True - they've been the one big success story in Glasgow over the last decade or so - huge improvement on that corridor (whilst some others have seen an "every ten minute or better" service cut back to every fifteen or so).
Same goes for the Lanarkshire services - despite the high frequency of the (e.g.) 240 - the Overground requirements were too high for a lot of frequent corridors to qualify for.
It was later dumbed down a little (and the 89/90 was put on the map, as a kind of orbital connection between the properly frequent radial routes), then the "every ten minutes" 18 became the "every eight minutes over the core route 16/18 (with Summerston/ Blairdardie cut back to only every fifteen, and the 57 extended to replace the 16 in Auchinairn).
Ah, the days when a barbie willow-leaf liveried bus would turn your head because of the novelty of such a modern vehicle (rather than because there are only a handful left in that old livery nowadays!)...
It - what is now The One set of services - was always a decent earner (even going back to the days when Alexander PS-bodied Volvo B10Ms held sway); it only really took off after the rebranding of Nov. 2012, the success of which eventually required deckers (Eclipse-bodied Volvo B9TLs) to be permanently allocated to Dumbarton depot (and even they sometimes struggle at the height of the rush hour!).
Aside from the 240, the only other City-Lanarkshire services that could really qualify at the time would be the 266 & 267, if I'm not mistaken?
Aye, and after a certain point, virtually every route (peak-time only routes included) appeared on route maps which also gradually become more geographically accurate with time. More informative, but a tad hard to keep on top of at times!
Aye, particularly the Wright-bodied stock of the period (Scania L113CRL/L94UB, Volvo B10BLE/B10LA etc); Barbie/Willowleaf looked real smart when freshly applied. Pity the livery has been reduced to a few rather down-at-heel B7Ls (the worst of the lot by a mile), Tridents and (sadly) B10BLEs. The Marshall-bodied Darts are all but extinct now. Not that I expected otherwise, but going out with a whimper is admittedly a bit of a shame.
The expressway services started with the X93 Drumchapel - knightswood to City which then went onto become X62 Clydebank - Scotstoun to City.
The balloch and helensburgh to Clydebank D4/5/6 services became 204/205/215 and replaced the X62.
There was also a short lived 217 from Duntocher to City via expressway.
Then it all became the one service.
Aye, that's right. At the back of my head, I knew about the X62 & X93 (the latter being a rather short-lived venture, run by early Pointer-bodied Dart SLFs); just couldn't remember the ins and outs of them. The 217 I also remember quite well, was effectively the 81 and the 2xx Dumbartonshire express services tagged together. Only ran in the peak periods by the end, if I remember right. Was withdrawn about a year (late 2011) before the launch of 'The One' brand.
Yep, these three served Clydebank at this time, the 62 being my local route from 1999/2000 onward. The 11 ran from Parkhall to Robroyston at the time, the 62 from Faifley to Baillieston & the 66 from Mountblow to East Kilbride (Calderwood).
The 62 (later the 2) is also the only one that's not been cut back in some way: the 11 firstly lost it's Clydebank-Parkhall section in the late 2000s; it started/finished at Clydebank Business Park for a period before being heavily truncated in the SimplCITY revamp, becoming the M11 and running merely to Gartnavel Hospital from Clydebank.
The 66 (later the 6) managed to retain it's Clydebank-Mountblow via Dalmuir section until October 2015, when it was replaced over that section by a new variant of The One (the 1D, in effect extended short 1s that ironically terminated at Clydebank Business Park, much like the 11 did). The 6 has terminated at the 11s old stop since then.
