Cowboy Operators a thing of the past?

[RustySpoons]

Are there still any 'cowboy operators' still out there? Looking back to the 90s and early 2000s there seemed to be a bus operator in nearly every town that didn't appear to do things by the book. Vehicles looked shabby, probably not maintained very well and services would rarely run to time if at all.

With the DDA compliance coming along forcing operators to upgrade aging fleets or shut up shop, have most of these operators fallen by the wayside?

One example that sticks in my mind was back in the early 2000s at the old Blackburn Bus Station, or Blackburn Boulevard as it was then known. It was a hot summers day and a very tatty looking Mercedes 814 came speeding into the bus station, doors open with horrific sounding dance music blaring from a portable stereo on the dashboard. It was a hot day so the driver was topless (a male driver, I may add!) so really didn't give a welcoming vibe at all. No branding on the bus, but with one destination on the destination blind, and two pieces of card stuck to the windscreen both showing different destinations. It'd pull up on to a stand usually reserved for other operators services. A few minutes before the scheduled bus was due to turn up on stand it'd speed off out of the bus station, then return a few minutes later and sit at another stand. On the odd occasion a passenger would get on they'd pay the driver, nothing would be entered in the ticket machine (and old Wayfarer 2 if memory serves me correct) and the bus would drive off to destination unknown. Half an hour or so later the cycle would be repeated.

I never did find out who the operator was, but I assume they were just waiting on stands to poach any potential passengers asking 'do you go to....?' and then taking them anyway!

I very much doubt you'd be able to get away with such things these days.

 

[LiviCrazy]

Are there still any 'cowboy operators' still out there? Looking back to the 90s and early 2000s there seemed to be a bus operator in nearly every town that didn't appear to do things by the book. Vehicles looked shabby, probably not maintained very well and services would rarely run to time if at all.

With the DDA compliance coming along forcing operators to upgrade aging fleets or shut up shop, have most of these operators fallen by the wayside?

One example that sticks in my mind was back in the early 2000s at the old Blackburn Bus Station, or Blackburn Boulevard as it was then known. It was a hot summers day and a very tatty looking Mercedes 814 came speeding into the bus station, doors open with horrific sounding dance music blaring from a portable stereo on the dashboard. It was a hot day so the driver was topless (a male driver, I may add!) so really didn't give a welcoming vibe at all. No branding on the bus, but with one destination on the destination blind, and two pieces of card stuck to the windscreen both showing different destinations. It'd pull up on to a stand usually reserved for other operators services. A few minutes before the scheduled bus was due to turn up on stand it'd speed off out of the bus station, then return a few minutes later and sit at another stand. On the odd occasion a passenger would get on they'd pay the driver, nothing would be entered in the ticket machine (and old Wayfarer 2 if memory serves me correct) and the bus would drive off to destination unknown. Half an hour or so later the cycle would be repeated.

I never did find out who the operator was, but I assume they were just waiting on stands to poach any potential passengers asking 'do you go to....?' and then taking them anyway!

I very much doubt you'd be able to get away with such things these days.

I think this is a bit of a two sided coin, for my area, West Lothian, there used to be quite a number of independent operators, several of whom would probably be described as cowboy, certainly ran a ragtag bunch of buses on very tight timetables. However, they filled gaps left by the major operators, connecting areas that had either nothing or very little connection and also our major operators had a reluctance to buy small buses that could get around estates, these buses were nearly always packed. As the Traffic Commisioner clamped down and the DDA requirements came in, we’re down to mostly just one large operator (Lothian Country) and one small operator (SD Travel) with some external connections provided by others. In the past it was the independent operators that could pick up a cheap second hand bus and fill a lost connection (eg Blackridge to Livingston) but costs are prohibitive now. There were of course some worse than others, Bulldog/Autowater always seemed a complete mess and Horsburgh managed to go from a well run modern fleet to a complete disgrace of banged up poorly maintained ancient buses.

 

[Poiuytre]

A thread of great interest to me. I love to hear stories of these 'characterful' operators.

