tbtc
Veteran Member
It’s only done it for a few years, four at most. I’m unsure of an exact timeline but basically:
It did Ocean Terminal to Holyrood for years before being rerouted to terminate at Glenlockhart (at the Craiglockhart University) in June 2014, this allowed all 23’s to terminate at Greenbank - which until then had only received every second bus, Glenlockhart getting the other. The 6 was introduced to replace the 36 in Holyrood, but alas was pretty pointless as a route.
It was sent up Morningside Drive to scale back and ultimately withdraw the Craighouse journeys on the 41 - King’s Buildings similarly only got every 2nd bus, the Craighouse journeys in 2014 were reduced to an hourly shuttle between there and Hanover Street and run mostly with a Dart.
More recently (in 2018 I think) the 36 was extended to the Gyle Centre. At this point it stopped serving the grounds of Craiglockhart campus.
A good summary!
I've struggled to keep up with more recent developments, but I remember the 1980s Leith - Stockbridge - Dean Bridge - City Centre service being part of the 34/35, the "kind of a circular, kind of an out-and-back" service from Sighthill to Sighthill (back when Sighthill was one of the most common termini you'd see on destination screens, along with Newhaven - I'm showing my age!)
From memory it was Sighthill - Fountainbridge - Tolcross - Royal Mile - North Bridge - Leith Street - Lochend - Foot of the Walk - Stockbridge - Dean Bridge - Tolcross - Fountainbridge - Sighthill (the city centre routing showing why the Eastern Scottish City Sprinters did well, since they gave places like Lochend and Dalry Road direct services to all of Princes Street)
As far as I can remember, the services were diverted via Longstone/ Slateford to replace the 28/29 - this may have been during the big changes of around April 2000 (?) which saw the 34/35 revised into two separate services, the 34 being a fairly straightforward Sighthill - Fountainbridge - Tolcross - Princes Street - Leith Street - Lochend - Foot of the Walk - Ocean Terminal (i.e. similar to much of the old route but via Princes Street) whereas the 35 became more like Sighthill - Fountainbridge - Tolcross - Royal Mile - Holyrood - Easter Road - Foot of the Walk - Stockbridge - Dean Bridge - Tolcross, with the 35a the other way (?), a bit like a large number nine. The Stockbridge bit was spun off into a stand alone service with the 35 extended to Ocean Terminal.
I'm surprised that the 36 has survived and seems a busy enough commercial route - I thought that it'd go the way of the 13 (i.e. tendered by the council) since it's not a particularly direct way between any major places (Leith and Stockbridge both having much more direct services into the heart of the city centre) - it's good to see that there are enough people for a service that skirts the edge of the city centre without either serving the heart or being a kind of "orbital" route
In fact, I'm a bit surprised that the 34 and 35 have both lasted as fairly frequent services, given that they don't quite go in straight lines - the changing travel demands of Edinburgh has contributed a lot to that (in my day, the service beyond Sighthill to Herriot Watt was just half hourly - 61, 22, 65 at different periods - but now there are so many University students and also college students wanting services along the A71 - the need for various places to have an Ocean Terminal service has helped too, keeping the northern end of the 34 and 35 busy
This is something I prefer about Edinburgh to Glasgow - Glasgow seems to be much more of a radial network, with fairly simple direct routes into the city centre, whereas Edinburgh has more variety in terms of the types of services