Excellent report as always
@RELL6L - I was recently in the Lancaster area and some of the scenery around there is so underrated. I would also agree that Morecambe can be a lot more scenic than some give it credit - though on a windy day it seems to get particularly brutal gales off the sea! I hope I'm not raining on your parade if I post my own report before your part 2 which I eagerly await...
Last weekend saw a spell of decent weather forecast and with autumn beginning to draw in, I knew I wanted to make use of it. So I decided to go on a trip which had been in the works for some time - ever since I had noticed an incredibly rural bus route snaking its way up from Galloway into the southern tip of Ayrshire.
Following a series of connections west, my day began in earnest at Dumfries - a fine county town which has long been a favourite of mine. I made sure to catch an early train to have plenty of time to soak up the sights and enjoy a breakfast, before heading back to the railway station to wait for my first bus connection to Castle Douglas.
The Stagecoach West Scotland 500 service is a major trunk route - effectively providing the only East-West link across Dumfries and Galloway since the closure of the famous "Port Road" in the 1960s. There are various routes numbered in the low 500s which all travel west from Dumfries, but only the main 500 continues right through to Stranraer. As is common with longer distance interurban services in Scotland, the route is worked with coaches - yellow Plaxton Elites to be precise. A handful of passengers boarded at Dumfries' pleasant red sandstone railway station, and we also picked up a few more at each of the other stops in town - the Loreburn Centre (where buses unusually dive into an awning right next to the entrance to the shops) and the main Whitesands stop by the Nith. Continuing west we also called in at the out of town hospital before joining the A75 for the pleasant run out to Castle Douglas. While the scenery was decent enough, by Galloway standards it wasn't particularly exceptional - pleasant rolling hills and a few villages strung out along the main road west.
Castle Douglas is a fairly new town, built in the late 18th century in a grid pattern and only really fully developing with the coming of the railways in 1859. It has a reputation as a "food town" and there certainly seemed to be plenty of cafes and restaurants on its rather gentrified main street, but other than that I wasn't particularly taken by the place. But I hadn't come here for lunch - what I really cared about was the next route, which was the main focus of the trip.
The 520, operated by McCall's Coaches, is something of a no frills operation. A slightly rattly midibus runs up from Castle Douglas into the hills every hour or two, and depending on journey can terminate in various places through the Glenkens. I had deliberately chosen my departure as one of only two to continue across the county boundary to the remote (and tiny) Ayrshire town of Dalmellington. At just £4.80 the single fare was superb value, and surprisingly the bus was busy with over a dozen passengers already boarding at other stops in Castle Douglas - these sorts of deeply rural routes do seem to get slightly more usage in Scotland than they do south of the border. Luckily there were enough seats available for me to be able to get a place on the left hand side, which I had identified as having better views of the lochs and hills heading north.
And what views they were!
Almost immediately after passing through the village of Crossmichael, the left hand view opens up and Loch Ken becomes visible - a long freshwater loch partially dammed by a barrage to provide hydroelectric power locally. Distant hills rise beyond, at first quite gentle but becoming steeper and harsher as the route heads north. The key intermediate points on route, and where all other passengers were travelling to, is a clutch of pretty villages just beyond the loch's head - New Galloway, Balmaclellan, and Dalry - and beyond these the route really does become wild. The hills and moors here are higher and wilder; the tiny villages even more remote. After Carsphairn, the route truly becomes deep rural and runs past vast forests and plains - with distant views of the vast Loch Doon and then a brief stretch of gorge before entering the town of Dalmellington. It is difficult to really put into words how astonishingly beautiful this bus route is - and varied too, with a mix of lowland and upland terrain as well as some gorgeous villages!
I expected Dalmellington to be something of a come down after that, but despite a rather dour reputation, found the place to be pleasant and friendly enough. The main bus stop, served by all routes regardless of direction of travel, sits on a roundabout above a small burn (the same one seen in the gorge on the southern approach to town). I was taking the Stagecoach 52 service down to Ayr - an important service and the main route connecting the Doon Valley with the wider world. As you might expect for a Saturday afternoon journey on a pleasant day, loadings were excellent; the route has two buses an hour (one direct, one via Dalrymple) but despite running through quite rural territory, clearly justifies this level of service. With the journey approaching the coast, the terrain became flatter and more moderate as the route went on, but there were still sweeping views right across the county.
From Ayr, I had quite a few more options - I knew I had to be in Kilmarnock for my train home in the evening, so decided to carry on northwards at first and then cut inland. I decided to travel north to Prestwick and then take a train onwards for the short hop to Troon (having just missed the bus from Ayr) - from there I could connect onto an infrequent and mildly interesting route into the west end of Kilmarnock. From Ayr to Prestwick, I took the 2 service - one of many that trundle up the Prestwick Road between these two inseparable towns. This local route runs at a frequency of every 20 minutes and is now operated by electric Enviro buses - and has quite a few modern features like automatic next stop announcements and the newer style of grey seating Stagecoach now favour. It operates as a loop (heading out via the direct road to Prestwick but then returning via estates to the east of Prestwick and Ayr) but the other direction is numbered... 6! Unsurprisingly given the built up urban nature of the route there were plenty of passengers, many making short journeys either from Ayr to residential areas to the north or travelling locally into Prestwick.