A few that are/were still in operation in recent times that immediately come to mind are:

Travel Express / Let's Go! Of Wolverhampton: I believe there is a separate thread regarding them on here. Last I heard they appealed the Traffic Commissioner's decision to revoke their licence, so they might still be operating.

Shoreline Suncruisers of Scarborough: Competing with East Yorkshire on the Seafront open toppers and Scarborough to Filey route, as well as formally competing on some town routes. They've had a few run-ins with the traffic commissioner over the years. But now I understand that the owners Son is bringing the standard of the operation up.

Alpha of Honiton: They aren't operating anymore due to having their licence revoked last August, but certainly quite a recent operator. Alpha were best known for running the Sidmouth Folk Festival shuttle bus service - a commercial venture that involved passengers chucking money into a bucket to pay for their fare with no change given. The buses used on this service earned their keep for one week in a year and were stored or disposed of at the end of each season. Alpha's owner, Mr Borowski had held a number of licences over the years, and was quite creative to find ways to remain 'compliant' whilst stretching the interpretation of the legislation.


Some former shoddy operators have become very respectable over the years however. Faresaver springs to mind. In there early days as Fosseway Faresaver, they could be considered a contender to this thread. But certainly not any more. Now days they appear to be very well-regarded.


Disclaimer. I am not suggesting that the above operators are dodgy or criminal in any way whatsoever. They simply (in my humble opinion) retain a flavour of those post-deregulation independents.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What I used to refer to as the Aylesbury triad, but more officially "Red Group"*, remain in business, as does the more loosely related Z&S. They don't quite do what the classic cowboys did in terms of running just in front of an established operator or anything like that, but I'd certainly call them cowboys in terms of the poor quality of services they have operated over the years (they have been subject to many complaints I have made about them in the past for stuff like early running, failure to operate and missing out sections of route, as well as extremely poor driver presentation e.g. severe body odour that could be smelled throughout the bus, plus a poor standard of driving and vehicles in very poor condition, albeit probably legal). However they do serve a vaguely useful role in being able to run stuff commercially that Arriva and Stagecoach won't, and it's not like Arriva Milton Keynes is a lot better on some of these counts e.g. vehicle presentation. Fortunately for me though they've disappeared from the Milton Keynes scene aside from school services and I think possibly one route to Aylesbury I never use.

* Red Rose, Redline and a couple of other semi-independent family businesses starting with "Red" that I forget.

 

[Open top 80]

UK North (Manchester) was a familiar one also Dennis coaches

 

[Bletchleyite]

UK North (Manchester) was a familiar one also Dennis coaches

UK North of course was shut down when one of their drug/alcohol* addled drivers knocked a cherry picker over and killed its occupant in a very clear case of dangerous driving.

* Not sure which it was, but my experience of their operation as a student was that both of those were common, possibly both at once, and dangerous driving and utter disregard for the timetable was the norm.

 

[Open top 80]

Are there still any 'cowboy operators' still out there? Looking back to the 90s and early 2000s there seemed to be a bus operator in nearly every town that didn't appear to do things by the book. Vehicles looked shabby, probably not maintained very well and services would rarely run to time if at all.

With the DDA compliance coming along forcing operators to upgrade aging fleets or shut up shop, have most of these operators fallen by the wayside?

One example that sticks in my mind was back in the early 2000s at the old Blackburn Bus Station, or Blackburn Boulevard as it was then known. It was a hot summers day and a very tatty looking Mercedes 814 came speeding into the bus station, doors open with horrific sounding dance music blaring from a portable stereo on the dashboard. It was a hot day so the driver was topless (a male driver, I may add!) so really didn't give a welcoming vibe at all. No branding on the bus, but with one destination on the destination blind, and two pieces of card stuck to the windscreen both showing different destinations. It'd pull up on to a stand usually reserved for other operators services. A few minutes before the scheduled bus was due to turn up on stand it'd speed off out of the bus station, then return a few minutes later and sit at another stand. On the odd occasion a passenger would get on they'd pay the driver, nothing would be entered in the ticket machine (and old Wayfarer 2 if memory serves me correct) and the bus would drive off to destination unknown. Half an hour or so later the cycle would be repeated.

