Memories of Yelloway coach services from the North West

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Well over fifty years ago, I remember boarding a Yelloway coach in Middleton town centre late on a Friday evening to the coach station in Cheltenham, where we then changed for onward travel to the West Country. Anyone on here of a certain age who also made such a journey?

 

[carlberry]

Well over fifty years ago, I remember boarding a Yelloway coach in Middleton town centre late on a Friday evening to the coach station in Cheltenham, where we then changed for onward travel to the West Country. Anyone on here of a certain age who also made such a journey?

I never traveled on them however do remember seeing them in Bristol until the early 1980s on the joint National Express services.
A vast amount of information is available at Yelloway Museum about how the services developed, and their demise in the 1980s.

 

[Titfield]

Never travelled on but do remember their X41 service arriving in Bmth at the coach station at Holdenhurst Road.

 

[lincman]

I never made the Journey as a passenger, but from 1977 I drove the services to the south west , and various other destinations until the demise of the company.

 

[GusB]

Well over fifty years ago, I remember boarding a Yelloway coach in Middleton town centre late on a Friday evening to the coach station in Cheltenham, where we then changed for onward travel to the West Country. Anyone on here of a certain age who also made such a journey?

The BBC have repeated (again!) their Timeshift programmes "The Golden Age of Coach Travel", the first of which mentions Yelloway coaches and features a chap who had set up a mobile museum.

The link to part one of the programme is here:

BBC Four - Timeshift, Series 10, The Golden Age of Coach Travel

The 1950s were a time when the coach was king and helped give people a taste of freedom.

www.bbc.co.uk

Having searched for a bit more information about the museum I discovered that the founder, Dave Haddock, passed away earlier this year, but it would appear that the coach has been sold on to someone else. The site hasn't been updated since 2020, but the link is here:

http://yellowaymobilemuseum.co.uk/

 

[carlberry]

Having searched for a bit more information about the museum I discovered that the founder, Dave Haddock, passed away earlier this year, but it would appear that the coach has been sold on to someone else. The site hasn't been updated since 2020, but the link is here:

http://yellowaymobilemuseum.co.uk/

He was a great guy who organised a road run back in 2007 on the old Yelloway routes. He moved the coach/museum to a hotel near Torquay for a while however it's now in the Bury transport museum (part of the East Lancs Railway) still setup as a museum:

https://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/plan-your-day-out/bury-transport-museum/

 

[Springs Branch]

I never used Yelloway's well-known routes to the South West, but I did have one experience of their service between Lancashire and East Anglia.

In the early 1980s, I needed to make several journeys between Wigan and Cambridge in quick succession. With no access to a car at the time and with the cost of train fares mounting up, I decided to give Yelloway a try with a return trip. I knew they had a solid reputation as a good and popular coach operator, so I had expectations of a satisfactory trip with a few ££ saved.

First journey was from Bolton to Cambridge, on what may have been the Blackburn or Rochdale to Clacton route. It was one of Yelloway's signature yellow & orange AEC Reliances, which offered uncomfortable, narrow seats and shabby interior. The all-day cross-country journey (stopping in places like Leek and Leicester) was an interminable series of rough gear changes and badly executed cornering along single-carriageway A-roads, with hardly a motorway to be seen.

Subsequently, I've read that the manual gearboxes on Yelloway's fleet of AECs "took a bit of getting used to", and saw mention that it might take a new driver six months to become proficient. Maybe so, but I suspect a significant contribution came from our scruffy, surly and seemingly disinterested driver not giving a **** (maybe @lincman knew him??)

The return journey from Cambridge to Wigan (final destination Blackpool IIRC) was operated by a Premier Travel coach and driver (Premier was a joint operator on this route) and a whole different kettle of fish - smart, new blue vehicle with comfortable seats, a cheerful, helpful driver (who obviously knew a thing or two about how to drive a coach) and an enjoyable trip back to the North - albeit via a different route with a fair bit of motorway running in this direction.

After this dabble spending a whole day with Yelloway I decided (on a sample size of 1) that despite more expensive fares, Inter-City really did make the going easy and went back to BR.

 

[01d-and]

Yelloway [and other joint operarors ] covered quite a fair bit of the UK back in the day. I was always interested to see whose coaches got hired in at peak times , the names of which I forget . . . . . Any reminders folks ??

 

[lincman]

I never used Yelloway's well-known routes to the South West, but I did have one experience of their service between Lancashire and East Anglia.

