Worst Purchase/ Takeover/ Acquisition

DunsBus said:

Don't forget Lowland, which First (GRT as was) bought soon after taking over SMT. That was the start of the rot as within 18 months SMT, as an opco, was no more even if bus fleetnames in the Edinburgh area suggested otherwise. Then there was the creation of First Edinburgh a few years later with an operating area stretching from Balfron to Berwick. Good on paper, bad in practice.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should have stuck to their guns back in 1997 and ordered First to sell off Midland Bluebird along with one of the Glasgow depots - what subsequently happened, with the constant trimming and changes of MD at First Edinburgh/Scotland East was the result of First getting too big for its boots.

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If I remember correctly didn't Stagecoach have their claws into SB Holdings and the MMC told them to deinvest? Yes they had Western next door but nothing near what First had, and subsequently got away with?

I felt for SB Holdings. I reckon they could have built themselves up to a Lothian type operation with a high quality fleet without being in any group. Now look at it.

scosutsut said:

If I remember correctly didn't Stagecoach have their claws into SB Holdings and the MMC told them to deinvest? Yes they had Western next door but nothing near what First had, and subsequently got away with?

I felt for SB Holdings. I reckon they could have built themselves up to a Lothian type operation with a high quality fleet without being in any group. Now look at it.

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Correct. Stagecoach also had a stake in Mainline it was told to divest both of them and promptly did so, yet when First was told to offload a Glasgow depot along with Midland Bluebird it kicked up a stink.

cnjb8 said:

Has anyone mentioned TM Travel (the Sheffield one, not the North East one)? Wellglade took it over and really run it in to the ground.

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I don't know about running it into the ground - it made sense as an acquisition, given the way that TM were winning so many tenders in the Nottinghamshire/ Derbyshire area - enabled Wellglade to eliminate a potential competitor (or at least, whilst TM might not have been a thread to established commercial services, they could have been bought by someone who wanted to use them as a launchpad for lucrative Wellglade corridors)

Under Wellglade operation, the number of tendered services have been cut, but a lot of that is due to the takeover having happened just a few months before the Coalition Government and the last decade of Austerity, which has meant a lot of routes that TM ran prior to January 2010 just no longer exist (e.g. under the previous Labour government there were a few "job seeker" routes put on to give deprived housing areas direct buses to office parks on the outskirts of Sheffield/ Rotherham without serving any town centres etc that look like complete luxuries in hindsight - we didn't know how good we had it!

As the tenders dried up, TM (under Wellglade) found a niche running commercial routes like the 6 and 30 in Sheffield and 218 to Chatsworth with brightly branded buses - the kind of routes that a low cost operator could sustain but First didn't make enough money on

Bristol LHS said:

Go-Ahead’s purchase of OK Travel ridded them of a pesky competitor in Tyne and Wear and north Durham, but they sold up the core operations in Bishop Auckland to Arriva, only to have repeatedly nibbled at the territory competitively since. I understand Peter Huntley arrived too late to stop the sale. What could have been…

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The messy pattern of ex-NBC/PTE operations in the north east of England is a source of fascination to me - the way that Northern General and United had this mishmash of areas that didn't fit neatly onto the map in the way that other bits of NBC/PTEs were - the extension of the 21 in Durham suggests act GNE are back on the attack (as does the "cross town" extension of the X21 in Bishop Auckland) but I wonder if we'll have to see further "simplification" of the map to keep operators viable

Bristol LHS said:

Sticking in the bottom half of County Durham, Stagecoach’s adventures in Darlington weren’t an acquisition, but given they ended up with a sub-scale operation and sold it to Arriva, was it worth the financial cost, let alone the reputational impact? West Midlands Travel’s brief ownership of United/Tees/TMS also an odd one to add to their longer-standing Tayside adventure.