I never did find out who the operator was, but I assume they were just waiting on stands to poach any potential passengers asking 'do you go to....?' and then taking them anyway!

I very much doubt you'd be able to get away with such things these days.

It's being looked into, as per DalesBus:

https://x.com/DalesBus/status/1915714301555359990?t=zk3obz-ynxL5-1T9uYkZuw&s=19

Thanks - they weren't there when I looked earlier.

If anyone's interested in the timetable for the two new routes 11 and 21 can be viewed here

B&H and Brighton Pride are running a competition around livery preference for a new Pride bus - mock up is on a Streetdeck, so presumably 439 will be going to Metrobus with the rest of the batch soon.

The T3/T4 is run off peak using a vehicle spare from schools, two days a week. I would suspect that "just one extra vehicle" would be £200k p.a. - it would never be justifiable without council support. 2000 sounds like it was paid for by Rural Bus Challenge funding?


The X1/X2 was hourly from Ringwood to Southampton, operating alternately via Lyndhurst or Cadnam. Fact is... Ringwood is a small town and East of Ringwood is very thin territory.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 22:35 ==

I thinks this is the company you are on about

 

[DunsBus]

British Bus (Drawlane as was) weren't cowboys as such, but its practices left much to be desired. I remember Edinburgh Transport, an operation which it acquired with Stevenson's, being picked clean virtually overnight. There was also a reluctance to invest in fleet renewal during much of the group's existence, a slapdash approach to vehicle presentation, and the dodgy dealings behind the scenes which came to light after its sale to Cowie.
Even right at the start the signs were there when, as Drawlane and during the NBC privatisation, it tried to get around the NBC "no more than two companies per buyer" stipulation by establishing an alias, Allied Bus, to bid for a third one - a bid which was subsequently disqualified once Allied's true identity became known.

Definitely an odd bunch.

 

[alex397]

Harlow always used to good place to see some… interesting ways of operating buses. The independents there easily fitted the ‘cowboy operator’ stereotype. Some seemed to be linked to the same owners. I remember the angry drivers who often spoke little or no English, as well as the smell of used cooking oil - I’m sure it was used in the diesel (I could be talking rubbish there, but that’s what I had heard). As an enthusiast it was fascinating though, with a huge variety of different bus types, of varying quality!

Interestingly though, the major operator in Harlow wasn’t (and perhaps still isn’t) exactly much better. Some incredibly grumpy drivers and the common practice of paper-in-the-windscreen destinations.

 

[mangad]

I recently read that in the late 80s there were around 60 different companies running buses in Greater Manchester. If you trawl through the GMPTE timetable archives you'll find all manner of long lost operators (one short-lived operatorI spotted was called Pacerbus, and good luck finding anything out about them!)

It definitely felt like everyone and his uncle was running buses and not all of them very well. Ancient, often knackered second hand buses, hastily pushed into service. Not even painted in the new company's livery. You can find photos of Bee Line double deckers where they simply painted the panel below the windscreen yellow, and that was that. Companies sent buses out without removing old logos and adverts.

But in places like Manchester the newcomers were up against companies like GM Buses that had been in statis with little investment pending privatisation. It only really began to calm down there when Stagecoach and First started buying up the bigger and better indies. And had the money to invest. High quality operators make it harder for lower quality ones to even exist after all. Even an old bus can look good if someone takes care of it after all.

 

[erskinebus]

The west of Scotland was a hotbed of such operators, but low floor requirements and the purchasing power of McGill's mopped up Paisley and Greenock.
Perhaps the only one that has clung on is Avondale in Clydebank, who have a policy of buying Darts but laterally Enviro 200s, running them in to the ground, rinse and repeat. To be fair, they do paint them all first, but have the typical Monday to Saturday, 8am-6pm type of timetable. Ironically, the buses they run are actually around the same age as the Streetlites that First run on their Clydebank area services.

