for safety) and racks by the entrance doors.

Quite simply no... you can't have a fully low floor coach by dint of the fact that coaches services such as nat ex carry huge amounts of suitcases so NEED underfloor luggage accomodation...

Having said that, when wheelchair accessible coaches came into production I'm surprised that no-one thought of re-interpreting the old Greyhound Scenicruisers that you see on old Hollywood road movies.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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There was the B7RLE/Wright Commuter - it wasn't a success!!

yes I was aware of that... but it was hardly a reinterpretation of the scenicruiser... in fact it was more of a high floor bus with a wheelchair space dumped on the platform. And it was bloody ugly to boot.

I was thinking more of a vehicle that marries up a low floor bus for the front half... and then rising to a coach height with underfloor lockers... with some decent coach styling...
 

TheGrandWazoo

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yes I was aware of that... but it was hardly a reinterpretation of the scenicruiser... in fact it was more of a high floor bus with a wheelchair space dumped on the platform. And it was bloody ugly to boot.

I was thinking more of a vehicle that marries up a low floor bus for the front half... and then rising to a coach height with underfloor lockers... with some decent coach styling...

Was responding to Neil's post not yours. You are right though...it had a look only a mother could love!
 

quarella

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That appears to be a bit of a bigotted view of bus passengers..not ALL passengers are pushing buggies... in fact most aren't!

and following the criteria of average joe the Greyhound coaches ARE luxury coaches... leather seats, extra legroom and wifi... as I said you only have to see what happens when a school coach turns up to see what passengers think... God knows what would happen if a dennis dart appeared on the Greyhound! (it hasn't happened yet to my knowledge but with First anything is possible)

Sorry. Quick rewrite ommitted the "If" at the beginning of the sentence. When an operator has marketed a service as "Buggy Friendly" the substitution by a coach will not be appreciated by those passengers and others such as those with mobility issues who benefit from low floor buses. On a recent bus journey I made 3 buggies were part of a group of 12 adults and children.

Luxury is above and beyond the basic level. I expect an air vent above my seat as standard and the failure to line seats up during the refurbishment which reduced the seating capacity negates other features.

Neil WilliamsI personally believe it should be illegal to use those 3+2 seated coaches for transporting adults (be that on a coach/bus route or as rail replacement). It is impossible for anyone even of average height to sit properly in the seats (both in terms of width and legroom), and therefore to wear the belts correctly.

It would perhaps make sense to have a couple of rows of 2+2 at the front for any teachers being transported.

I am sure First Cymru did not do it deliberately and through whatever circumstances, traffic, staff, mechanical issues had reached the point of that or nothing. I don't believe the passengers were forced on at gunpoint. As an adult of average height who has made a number of journeys on 70 seater 3+2 coaches I can assure you it is possible to sit properly in certain seats. The spacing can be a bit random but by the emergency exit is a good bet. While 3+2 seating did exist on a few buses, usually towards the rear over 20 years ago the widescale conversion of coaches came about due to the abolition of the 3 to a seat rule for children up to a certain age and pressure by BUSK on local authorities regarding the use of double deckers with school children.
From a coach forum I occasionally look at there are a number of drivers who will not turn a wheel if the teachers are all up the front. They insist, sadly but quite rightly in my opinion on lead teacher up front and a responsible adult by the emergency exit.
 

CC 72100

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They insist, sadly but quite rightly in my opinion on lead teacher up front and a responsible adult by the emergency exit.

It may be good practice over here, but in France this is in fact a legal obligation - presumably for the same reasons as some drivers encourage it over here.
 

quarella

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It may be good practice over here, but in France this is in fact a legal obligation - presumably for the same reasons as some drivers encourage it over here.

I also recall some law limiting the number of children who could be carried on a Saturday in August? Can't remember the exact details but remember that the firm I drove for had to hire a local coach for a day when doing a tour of northern Europe for an American Soccer team.

Back to topic. I caught a glimpse of something that looked close to a lowfloor coach at Heathrow. For commuter-coach type operations luggage wouldn't be an issue. Trailers could be used with correct licensing and a small increase in journey times. Eavesway certainly have some wheelchair accesible coaches. https://www.flickr.com/photos/matt56120/16022555369/in/photolist-qpRMuD-qLDVzF-oTSscg-eMfV87-qLDSeT-nvYHgj-rsocea-qu5Sho-pw5Z2V-cc9Ygf-cteCR1-r3k4cJ-qu5VxS-s5TE9d-nq12vi-iMmWsM-qu6xV3-prr3kF-hPwDw7-hPvWtX-pgkqjE-bSCksi-iT3f5a-qLD4Jy-qkQtqp-dyQB91-oag8Bq-ajcCWw-s6bPdG-fwKtoZ-c5nWbq-bk4bbD-k3A6fT-cddiCf-cc9XaE-nrwqHa-rNKojN-rNJ2rL-cc9YLE-bUMJSM-rNJci9-pogKge-cc9XzW-kBJ4Ub-qKCWZH-dMWn2N-8reYU9-hPwTz6-9Mdhd9-hPwC5u
 
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