Stagecarriage

[OMGitsDAVE]

(Yes, carriage not coach!)

Thought I’d open a discussion on this company as they seem to be succeeding in the Teesside area, introducing hourly buses to the Stillington/Carlton villages from Stockton in absence of the Leven Valley buses that unfortunately went bust a few years ago. They’ve extended the route to Teesside Retail Park and Middlesbrough, operating through routes for most of the day. Their service is also half hourly between Middlesbrough, Teesside Park & Stockton, with a new service 6 just beginning to operate.

Has anyone used them? They have newer Citaro’s on the X8.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

(Yes, carriage not coach!)

Thought I’d open a discussion on this company as they seem to be succeeding in the Teesside area, introducing hourly buses to the Stillington/Carlton villages from Stockton in absence of the Leven Valley buses that unfortunately went bust a few years ago. They’ve extended the route to Teesside Retail Park and Middlesbrough, operating through routes for most of the day. Their service is also half hourly between Middlesbrough, Teesside Park & Stockton, with a new service 6 just beginning to operate.

Has anyone used them? They have newer Citaro’s on the X8.

Leven Valley didn’t go bust - they were bought by Proctors.

 

[Kuyoyo]

Leven Valley didn’t go bust - they were bought by Proctors.

Yes they did - in December 2013. In February 2015, the company ceased trading as it couldn’t afford to renew its insurance due to the cost tripling.

As for the X8, as I live in Stillington, I do use it when I get the chance. While it’s an improvement now over the original timetable, it has outgrown one or two of the vehicles in the fleet.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Yes they did - in December 2013. In February 2015, the company ceased trading as it couldn’t afford to renew its insurance due to the cost tripling.

As for the X8, as I live in Stillington, I do use it when I get the chance. While it’s an improvement now over the original timetable, it has outgrown one or two of the vehicles in the fleet.

I thought KP bought them before they went bust?

Edit: they closed down in 2015 with various assets passing within Proctors, rather than “going bust” - that was what I recalled.

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

Yes they did - in December 2013. In February 2015, the company ceased trading as it couldn’t afford to renew its insurance due to the cost tripling.

As for the X8, as I live in Stillington, I do use it when I get the chance. While it’s an improvement now over the original timetable, it has outgrown one or two of the vehicles in the fleet.

I live in Stillington too. I do believe they try to put the double deckers or the Citaro’s on more often than not now!

I believe they had to stop trading after their insurance went too high following a number of incidents? They couldn’t afford to continue trading.

 

[darloscott]

Hi all, commercial manager from Stagecarriage here. I joined the company two years ago and now run the operations day to day. The company ran quite a network of services in the Tees Valley area after Leven Valley sadly closed down, before I joined them. Not all were successful but the route to Stillington survived and is now thriving after a couple of timetable changes to get the best out of the route.

Around a year and a half ago we had to withdraw the 87 service between Stockton & Norton which just simply wasn't viable and it was replaced with a commercial X8 service between Stockton & Middlesbrough via Teesside Park, a large retail park that had previously been served by various companies with no long term success. The initial timetable just ran between 9am and 3pm using a college bus and we interworked it with the Stillington service to offer through journeys albeit remaining two separate services at that point. Eventually the two services were combined through a partnership with Teesside Park with a massively expanded timetable and indeed we recently doubled it to half hourly to the shopping park.

The only problem now is the loads are outgrowing some of the vehicles we have (especially the little Solo!) so we're looking to bring in bigger vehicles to help reduce overcrowding.

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

Hi all, commercial manager from Stagecarriage here. I joined the company two years ago and now run the operations day to day. The company ran quite a network of services in the Tees Valley area after Leven Valley sadly closed down, before I joined them. Not all were successful but the route to Stillington survived and is now thriving after a couple of timetable changes to get the best out of the route.

Around a year and a half ago we had to withdraw the 87 service between Stockton & Norton which just simply wasn't viable and it was replaced with a commercial X8 service between Stockton & Middlesbrough via Teesside Park, a large retail park that had previously been served by various companies with no long term success. The initial timetable just ran between 9am and 3pm using a college bus and we interworked it with the Stillington service to offer through journeys albeit remaining two separate services at that point. Eventually the two services were combined through a partnership with Teesside Park with a massively expanded timetable and indeed we recently doubled it to half hourly to the shopping park.

The only problem now is the loads are outgrowing some of the vehicles we have (especially the little Solo!) so we're looking to bring in bigger vehicles to help reduce overcrowding.

Hey Scott!
Great to see you thriving as a business. Would it not be worth expanding the X8 in to the evenings to provide much needed journeys through to these villages? I know a number of people who try to visit the hospital for evening visiting but have to pay £6 each way in a taxi!

 

[darloscott]

Hey Scott!
Great to see you thriving as a business. Would it not be worth expanding the X8 in to the evenings to provide much needed journeys through to these villages? I know a number of people who try to visit the hospital for evening visiting but have to pay £6 each way in a taxi!

It's certainly something that we can look at in the future, we added a later service to Stillington (& a later return, now 1800) back into the timetable last year after a long absence since Leven ran the route. The latest changes were to help Teesside Park staff travel to and from work by better aligning the timetable with shift times. It's my ambition to extend the timetable again in the future but I think for now we need to let the route stabilise for a bit, there's been lots of changes in the last year or two, although passenger numbers are now at an all time high which is good.

The Mercedes Citaro that is branded for the route is about to be joined by a VDL Centro on the X8 which will replace the small Solo as this is just not big enough now. The double decks tend to be used on the shorter trips between Stockton & Middlesbrough - these interwork with our new Stockton town service 6 which picks up some of the 13 route which was recently reduced by Stagecoach to an hourly frequency. They also do school & college work hence the use of DDs on these trips.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I believe they had to stop trading after their insurance went too high following a number of incidents? They couldn’t afford to continue trading.

Perhaps we're talking semantics. My understanding was that they sold out to Kevin Proctor in 2013 before they went bust; I think he bought the firm but just via taking on the debt. Then in 2015, they did have a hike in their insurance premiums and so decided to wind the business up. It didn't just stop overnight, hence my saying that it didn't go bust. Sorry for any confusion

 

[darloscott]

Just thought I'd check in again on this thread as we've just extended the X8 once again to James Cook University Hospital once an hour as part of major changes to our operations a week or two ago. We've also changed all of the school & college services with new routes, timetables and numbers. The fleet is undergoing a transformation program at the moment as we work on many improvements to our operations.

 

[Bwsbro]

According to reports on Twitter Stagecarriage is to cease trading this afternoon

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

According to reports on Twitter Stagecarriage is to cease trading this afternoon

Think poster darloscott tweeted that they ceased yesterday lunchtime

 

[darloscott]

Think poster darloscott tweeted that they ceased yesterday lunchtime

Yes I left a few months ago but I keep in touch with all the lads there, and they were told on Friday morning that the company was closing at the end of the day, service ended up being terminated by lunchtime as most of them went back understandably. I won't say too much on a public forum but the owner seems to have changed his mind and rumours that the X8 will run again on Monday according to one of the drivers, so who knows what is going on.