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I thought about Stagecoach in Darlington when starting the thread, but they didn't buy it so it didn't fit - it feels like an example of "winning the battle but losing the war" - the benefits of winning a network in one town have to be seen against the damage to Stagecoach's reputation which will have cost them some future opportunities or scared away investors

DunsBus said:

As I understand it, Busways went after Tyne and Wear Omnibus when it heard that Trimdon was selling up. Trimdon said no to a sale to Busways, so Busways got Go-Ahead to act as an intermediary. I believe that Trimdon were rather less than pleased on hearing that Busways had managed to get Tyne and Wear Omnibus after all.

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(I know I could have a rough guess by the name but) what were Tyne and Wear Omnibus's operations?

On my brief/rare trips to the city, Newcastle has seemed a bit of an oddity in that there hadn't been much competition on the frequent "city" operations (other than at the fringes, e.g. Great North Road/ Wallsend/ Cobalt), but I appreciate that there will have been some at some stage, it's just that I wasn't around to see it

scosutsut said:

If I remember correctly didn't Stagecoach have their claws into SB Holdings and the MMC told them to deinvest? Yes they had Western next door but nothing near what First had, and subsequently got away with?

I felt for SB Holdings. I reckon they could have built themselves up to a Lothian type operation with a high quality fleet without being in any group. Now look at it.

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DunsBus said:

Correct. Stagecoach also had a stake in Mainline it was told to divest both of them and promptly did so, yet when First was told to offload a Glasgow depot along with Midland Bluebird it kicked up a stink.

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I don't know if I'm getting my timescales mixed up, but is there an argument that Stagecoach's predatory behaviour in the small market of Darlington meant that they weren't able to persuade The Powers That Be to hold onto their share of the dominant operators in South Yorkshire and Greater Glasgow, meaning First were able to snap them up, even though First had more market domination in Glasgow than Stagecoach would ever have had?

Agreed re SB being capable of standing on its own two feet - in an alternative reality they could have remained independent and looked at picking up operations like Tayside Travel or Edinburgh Transport - they didn't need to sell out to a big company (in the way that some smaller companies would never have been able to go it alone)

tbtc said:

(I know I could have a rough guess by the name but) what were Tyne and Wear Omnibus's operations?

On my brief/rare trips to the city, Newcastle has seemed a bit of an oddity in that there hadn't been much competition on the frequent "city" operations (other than at the fringes, e.g. Great North Road/ Wallsend/ Cobalt), but I appreciate that there will have been some at some stage, it's just that I wasn't around to see it

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They were pretty extensive by the end - basically ran against most of Busways best high-frequency routes in Newcastle and Sunderland, plus the ‘Economic’ Sunderland to South Shields corridor. Catch-a-Bus (Hylton Castle Coaches) were already active in South Shields, so don’t think TWOC ever ran town routes there - wouldn’t be sufficient pickings for three operators there really.

in Sunderland at least, the routes were very thinly disguised versions of the Busways routes, nothing innovative, and used the old PTE numbers (e.g. under the PTEs numbering scheme, Sunderland routes started with a ‘1’, Busways dropped this, but TWOCs version of Busways‘ 15 was numbered 115). Operations ceased about 6pm and didn’t run Sundays, there were also some lunchtime breaks. Think everything was garaged at what is now the GNE works in Saltmeadows, Gateshead, so you used to get these fleets of Bristol LHS thundering down the Felling by pass on the way back from Sunderland just after tea time

Busways kept on some of the routes (though not the fleet) for a bit and then the brand became used for post-dereg minibus services of Busways‘ own.

Apart from skirmishes with Redby Travel, it largely settled down in Sunderland, but Newcastle had this odd pattern where a new operator would pop up every so often on the key routes - Welcome did this, then HMB - think there were ex TWOC/TMS people involved in both those operators?

tbtc said:

(I know I could have a rough guess by the name but) what were Tyne and Wear Omnibus's operations?

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Newcastle and Sunderland, both run from a depot in Gateshead. The Tyne and Wear Omnibus operation in Newcastle came first, in August 1987; Sunderland followed suit just over a year later, in September 1988. In July 1989, a few months before the operations were sold, tenders were also picked up from Tyne & Wear PTE.

