Depot runs to start / end of the 13 and 60.
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McGill’s Midland Bluebird
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Its a service replacing deadrunning like the 801. In each direction, one bus operates Deans to Haymarket, Deans to Waterloo Place and Deans to Lochend.
The Haymarket journey deadruns to/from Craigleith for a 13 and the Waterloo Place one deadruns to Holyrood for the 60.
Edit - I have been beaten to it.
Stan Drews
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McGill’s Scotland East is the name on the operators licence (PM923) on which the services are registered.
The latest (largely former First) buses disposed of to Ensign are as follows:
Streetlites - 0410, 0412, 0416, 0421, 0444, 0463
Volvo B7RLEs - 2278, 2279, 2288, 2290, 2294, 2297, 2298, 2301
VDL SB200 - 6006
ADL E300 - 8487
…and to Clyde Metals:
Scania L94 - 1608
Volvo B7TL - 2861
ADL E200MMC - 4113
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CSB0241
On Moderation
markymark2000
On Moderation
Someone has made a right mess inserting the wrong operator code when doing their Traveline entries.
Baileygirl
Member
How do make make that out? These services are operating from Livingston Deans Depot and by the look of pictures on Facebook they will be driven by Bright Bus drivers. Have the routes been registered yet?
markymark2000
On Moderation
Someone has put the Aberdeen council operator code into Traveline for these trips rather than the Midland Bluebird operator code.
Stan Drews
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Yes, they have been registered to start on 2nd December, operated by drivers based at the Livingston depot which also runs the Airport Express service.
Baileygirl
Member
What company have they been registered under?
CSB0241
On Moderation
I just want to know how somebody can get FSCE & ABDC mixed up.
Midland Bluebird.
Stan Drews
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No, McGill’s Scotland East Ltd. (PM923) as per all Livingston routes.
Probably simply to do with ease, this way means they can change vehicles around with other depots and still retain the same brand.
Stan Drews
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Nobody said they can’t, they just choose not to.
Baileygirl
Member
The Livingston depot still has Eastern Scottish signs up along with Bright Bus
GusB
Established Member
Why does it make more sense geographically? For a start, there's absolutely no obligation for any bus company to stick to its historic boundaries. Secondly, continuing the Eastern Scottish brand would only make sense if there was a substantial enough fleet to use it.
markymark2000
On Moderation
Possibly given the enormous amount of bad press about Eastern Scottish, why would you restart using a brand that has had it's name dragged through the mud so much.
LothianBusesPh
Member
Thanks for sharing.
Nobody said anything about an obligation to stick to historic boundaries but according to my map, Edinburgh is in the east. The clue is in the name, Eastern Scottish. Falkirk and Stirling are in the middle, hence Midland.
McGill's paid Best Impressions to design a separate identity for Eastern so it makes sense to use it. A substantial fleet isn't needed either, it's no different to a route branded few buses in a big fleet which is seen all over the country.
Yorkshireguy
Member
The separate identity likely existed in part to make it easy to dispose of Livingston routes if they proved unviable without causing panic in Falkirk and Stirling. That’s now done, so they’ve got their money’s worth out of it. There’s more to be gained now by having a single brand identity to increase brand awareness against Lothian, especially to promote the X38.
GusB
Established Member
Midland used to operate services into Edinburgh. Livingston is in the middle too. It's in what would be classed as the "Central Belt", after all
If you want to take things to the ultimate silly conclusion, please do remember that Midland Scottish used to operate services in and around Oban. Would you class those as "midland", too?
What about the depots and routes in and around Glasgow before the re-organisation? The identity that was devised for Eastern Scottish was exactly the same as that used for Midland Bluebird but using different colours. The whole rebrand would have been priced as one package.
Bear in mind that this all happened before McGill's decided to ditch the West Lothian routes.