 

[Statto]

Mention of UK North in an earlier post, they launched a network of routes September 06, that ended up causing chaos in Manchester City Centre, (even Metrolink was caught up in the chaos) due to the employment of foreign drivers who had no knowledge of the roads in Manchester, & little or no training was made, the fatal incident with the cherry picker was the final straw, & turned out the Directors were falsyfying records of hours the drivers worked, & operating licence was revoked, the Directors served jail time over it, & got a life ban from ever obtaining PSV Operating Licence.

Incidently, UK North & there Directors appeared in an episode of a BBC Currant Affairs programme called Inside Out (think this episode was only shown in the North West), the episode focused on buses & bus wars, the programme went out at the time UK North had the licence revoked.

 

[nick291]

Bulldog/Autowater always seemed a complete mess and Horsburgh managed to go from a well run modern fleet to a complete disgrace of banged up poorly maintained ancient buses.

Horsburgh were definitely my first thought when it came to dodgy operations in your area. Shame because they have a fleet of some buses better off in preservation or as bean cans.

As for the Bristol Area, it would be far too easy to mention certain operators in the past 10 years or so. But CT Plus/HCT "Group" back when they had the 902 and 904 Park and Ride contracts were pretty bad, buses looked ready for the scrapheap, or broke down in inconvenient locations. Rotala/Wessex/Hallmark were also up to some less than stellar tactics around here, I remember one of their buses got stolen and they tried to undercut First on my local route and failed miserably. Eurocoaches are a current one that springs to mind, how they're still in business I will never know. I guess the Flixbus contracts pay good money despite having the wrong vehicles on them most of the time.

 

[PG]

The late Clayton Jones had his own unique err... style of operating buses in the Welsh valleys.
Being hauled up before the beak was an operational hazard which led to one commissioner saying that he met the definition of a rogue operator. Even being banned from running companies or having licences revoked only had temporary effect before a  new company arose phoenix like.

In common with other shadier operators a donations bucket next to the driver was just one ruse amongst many to circumvent the regulations.

 

[M60lad]

I know they've been mentioned a few times on here but another thing about UK North was their ability to suddenly drop their timetables at short notice, for example I remember once seeing a couple of their vehicles on Piccadilly Station approach on Rail Replacement work instead of operating their duties on 42/43s up/down Oxford Road.

Also another thing with UK North was the fact towards the end of their operations they introduced quite a number of other routes in competition with Stagecoach and ran them under the GMBuses name in a Read/White livery.

 

[PaulWC]

I recently read that in the late 80s there were around 60 different companies running buses in Greater Manchester. If you trawl through the GMPTE timetable archives you'll find all manner of long lost operators (one short-lived operatorI spotted was called Pacerbus, and good luck finding anything out about them!)

Pacer Bus was run by Stevensons who eventually did a swap deal with PMT who ran one of their Red Rider operations in the West Midlands, with the West Mids being more local for Stevensons as they were already operating there.

 

[Tetchytyke]

they launched a network of routes September 06, that ended up causing chaos in Manchester City Centre, (even Metrolink was caught up in the chaos) due to the employment of foreign drivers who had no knowledge of the roads in Manchester

To be fair, the traffic chaos was because Stagecoach, as always, decided to pour petrol on the fire. The chaos was caused by buses queuing to get into Piccadilly Gardens. There were so many buses because Stagecoach brought in resources from all over the country to operate Magic Bus at an unsustainable frequency. It was proper tit-for-tat.

UK North rightly copped the flack because of the standard of their drivers but Stagecoach didn’t behave a great deal better.

Look at Stagecoach in Manchester, Preston, and Darlington. Maybe we should add Brian to the list of cowboys!

 

[mangad]

To be fair, the traffic chaos was because Stagecoach, as always, decided to pour petrol on the fire. The chaos was caused by buses queuing to get into Piccadilly Gardens. There were so many buses because Stagecoach brought in resources from all over the country to operate Magic Bus at an unsustainable frequency. It was proper tit-for-tat.