One of the Sunderland services, the X2, competed with Economic and Catch-A-Bus on the Sunderland to South Shields corridor and then ran to Whiteleas Estate once it reached South Shields. A notable feature of Tyne & Wear Omnibus's Sunderland network was a 75-90 minute gap in service around midday to allow drivers to take their statutory meal breaks, a move that was echoed by Busways on its retaliatory services.

Edit: I see Bristol LHS has beaten me to it!

tbtc said:

I don't know if I'm getting my timescales mixed up, but is there an argument that Stagecoach's predatory behaviour in the small market of Darlington meant that they weren't able to persuade The Powers That Be to hold onto their share of the dominant operators in South Yorkshire and Greater Glasgow, meaning First were able to snap them up, even though First had more market domination in Glasgow than Stagecoach would ever have had?

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You know what I've no idea if that's true but it completely fits, as Stagecoach had built up the negative reputation that First hadn't (by that stage)

Andyh82 said:

Yes Veolia was quite strange, from nothing to a random selection of loads of companies, to nothing again in the space of only a few years

I don’t know how much Transdev paid for Blackburn Transport, but the network was subsequently pretty much all withdrawn with only 1-2 routes (depending on how you look at it) still existing

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Veolia entered into a partnership wth Transdev, hence the VTD private plates on some some Transdev vehciles, which then split with Veolia concentratng on other activites (refuse for example).

Blackburn was losing money running services desired by councillors and Transdev Blazefields acquisition was on the basis that the existing network was retained unchanged for a period hence the Spot On brand as a failed attempt to increase custom. Otherwise their would have been a more immediate cull of unprofitable services.

tbtc said:

I don't know about running it into the ground - it made sense as an acquisition, given the way that TM were winning so many tenders in the Nottinghamshire/ Derbyshire area - enabled Wellglade to eliminate a potential competitor (or at least, whilst TM might not have been a thread to established commercial services, they could have been bought by someone who wanted to use them as a launchpad for lucrative Wellglade corridors)

Under Wellglade operation, the number of tendered services have been cut, but a lot of that is due to the takeover having happened just a few months before the Coalition Government and the last decade of Austerity, which has meant a lot of routes that TM ran prior to January 2010 just no longer exist (e.g. under the previous Labour government there were a few "job seeker" routes put on to give deprived housing areas direct buses to office parks on the outskirts of Sheffield/ Rotherham without serving any town centres etc that look like complete luxuries in hindsight - we didn't know how good we had it!

As the tenders dried up, TM (under Wellglade) found a niche running commercial routes like the 6 and 30 in Sheffield and 218 to Chatsworth with brightly branded buses - the kind of routes that a low cost operator could sustain but First didn't make enough money on



The messy pattern of ex-NBC/PTE operations in the north east of England is a source of fascination to me - the way that Northern General and United had this mishmash of areas that didn't fit neatly onto the map in the way that other bits of NBC/PTEs were - the extension of the 21 in Durham suggests act GNE are back on the attack (as does the "cross town" extension of the X21 in Bishop Auckland) but I wonder if we'll have to see further "simplification" of the map to keep operators viable



I thought about Stagecoach in Darlington when starting the thread, but they didn't buy it so it didn't fit - it feels like an example of "winning the battle but losing the war" - the benefits of winning a network in one town have to be seen against the damage to Stagecoach's reputation which will have cost them some future opportunities or scared away investors



(I know I could have a rough guess by the name but) what were Tyne and Wear Omnibus's operations?

On my brief/rare trips to the city, Newcastle has seemed a bit of an oddity in that there hadn't been much competition on the frequent "city" operations (other than at the fringes, e.g. Great North Road/ Wallsend/ Cobalt), but I appreciate that there will have been some at some stage, it's just that I wasn't around to see it





I don't know if I'm getting my timescales mixed up, but is there an argument that Stagecoach's predatory behaviour in the small market of Darlington meant that they weren't able to persuade The Powers That Be to hold onto their share of the dominant operators in South Yorkshire and Greater Glasgow, meaning First were able to snap them up, even though First had more market domination in Glasgow than Stagecoach would ever have had?