In the early 1980s, I needed to make several journeys between Wigan and Cambridge in quick succession. With no access to a car at the time and with the cost of train fares mounting up, I decided to give Yelloway a try with a return trip. I knew they had a solid reputation as a good and popular coach operator, so I had expectations of a satisfactory trip with a few ££ saved.

First journey was from Bolton to Cambridge, on what may have been the Blackburn or Rochdale to Clacton route. It was one of Yelloway's signature yellow & orange AEC Reliances, which offered uncomfortable, narrow seats and shabby interior. The all-day cross-country journey (stopping in places like Leek and Leicester) was an interminable series of rough gear changes and badly executed cornering along single-carriageway A-roads, with hardly a motorway to be seen.

Subsequently, I've read that the manual gearboxes on Yelloway's fleet of AECs "took a bit of getting used to", and saw mention that it might take a new driver six months to become proficient. Maybe so, but I suspect a significant contribution came from our scruffy, surly and seemingly disinterested driver not giving a **** (maybe @lincman knew him??)

The return journey from Cambridge to Wigan (final destination Blackpool IIRC) was operated by a Premier Travel coach and driver (Premier was a joint operator on this route) and a whole different kettle of fish - smart, new blue vehicle with comfortable seats, a cheerful, helpful driver (who obviously knew a thing or two about how to drive a coach) and an enjoyable trip back to the North - albeit via a different route with a fair bit of motorway running in this direction.

After this dabble spending a whole day with Yelloway I decided (on a sample size of 1) that despite more expensive fares, Inter-City really did make the going easy and went back to BR.

I note with some personal interest your comments regarding your journey, and I am a little confused by some of your observations . The vehicles used on these services were pretty well the same, being at that time being Plaxton AEC's /Leyland's both fitted with standard Plaxton fixed seats ( most of the Yelloway front line fleet were fitted with Chapman recliners).As to the gearboxes they were ZF 6 speed which were standard on manual AEC's and the journey was always timetabled across country, and I know of no Yelloway/Premier service from Cambridge to Wigan, as to the surly driver I make no comment it could have been Me !!!

 

[philthetube]

Have to agree with lincman, the seats provided were the standard coach seats of the time, at the time coaches were a max length of 40' and 53 seats were the norm so they were much more cramped than modern vehicles. The 6 speed ZF gearboxes were a pleasure to drive and anyone who could drive a car should have been able to cope after a trip.

 

[Titfield]

National Travel SW would hire in from virtually any operator for the busiest of peak summer Saturdays. In Bournemouth a local favoured hire in was the late lamented Sea View of Parkstone.

 

[Springs Branch]

I note with some personal interest your comments regarding your journey, and I am a little confused by some of your observations . The vehicles used on these services were pretty well the same, being at that time being Plaxton AEC's /Leyland's both fitted with standard Plaxton fixed seats ( most of the Yelloway front line fleet were fitted with Chapman recliners). . . .

Maybe the fixed, upright seats combined with the rough driving added to the discomfort of my southbound journey.

. . . . . As to the gearboxes they were ZF 6 speed which were standard on manual AEC's . . . .

I don't have any experience of the knack of operating HGV or PSV gearboxes, but I remembered where I read about the Yelloway examples.
It was this post on Stephen Dowle's (a.k.a. Fray Bentos) Flickr site. On reflection, maybe S.D. was talking about the whole gearbox/steering/coach package, not just the manual gears.

. . . . I had a little go on one of these once. At Bristol's bus and coach station, where I was then working . . . . . . . . I was bidden to take a Yelloway AEC Reliance to Lawrence Hill and come back "on the cushions". Ooh-er ...six-speed manual gearbox. Not the sort of thing we were used to at Bristol Omnibus Co. on a full-size coach. So out of the exit I went, into the thick of the city centre traffic in this completely unfamiliar vehicle. The other drivers jostling for position around me were unaware of my predicament, of course. I suppose this is what they mean nowadays when they talk about a "steep learning-curve". I managed to find two or three of the gears and roared at high revs up to Lawrence Hill, choosing the direct, mostly dual-carriageway route . . . . . . . It was a bit of a handful, and I remember that the steering seemed horribly "low-geared". An interesting experience though. A Yelloway driver told me a little later that the AECs were a very nice drive once you'd had about six months to get used to them.