I was just trying to find some articles about the UK North bus wars. Found one on the Manchester Evening News dated February 2007 (although the date has to be wrong as UK North was banned in January)

Here's an interesting bit:

The jams happened yesterday as UK North, which also uses GM Buses livery, joined the route.

Stagecoach operates an 86 bus every five minutes and an 85 bus every 10 minutes on the popular route from West Didsbury and Chorlton via Alexandra Park and Hulme, past Manchester University, to Piccadilly.

It means that Stagecoach alone has 18 buses an hour arriving and leaving the stop. UK North's first day yesterday brought another 12 buses an hour to the stop.
Chaos as Bus Wars Break Out - Manchester Evening News

Out of interest I look at the current timetables for both routes. At peak times between 8 and 9am, there's nine buses on the 86 and and five on the 85, so 14 buses an hour. Lower than the 18 buses an hour Stagecoach were running. But even so, if someone came along and added another 12 buses to a route that bus stop would still struggle.

Of course Stagecoach did pile resources onto Magic Bus. That was the point of Magic Bus. They were renowned for it. But we have contemporary evidence of UK North really piling extra buses on left, right and centre.

 

[Ginge_dave]

Durbins /south Gloucester bus and coach would be one. Driving hours were very creative…old lynx’s pounding Bristol’s streets

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

To be fair, the traffic chaos was because Stagecoach, as always, decided to pour petrol on the fire. The chaos was caused by buses queuing to get into Piccadilly Gardens. There were so many buses because Stagecoach brought in resources from all over the country to operate Magic Bus at an unsustainable frequency. It was proper tit-for-tat.

UK North rightly copped the flack because of the standard of their drivers but Stagecoach didn’t behave a great deal better.

Look at Stagecoach in Manchester, Preston, and Darlington. Maybe we should add Brian to the list of cowboys!

I know you don't like Stagecoach but you can't put UK North and Stagecoach in the same category.

UK North actively flouted drivers' hours legislation and then falsified the records, ran a fleet of unroadworthy vehicles (with over half being given immediate prohibitions when the ministry swooped), and that's before we get onto the catalogue of accidents and a fatality.

You might not like the business ethics of Brian Souter but there's no equivalence when looking at legal compliance.

As for the Bristol Area, it would be far too easy to mention certain operators in the past 10 years or so. But CT Plus/HCT "Group" back when they had the 902 and 904 Park and Ride contracts were pretty bad, buses looked ready for the scrapheap, or broke down in inconvenient locations. Rotala/Wessex/Hallmark were also up to some less than stellar tactics around here, I remember one of their buses got stolen and they tried to undercut First on my local route and failed miserably. Eurocoaches are a current one that springs to mind, how they're still in business I will never know. I guess the Flixbus contracts pay good money despite having the wrong vehicles on them most of the time.

In the same way, I don't think you can bracket CT Plus or Wessex with Eurocoaches. Remember that CT Plus were encouraged to use the ex London bendis because Metrobus was being touted with using similar kit, and the vehicles were generally presented ok in the appropriate livery (except for one that retain London red). As for Rotala, they did try to have a go at First (was it on the ONE or the 90 that you were on) but that was only because they were looking to fight back after First commercially registered a lot of Rotala's tendered work.

I recall Eurocoaches taking on a raft of tenders in 2006 and it was such a disaster, they were quickly removed. Welfare minibuses without blinds were turfed out onto city routes. It was horrendous.

If you want a modern day cowboy, can I offer you Transpora and Transpora. The North West operations have had a long history with Catch 22 etc, and the relationship between the proprietor and Beverley Bell!! However, their legal compliance is seemingly much improved.

However, Transpora SW... well, the PI is still fresh in my mind. Vehicles on the wrong discs, exceeding vehicle authorisations, poor reliability including a driver downing tools as she had had enough, vehicles untaxed (and so uninsured), drivers with the wrong license entitlement, vehicles used without tachos, a vehicle broken down and abandoned in a dangerous location, and then the whole operation collapsed with virtually no warning. Oh, and Rhys Hand was accused of viewing telling the truth as "a lifestyle option".