Agreed re SB being capable of standing on its own two feet - in an alternative reality they could have remained independent and looked at picking up operations like Tayside Travel or Edinburgh Transport - they didn't need to sell out to a big company (in the way that some smaller companies would never have been able to go it alone)

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Ran into the ground was probably a poor choice of words. TM Travel is definitely a shadow of its former self though, and recently seem to have given up on route branding too

First getting Yorkshire Rider has proven not to be so good. Yes they do OK in Leeds, but have withered in Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees. Given ground in Wharfedale too.

Bristol LHS said:

Apart from skirmishes with Redby Travel, it largely settled down in Sunderland, but Newcastle had this odd pattern where a new operator would pop up every so often on the key routes - Welcome did this, then HMB - think there were ex TWOC/TMS people involved in both those operators?

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Yes to both. There was also the short-lived Welco operation in Sunderland.

In the case of Welcome, Busways subsequently bought it out. HMB appeared on the scene in the late-nineties - I remember it had a run-in with the Traffic Commissioners after a wheel loss incident. The appearance in front of the beaks, plus sustained competition from Busways with their Magic Buses, ensured that HMB weren't around for long. Welco, I seem to remember, simply came and went.

I believe First had plans for a Tyneside operation during 1997, in response to Stagecoach starting up in Glasgow, but it didn't materialise.

One of the most remarkable things about Stagecoach buying Norfolk Green and then kinda giving up was of course that it was the second time they bought and gave up some of the routes in just over 5 years; some of them were previously Cavalier / Hunts and District routes at the time they bought it in 2008.

For me the worst acquisition has to be Arriva / Clydeside, an acquisition of a terrible operator that was followed by disastrous competition (including with some dodgy operators that were always going to be more profitable because they weren't paying for their fuel!!!).

Bristol LHS said:

The First examples (North Devon, Northampton, SMT) take some beating.

Go-Ahead’s purchase of Tyne and Wear Omnibus, only to instantly sell it on to Busways was an odd one (okay, sure there must have been some upside for Go-Ahead, or their directors at least, but basically doing Busways a favour)

Go-Ahead’s East Anglia purchases also quite questionable. They seem to have expanded Hedingham; but Konect and Anglian (especially) are a shadow of their former selves. Go Ahead also didn’t last long in the West Midlands (the Travelcard takes some beating) but through their purchases, they seem to have created a business that Rotala have been able to make a go of.

Go-Ahead’s purchase of OK Travel ridded them of a pesky competitor in Tyne and Wear and north Durham, but they sold up the core operations in Bishop Auckland to Arriva, only to have repeatedly nibbled at the territory competitively since. I understand Peter Huntley arrived too late to stop the sale. What could have been…

Sticking in the bottom half of County Durham, Stagecoach’s adventures in Darlington weren’t an acquisition, but given they ended up with a sub-scale operation and sold it to Arriva, was it worth the financial cost, let alone the reputational impact? West Midlands Travel’s brief ownership of United/Tees/TMS also an odd one to add to their longer-standing Tayside adventure.

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By 1994 West Midlands Travel were wanting to become more of a national player and eventually float on the Stock Exchange. There was an article in the Birmingham Evening Mail about how eager they were to get a foothold in the London market when they purchased Westlink. They went on to buy County Bus. While United/Tees/TMS will have helped them be a larger player, I did wonder whether the owners at the time got a fright about Stagecoach purchasing other municipals in the area and, more significantly, launching their own operation in Darlington. This could have help persuade them to sell out.

Then in 1995 WMT of course merged with National Express instead of floating on the Stock Exchange. It was National Express themselves who bought Tayside in 1997 rather than WMT Ltd under local ownership.

gingerheid said:

For me the worst acquisition has to be Arriva / Clydeside, an acquisition of a terrible operator that was followed by disastrous competition (including with some dodgy operators that were always going to be more profitable because they weren't paying for their fuel!!!).