I caught a train from Prestwick to Troon and had a bit of a wander there - in the sunny evening light, the expansive views across the bay were pretty stunning, even if the low tide meant there wasn't too much sea to see! I couldn't dawdle for too long though; my final bus of the day beckoned - another Stagecoach service, this time the number 10. Now if there was an award for most circuitous bus route, I think the 10 might be a contender - certainly within Troon it manages to loop around every housing estate possible. With vast numbers of new builds sprouting up at Barrassie, I can only see this route getting more winding in future! Once we had escaped the sprawl, it was a fairly fast and nondescript ride up to Kilmarnock - probably one of the quietest buses of the day, not helped by the parallel 11 having an excellent frequency as we entered Kilmarnock. I alighted at the railway station, found somewhere to get dinner and a few pints, and prepared myself for the long journey home...
So what did I think of my trip? Overall, it was enjoyable. I think the South West of Scotland is certainly an underrated area to visit - generally people would think of the Highlands if they were after stunning scenery in Scotland, perhaps not realising that there exists much of the same sort of terrain far further south. The buses I took were invariably clean and were either on time or only very marginally late, and loadings seemed to reflect that these services are important to local communities.
But if I had a minor piece of feedback, particularly for Stagecoach, it would be that the network in this area can be rather confusing. Buses can have the same number and destination but go different ways (the 52), buses often go on lengthy and confusing tours of peripheral parts of town (the 10), buses have wildly different numbers depending on direction (the 2/6). I also noticed further oddities like some buses being prefaced with a 3 (possibly based around SPT funding for marginal journeys?). I can sympathise with them though, and think they are doing a good job in what certainly isn't the most bus friendly place in Britain. The coal mining history means that "good bus territory" tends to be patchy and spread out, with long distances between areas which have strong bus usage (like Dalmellington or Cumnock) and their main towns for work, shopping, and recreation. As quite a traditional area, Stagecoach won't want to rock the boat with radical changes, but to really attract visitors or drivers locally they may want to try and make some of their routings and choices just that bit more clear!
Photos:
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The River Nith at Dumfries
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Loch Ken from the 520 - there's several miles of this!
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New Galloway village
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Looking across Balmaclellan to the distant hills
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These really do loom large for much of the middle part of the journey...
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Distant views across to Loch Doon and the remote forests which surround it
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The gorge on approach to Dalmellington - photos can't really do it justice!
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Dalmellington town centre; the bus stop is behind me
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The view across the bay from a very sunny Troon
I did some of the same territory last year - I do like Wells though it would be nice if the CH1 and 36 overlapped on the waterfront rather than meeting in the town. That said, Norfolk is really fortunate in having a couple of very good operators in Lynx (who are superb) and Sanders (not quite as good but much better than most), as well as one of the better First opcos. In respect of the latter, they are still persevering with the colour coding on destination displays and the online publicity. That said, the current situation is confused by lots of displaced vehicles on different routes. The journeys I travelled on last year with Lynx and Sanders were well patronised, and noticeably with lots of walkers. I think the e400 on the 36 was at least half full, and the CH1 had standing passengers for much of the journey.
It was away from me but I could see it and it was making me queasy so I relocated downstairs. Another observation is that the X1 operates via Allesley Green and Allesley Village, and that whilst the X1 also serves Meriden (and probably rightly so), I wonder if it's the best idea for the X1 to have so many diversions. I appreciate it was probably to replace some other local service but it does feel counterproductive to have too many deviations. We arrived into Coventry, and Pool Meadow bus station. I know that it had been a long time since I'd visited but it's still a deeply depressing bus station. It feels dark and miserable. I took the chance to have a wander (I've visited the Cathedral and the Transport Museum in the past) around the city centre which is an interesting mix of old and post war. As many know, Coventry was severely bombed in 1942 and much of the historic centre destroyed although some bits did survive. Whilst the 1950s/1960s rebuild wasn't to everyone's taste, I find it interesting. The local bus fleet has been replaced with many of those e400evs though some older machines survive whilst you have some variety with Stagecoach running in plus the occasional Arriva vehicle.
though it's been too many years since I visited. I think about 3 years, and even longer since I enjoyed a bus trip in the area. Melrose is a lovely little town (with a good museum in the centre) and I've always liked the small towns. I used to love the time capsule that was Kelso bus station/depot. There's a lot to like in that town (with a super micropub).