 

[Tetchytyke]

I know you don't like Stagecoach but you can't put UK North and Stagecoach in the same category.

UK North actively flouted drivers' hours legislation and then falsified the records, ran a fleet of unroadworthy vehicles (with over half being given immediate prohibitions when the ministry swooped), and that's before we get onto the catalogue of accidents and a fatality.

You might not like the business ethics of Brian Souter but there's no equivalence when looking at legal compliance.

No, UK North were something else. Using one of their buses was probably the only time I've ever felt genuinely frightened when using a bus. I was rather less than sober, shall we say, and I was still scared rigid.

But the traffic chaos was as much to do with Stagecoach as it was UK North. And not for the first time with Stagecoach. Darlington is obviously the one everyone remembers, but they were even worse in Preston.

Their behaviour in Preston was so bad that the local MP had to intervene as Stagecoach's drivers were being outright dangerous, leading to Beverley Bell making them sign a binding code of conduct.

MP: End Preston's bus war

A bus company in the city has been branded as a "transport monster" by a local MP.

www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk

He also stated that the bus war had intensified after Preston Bus rejected a buyout bid from Stagecoach last summer.

He went on to say that since this rejection Stagecoach had waged a war against Preston Bus by undercutting fares and keeping buses at stops until they were full.

Mr Hendrick said that chaos had been unleashed on the streets with passengers being put at risk.

He added: "My constituents have reported that some Stagecoach staff have driven dangerously to get in front of a Preston Bus vehicle.

"These include one case of a driver making a three-point turn on a busy main road and of one overtaking on the wrong side of the road.

It's all a continuum. Were Stagecoach as bad as UK North? No. Were Stagecoach cowboys? I'd say so!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 10:42 ==

If you want a modern day cowboy, can I offer you Transpora and Transpora.

Careful now, if you criticise Philip Higgs he'll pay someone to stalk you.

 

[Dai Corner]

Then there was the operator which decided to compete with Newport Transport on their services to Bettws, one of largest housing estates in the city. IIRC their vehicles were reposessed while in service with passengers on.

Many off the Traffic Commissioners' decisions are published online. This search should find them

Search

Find content from government

www.gov.uk

Route One magazine has reports of Public Inquiries in more accessible form, without the legal jargon.

Legal Archives - routeone

www.route-one.net

 

[geoffk]

Look at Stagecoach in Manchester, Preston, and Darlington. Maybe we should add Brian to the list of cowboys!

And Barrow?

 

[nick291]

Careful now, if you criticise Philip Higgs he'll pay someone to stalk you.

This is why I said it would be too easy to mention a certain operator, just in case he ends up threatening legal action

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Travel Express / Let's Go! Of Wolverhampton: I believe there is a separate thread regarding them on here. Last I heard they appealed the Traffic Commissioner's decision to revoke their licence, so they might still be operating.

According to Bustimes Let's Go are still operating.
Another still extant operator in the same area is Banga Buses. Both have had their run-ins with the authorities over the years shall we say!
Birmingham in the late 00s/early 10s had a few, some fell by the wayside naturally whilst others were killed off by the LEZ.
Names which spring to mind are Sunny Travel, Joe's Travel and GRS Travel.

But the traffic chaos was as much to do with Stagecoach as it was UK North. And not for the first time with Stagecoach.

UK North got the flak for the traffic chaos on the 192 route because of their already established reputation, but Stagecoach caused a lot of it.
I took a ride to see what was happening. The advertised Stagecoach service was a Stagecoach-branded low-floor bus every 10 minutes all the way to Hazel Grove, alternating with a Magic Bus also every 10 minutes between Manchester and Stepping Hill Hospital.
What was actually running was four Stagecoach/Magicbus vehicles to every UK North, operating a variety of unadvertised short workings to Stepping Hill, Stockport and even just to Levenshulme. A couple of wheelchair users and various mothers with pushchairs waited forlornly for the advertised low-floor buses whilst a selection of step-entrance Olympians and Scanias flew past.
I took a Magicbus Scania from Manchester to Stockport and returned on a UK North/GM Buses Volvo B6. Surprisingly the latter was well driven by a friendly gentleman, although the bus had seen better days- it had 100% fixed windows in the saloon which I believe were put in to strengthen the bodywork!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

But the traffic chaos was as much to do with Stagecoach as it was UK North. And not for the first time with Stagecoach. Darlington is obviously the one everyone remembers, but they were even worse in Preston.