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I remember the timing of the announcement of the acquisition of Clydeside by what was then British Bus was rather lousy. It came just a few days after the fatal accident at West Street in September 1994; emotions were still running high and the announcement was, understandably, seen by the families of the bereaved and injured as a kick in the teeth.

That said, Clydeside was in a very bad way at the time and was in danger of having its licence revoked. British Bus had to pump lots of money into Clydeside to turn things round (after British Bus had had it spelled out that it couldn't go on forever with a continual "rentawreck" fleet renewal policy) and I don't think that the money was ever recouped, hence Arriva's eventual exit from the area.

DunsBus said:

I remember the timing of the announcement of the acquisition of Clydeside by what was then British Bus was rather lousy. It came just a few days after the fatal accident at West Street in September 1994; emotions were still running high and the announcement was, understandably, seen by the families of the bereaved and injured as a kick in the teeth.

That said, Clydeside was in a very bad way at the time and was in danger of having its licence revoked. British Bus had to pump lots of money into Clydeside to turn things round (after British Bus had had it spelled out that it couldn't go on forever with a continual "rentawreck" fleet renewal policy) and I don't think that the money was ever recouped, hence Arriva's eventual exit from the area.

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Yes. They were just unbelievably bad, with a terrible reputation even before West St. When you visited somewhere like Greenock or Paisley you could only look around at the wrecked pieces of garbage lumbering about and blink in disbelief. And of course the various legal cases and the attempt to deny liability kept a dreadful story in the news for many years.

(For those that haven't heard of the case: In the mid 90s, when of course electronic maps weren't a thing, the driver of a double deck bus returning girl guides to Drumchapel from a trip to Ayr stopped as they didn't know how to get back to the departure point. An adult helper following in a car said they knew the way and that the bus could follow her. She drove the most direct route by car, which went under two railway bridges a short distance apart. The first bridge was higher than the second, and was marked with the lower height limit of the second bridge. Two young girls died in a collision with the bridge. Clydeside defended the resulting proceedings on the grounds that (among other things) the person the bus driver was following had a duty to ensure that she drove a route that a double decker bus would be able to safely follow, and that the higher bridge shouldn't have been marked with an incorrect height.)

gingerheid said:

Yes. They were just unbelievably bad, with a terrible reputation even before West St. When you visited somewhere like Greenock or Paisley you could only look around at the wrecked pieces of garbage lumbering about and blink in disbelief. And of course the various legal cases and the attempt to deny liability kept a dreadful story in the news for many years.

(For those that haven't heard of the case: In the mid 90s, when of course electronic maps weren't a thing, the driver of a double deck bus returning girl guides to Drumchapel from a trip to Ayr stopped as they didn't know how to get back to the departure point. An adult helper following in a car said they knew the way and that the bus could follow her. She drove the most direct route by car, which went under two railway bridges a short distance apart. The first bridge was higher than the second, and was marked with the lower height limit of the second bridge. Two young girls died in a collision with the bridge. Clydeside defended the resulting proceedings on the grounds that (among other things) the person the bus driver was following had a duty to ensure that she drove a route that a double decker bus would be able to safely follow, and that the higher bridge shouldn't have been marked with an incorrect height.)

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As I recall, it was three girls and two of the leaders who died at West Street. Clydeside's attempt to deny liability for the accident was nothing short of appalling. The only good thing to come out of this was the closure of West Street, at the bridges, soon afterwards thus ensuring that there could never be any repeat occurrences.

tbtc said:

Since deregulation there have been a number of takeovers as First/ Stagecoach/ Go-Ahead/ Arriva etc grew - some of which were straight from the Government sell-off, some of which were independent companies, some of which were mergers, but the companies grew and grew.

But what were the worst purchases/ takeovers/ acquisitions?