There is no point in keeping the Eastern Scottish identity on a handful of buses, especially when a competitor is now using a green-based colour scheme for their services. It'd be fine if the company committed to using vehicles with a dedicated livery on certain routes, but we all know that this won't work in practice; as soon as a vehicle needs to be brought in for maintenance, a "blue" bus will be substituted at some point.
I reckon that "Midland Bluebird" is still a fairly strong brand; certainly stronger than "Eastern Scottish". McGill's should really focus on that, regardless of historical boundaries.
CSB0241
On Moderation
As multiple other members have stated, there are plenty of reasons as to why that probably doesn’t matter or would just be a bad move overall.
0411/80/1 & the 13/60/X39 moved to Bright Bus on bustimes.
It must be good to be right about everything, but my comments on recycling the Eastern name was based on logic, not nostalgia. Of course the Bus Group obviously had its fair share of brainless management too, hence Eastern Scottish having a depot at Baillieston and operating local services around Glasgow.Midland used to operate services into Edinburgh. Livingston is in the middle too. It's in what would be classed as the "Central Belt", after all
If you want to take things to the ultimate silly conclusion, please do remember that Midland Scottish used to operate services in and around Oban. Would you class those as "midland", too?
The identity that was devised for Eastern Scottish was exactly the same as that used for Midland Bluebird but using different colours. The whole rebrand would have been priced as one package.
Bear in mind that this all happened before McGill's decided to ditch the West Lothian routes.
There is no point in keeping the Eastern Scottish identity on a handful of buses, especially when a competitor is now using a green-based colour scheme for their services. It'd be fine if the company committed to using vehicles with a dedicated livery on certain routes, but we all know that this won't work in practice; as soon as a vehicle needs to be brought in for maintenance, a "blue" bus will be substituted at some point.
I reckon that "Midland Bluebird" is still a fairly strong brand; certainly stronger than "Eastern Scottish". McGill's should really focus on that, regardless of historical boundaries.
McGill's reintroduced the Eastern Scottish brand and pseudo Lothian Country livery whilst actively competing against Lothian, so I'm not convinced they even knew the whole operation was going to be dropped shortly afterwards.
I'm sure you are also right about the cost of consulting Best Impressions to come up with a rebrand. No doubt Ray Stenning or one of his underlings went to the bother of designing the green livery for nothing, perhaps throwing in the Mercury graphic for free.
I think you'll find that Eastern Scottish's involvement in Glasgow was historical, the result of SMT acquiring Lowland Motorways in 1958. An anomaly yes, but certainly not due to "brainless management."
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NorthClyde320
Member
Surely it would now make sense to just transfer the remaining Scotland East (PM923) operations over to the Midland Bluebird (PM3) licence? Bluebird has more than enough discs to cover the additional work but I'm sure it would be easy enough to get an additional say 20-30 discs anyway. The current Scotland East licence has 170 discs and currently only uses about 20 so unless McGill's has massive expansion plans it just seems a waste to have 2 separate licences.
Metal Mickey
Member
You could argue that the Midland Scottish (Alexander) operating area was greater in size as they had depots in Milngavie and Pitlochry.I think you'll find that Eastern Scottish's involvement in Glasgow was historical, the result of SMT acquiring Lowland Motorways in 1958. An anomaly yes, but certainly not due to "brainless management."
That came to mind too. Pitlochry, being on the edge of the Highlands, can hardly be described as being in the midlands of Scotland.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
There have always been anomalies caused by historic purchases and other interventions. The SBG reorganisation was partly a means to rectify this.I think you'll find that Eastern Scottish's involvement in Glasgow was historical, the result of SMT acquiring Lowland Motorways in 1958. An anomaly yes, but certainly not due to "brainless management."
TBH, it wouldn't make any sense to have three or four vehicles in a green livery to do a handful of local services. Operationally, it would be a bind, and there's no commercial benefit in doing so.
Although they appear to be doing just that with the Xplore buses to be used on a contract in Aberdeen.