We've had this before but whilst Stagecoach's conduct with Darlington was highly predatory (and ultimately a pyrrhic victory), what actually happened in Darlington had much, much, much more to do with United Auto than Stagecoach.

And whatever the business ethics of Stagecoach, they don't generally run unsafe vehicles or fiddle records and that (for me) is what really sets apart the true cowboy operators.

Then there was the operator which decided to compete with Newport Transport on their services to Bettws, one of largest housing estates in the city. IIRC their vehicles were reposessed while in service with passengers on.

That was also Rhys Hand - he of Transpora SW infamy - with the CityFox "empire".

And Barrow?

Barrow had nothing to do with Stagecoach. Ribble as a National Bus Company opened a depot in competition in 1986. BBT was loss making and went into administration in Jan 1989. Whilst Stagecoach bought Ribble and then bought Barrow a month later, they were already at death's door.

Are you thinking of Lancaster?

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Travel Express / Let's Go! Of Wolverhampton: I believe there is a separate thread regarding them on here. Last I heard they appealed the Traffic Commissioner's decision to revoke their licence, so they might still be operating.

Travel Express / Let's Go! are definitely still running on the #1 Tettenhall - Wolverhampton - Dudley route, and if anyone can explain how, or what ultimately came of the proceedings against them I'd be interested to hear it. Is it still that it's "paused" pending their appeal or was anything decided?

 

[kingston_toon]

The west of Scotland was a hotbed of such operators, but low floor requirements and the purchasing power of McGill's mopped up Paisley and Greenock.
Perhaps the only one that has clung on is Avondale in Clydebank, who have a policy of buying Darts but laterally Enviro 200s, running them in to the ground, rinse and repeat. To be fair, they do paint them all first, but have the typical Monday to Saturday, 8am-6pm type of timetable. Ironically, the buses they run are actually around the same age as the Streetlites that First run on their Clydebank area services.

Funnily enough, Avondale actually started out in the Greenock area, running to Devol in Port Glasgow. I grew up in Inverclyde and can clearly remember what it was like in the late 80s and early 90s, with 10s of different operators with anything from a handful of Merc minibuses to a handful of battered Leyland Nationals competing against the incumbent Clydeside Scottlsh at any one time. Operators and fleet names would come and go, often changing overnight or returning shortly later with the same vehicles. Paisley was similar, although I didn't venture there often. I do wish I'd taken a lot more photos then, but had to hide my interest as one's peers at school weren't particularly forgiving about "unusual" hobbies.

 

[Omnidekkalover]

Hulleys were certainly going in that direction towards the end of their life

 

[Lynford1976]

British Bus (Drawlane as was) weren't cowboys as such, but its practices left much to be desired. I remember Edinburgh Transport, an operation which it acquired with Stevenson's, being picked clean virtually overnight. There was also a reluctance to invest in fleet renewal during much of the group's existence, a slapdash approach to vehicle presentation, and the dodgy dealings behind the scenes which came to light after its sale to Cowie.
Even right at the start the signs were there when, as Drawlane and during the NBC privatisation, it tried to get around the NBC "no more than two companies per buyer" stipulation by establishing an alias, Allied Bus, to bid for a third one - a bid which was subsequently disqualified once Allied's true identity became known.

Definitely an odd bunch.

Couldn't agree more.

I worked for one of the British Bus subsidaries in the group's dying days. The experience put me off from working in the bus industry for several years afterwards.

I don't think it's legacy is one that Arriva has ever been able to shake off properly, especially in the South East.