. . . . the journey was always timetabled across country, and I know of no Yelloway/Premier service from Cambridge to Wigan

I had studied Yelloway/Premier's timetable leaflet before booking, so was aware of the cross-country itinerary - which to be fair was reasonably "as the crow flies", but hadn't properly anticipated the tedium of slow A-roads, all the traffic lights and crawling around one after another town centre one-way system to get into and out of bus stations.

The northbound trip was definitely on the bus at Cambridge Drummer Street, off the same vehicle in Wigan Bus Station. As mentioned, this was one of Premier Travel's runs & pretty sure its final destination was Blackpool. Don't know if it had started from Cambridge or somewhere further south-east such as Ipswich or wherever.

. . . . as to the surly driver I make no comment it could have been Me !!!

I suspected at the time the driver might have been someone who had decided a coach-driver's life was not for him, and was working out his notice period before departing to pastures new. He certainly didn't seem to enjoy his job, but who knows?

 

[lincman]

Premier never ran to Wigan on any Blackpool services. The motorway service from Cambridge originated from Ipswich on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Mondays and served Bolton, not Wigan. There was a Saturday only Cambridge to Blackpool but that was non-stop Leicester to Preston. As to the driver, anyone who has worked that service will tell you it was damned hard work and not always the days work, but as you say who knows.

 

[Springs Branch]

Possibly the Wigan stop was only a short-lived addition in Premier's "Blackpool via motorway" schedule, but we'll have to agree to disagree on the never part.

I definitely did this journey in May/June 1982, alighting in Wigan Bus Station (and it involved a reasonable bit of motorway running up the M6). I had a couple of large & heavy suitcases with me on that trip, and the opportunity to avoid lugging these on & off trains at March and Nuneaton had been part of the motivation for using the coach (behind the cost saving).

I can certainly understand the Yelloway cross-country route was a hard day's work for the driver.
A couple of years later, I drove from St Helens to Leicester and back for a business meeting - foolishly following something vaguely like the cross country route rather than choosing maximum motorway. I found this "part route" trip hard work and tiring - and I was driving a Vauxhall Cavalier, not a full size coach and not calling into every bus station along the way.

 

[busesrusuk]

My one and only interaction with the original Yelloway coaches was seeing this departure form the erstwhile Bournemouth Coach Station on Christmas in the mid/late 80's (can't remember exactly what year it was).

As can be seen from the image, it was well loaded with seemingly happy punters on what could only have been an extremely long slog back up to Rochdale via Hanley and Manchester:

Yelloways WDK562T | Bournemouth Coach Station | Keith Wood | Flickr

 

[Titfield]

My one and only interaction with the original Yelloway coaches was seeing this departure form the erstwhile Bournemouth Coach Station on Christmas in the mid/late 80's (can't remember exactly what year it was).

As can be seen from the image, it was well loaded with seemingly happy punters on what could only have been an extremely long slog back up to Rochdale via Hanley and Manchester:

Yelloways WDK562T | Bournemouth Coach Station | Keith Wood | Flickr

That is such a great pic of typical coach operations of the time.

As I have referred to before, many passengers - particularly senior citizens - preferred to travel by coach if it meant avoiding a change en route* and liked that the fares were much cheaper than by rail.

*The Cheltenham interchange was the exception because the changeover was supervised and co-ordinated so that passengers didnt miss their connection.

 

[MotCO]

One of the Yelloway coaches (CDK172K) has a detailed restoration project here http://www.theyellowayproject.co.uk/cdk home page.htm if you're interested.

 

[jp4712]

From time to time I drive the two preserved Yelloway vehicles at the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester, YDK590 and HVU244N. YDK is a little sweetie - built in 1961, it’s not built for the motorways and will pootle along all day on A roads. 4-speed box, very sweet as soon as you get used to the gear change gate being very narrow (I.e. third is only slightly to the right of first).

HVU is a beast, at 70 it feels like it has plenty further it could go. The six-speed ZF isn’t as hard as it’s been described, the main thing to remember is that it’s spring loaded towards the centre (I.e. third and fourth) so you have to push left against the spring for first or second, or push right for fifth or sixth. They’re both lovely to drive in different ways, it’s amazing to feel the difference in what is nominally the same chassis type with thirteen years between.

 

[lincman]

May I first say how envious I am that you still get to drive these lovely motors, 590 had left the fleet when I first started, but I was there during the restoration. It had a 7.7 litre 470 engine compared with 244 which I drove many times which had the 12.6 litre 760 and as you state will purr all day at 70 and was a dream to drive.