There were some that seemed a bit "fringe" (Arriva's ex-Clydeside operations, National Express buying Tayside Travel), but maybe these were a good idea at the time in the expectation that there would be other purchases nearby)

There were some that were sold on afterwards (Stagecoach lasted a dozen years in East Lancashire before selling to Blazefield, and a dozen years in London before selling to Macquarie - I'm sure m'learned Forum members will point out some much shorter tenures!), but some of these may still have been good deals at the time (e.g. the Australians offered Stagecoach a lot of money for the London operations)...

...there were some where the business was affected by events out of the hands of the bus company (you could argue that the ex-Lowland Scottish operations in the Borders were hit by the Tweedbank railway removing the lucrative monopoly on the X95 corridor - the same with the ex-GM North routes from Bury/ Rochdale/ Oldham into Manchester once the tram came along)...

...there are some where a business looked good but was badly managed/ didn't get invested in/ council didn't invest in bus lanes or slashed subsidies/ industrial relations and strikes killed off a chunk of demand/ the company lost out in a "bus war" (Eastern Scottish seemed a good investment at the time IMHO but has dwindled away for various reasons) - there were also examples where a company bought a medium sized operation that included some "good" and some "bad" bits

So, which purchases looked bad at the time and which seemed a good bet at the time but subsequently turned out to be a lot worse than they initially looked?

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I think that Buses Excetera purchasing both Velvet and Western Greyhound was one of the worst purchases i have ever seen. Buses Excetera were barely capable of running their own operations in Surrey so god knows why they thought they were capable of running two more bus operations. Unsurprisingly both Velvet and Western Greyhound ended up going bust just a few months after Buses Excetera purchased them.

The Stagecoach / Norfolk Green purchase was a classic example of how to do it wrong. Fleet standardisation happened very quickly but unfortunately this involved transferring in elderly Volvo Olympians and ex-London tridents both of which didn't go down well with passengers in terms of accessibility or reliability.
The Enviro200MMCs purchased for Coasthopper were found to be very unsuitable for some of the roads and ended up having to be replaced by Solos - something that probably skewed the finances somewhat. Competition from Lynx basically finished them off.

All route branding was also removed, something NG were very, very effective at. I understand Ben Colson is now involved with the "Go To Town" operation run by the community transport association that stepped in after Stagecoach left.


Perhaps the worst takeover I know of however is that of Whippet Coaches being bought by Tower Transit in the hope of franchising in Cambridgeshire that never happened. The small family run operator was losing money each year as it was, and TT didn't really understand how to manage a somewhat freewheeling "make and mend" family run operator. Most of the drivers left pretty quickly...
Tower Transit then flogged them to the "Ascendal Group" who promptly binned all the school contracts and seem to have managed decline ever since.

CBlue said:

The Stagecoach / Norfolk Green purchase was a classic example of how to do it wrong. Fleet standardisation happened very quickly but unfortunately this involved transferring in elderly Volvo Olympians and ex-London tridents both of which didn't go down well with passengers in terms of accessibility or reliability.
The Enviro200MMCs purchased for Coasthopper were found to be very unsuitable for some of the roads and ended up having to be replaced by Solos - something that probably skewed the finances somewhat. Competition from Lynx basically finished them off.

All route branding was also removed, something NG were very, very effective at. I understand Ben Colson is now involved with the "Go To Town" operation run by the community transport association that stepped in after Stagecoach left.

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If the true story of what actually happened with Stagecoach and NG was public I think people would look very differently at how the independent operation was actually ran.

Mention of how independent operators succumbed reminds me of one of my former employers. W J Simmons (t/a Reliance) out of Great Gonerby near Grantham. They had previously competed with, and at times, joint operated with Lincolnshire Road Car / Stagecoach around the Grantham area - alongside other small independent firms. However, they eventually sold out to MASS, from the Sheffield area. Local services went downhill, also at a time when Stagecoach closed their depot at Grantham. Eventually MASS gave up - this allowed Centrebus to step in.

Megafuss said:

If the true story of what actually happened with Stagecoach and NG was public I think people would look very differently at how the independent operation was actually ran.

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Pray enlighten us?

Ken H said:

First getting Yorkshire Rider has proven not to be so good. Yes they do OK in Leeds, but have withered in Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees. Given ground in Wharfedale too.

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Maybe that could be backtracked to Yorkshire Rider acquiring as much of West Yorkshire Road Car as it did. If the Otley/Ilkley services had stayed with what today is Transdev Blazefield things might have been different with 36 like vehicles employed on Bradford services in direct competition with the train rather than waving the white flag.

SCH117X said:

Maybe that could be backtracked to YR acquiring as much of West Yorkshire Road Car as it did. If the Otley/Ilkley services had stayed with what today is Transdev Blazefield things might have been different with 36 like vehicles employed on Bradford services in direct competition with the train rather than waving the white flag

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I never really understood why West Yorkshire Road Car flogged Leeds and Bradford to Yorkshire Rider. There were some busy routes. Maybe they wanted out of urban routes. Or to escape Metro interfering with their business.

In "Small is Beautiful The Story of the AJS Group and Blazefield Holdings" (Keith A Jenkinson Autobus Review Publications 1999 ISBN 0 907834 42 6), it is stated that the surprising sale of a major part of West Yorkshire Road Car to Rider Holdings for £3.5m followed the AJS Travel Group losing out to Stagecoach in a bid to gain control of Southdown. It could have been a result of of a consequential review of why they lost Southdown.

High Dyke said:

Mention of how independent operators succumbed reminds me of one of my former employers. W J Simmons (t/a Reliance) out of Great Gonerby near Grantham. They had previously competed with, and at times, joint operated with Lincolnshire Road Car / Stagecoach around the Grantham area - alongside other small independent firms. However, they eventually sold out to MASS, from the Sheffield area. Local services went downhill, also at a time when Stagecoach closed their depot at Grantham. Eventually MASS gave up - this allowed Centrebus to step in.

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I seem to recall that no operator exactly jumped at the opportunity to take on the MASS routes around Grantham. Centrebus appeared to arrive as a rather reluctant entrant to the area.

Robertj21a said:

I seem to recall that no operator exactly jumped at the opportunity to take on the MASS routes around Grantham. Centrebus appeared to arrive as a rather reluctant entrant to the area.

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That's probably the case. I'd long moved on from the job at that point. Even to this day services are not of the same level as they were, and they never really have been.

capitalconnect said:

I think that Buses Excetera purchasing both Velvet and Western Greyhound was one of the worst purchases i have ever seen. Buses Excetera were barely capable of running their own operations in Surrey so god knows why they thought they were capable of running two more bus operations. Unsurprisingly both Velvet and Western Greyhound ended up going bust just a few months after Buses Excetera purchased them.

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Buses ETC never bought Velvet and Western Greyhound. It was employees who at one time worked for Buses ETC that bought them.

Another Strathclyde area example I'll suggest was the takeover by West Coast Motors of John Morrow Coaches. An earlier John Morrow operation had been taken over by Kelvin Central but the later acquisition by WCM was of local routes in Clydebank. A few years later nothing was left, those routes still in existance are largley run by Avondale.

I think Avondale's 100 service is the only former Morrow route still in existence. IIRC it was only the routes that WCM/Glasgow Citybus acquired and no vehicles or depots changed hands.

Ken H said:

First getting Yorkshire Rider has proven not to be so good. Yes they do OK in Leeds, but have withered in Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees. Given ground in Wharfedale too.

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It was Badgerline who bought Rider Holdings and, to be honest, other than decals in the windows nothing changed. Rider's managers were left to get on with it.

Things only really started to change when Badgerline was bought out, sorry, "merged", with GRT. And for a good long time the changes were positive, tbf, with solid investment and some good ideas.

It's really only gone downhill since about 2010, which says more about First in the last decade than anything else.

I don’t think First West Yorkshire is anywhere near comparable with some of the examples in this thread. I think it’s fairly odd that they’ve been mentioned. Yes they don’t have the newest buses in all areas, but who does, and they’ve given up marginal work, but who hasn’t. They still dominate all the towns they operate in.