Bigger, better, greener – five impressive coaches are here to run the arterial service between Glasgow and Campbeltown in Argyll – which was almost doubled in frequency earlier this year.
The service is provided jointly by Argyll’s West Coast Motors and Scottish Citylink, part of the transport empire of Sir Brian Souter of Stagecoach fame.
Sir Brian, seen here with Colin Craig of West Coast Motors (top), cleared his diary especially so that he could be present at today’s launch event.
This made it possible for the two ambitious businessmen to present together the five brand new 59 seat mega coaches for the improved 926 Glasgow to Campbeltown service – in front of the iconic Inveraray Castle.
The frequency of this service was increased on the 26th of May 2011 from three to five daily journeys each way during the summer months; with four each way during the winter season.
Passenger numbers are reportedly up as a result of the extra scheduled journeys and the new coaches will start operation from this Monday (15th August 2011).
A total of seven of these new coaches has been purchased by West Coast Motors at a cost in excess of £1.6 Million. In more good news for Argyll, the other two, which will arrive sometime in 2012, are destined for the 976 Glasgow to Oban route.
The new mega coaches, manufactured by Scania and Irizar, are state-of-the-art - a fuel efficient engine, a flappy paddle gear box that even Jeremy Clarkson would approve of, wheel chair access, internal and external CCTV are but a handful of new features.
But the selling point for me is the distinctive praying mantis reversing mirrors that give the coaches a very cute and lovable persona.
One of the City Link chaps informed me that the drivers call them ‘P45 mirrors’. Apparently they are so expensive to replace that they reckon losing one in an accident is likely to lead to a P45 being handed out on return to the garage. Some drivers alternately call them ‘DCIMs’ – Don’t Come In on Monday (if you break one).
The coaches also sport a brand new shiny dual West Coast Motors and City Link livery (above), which is very eyecatching – distinctive and actually attractive.
It is the extra seating capacity that has driven this massive reinvestment.
The new coaches will carry a further 10 passengers per trip – enough to eliminate the need for the additional smaller coaches that West Coast Motors have had to lay on when demand is just above the current seating level of 49.
Inveraray sat up and took note this morning, residents and visitors alike, as these powerful beasts eased their way towards the entrance to Inveraray Castle – one (above) coming through Inveraray from Campbeltown; and four from Glasgow, three driven by company drivers based there and one by Scania personnel who were actually delivering it into West Coast Motors’ hands on the day.
Stopping for a quick chat before going on to the castle, members of the West Coast Motors launch team, could not have been more proud to be part of this driving and successful company. Fleet Engineer, Dougie Martin, left, with his familiar smile, always on the brink of mischief, is seen below with Mairi Johnston, West Coast Motors’ answer to everything (caught on camera at last) and Alan Conley, the driver entrusted with getting them all to Inveraray in time and in some style.
There was one moment where, whichever way you looked in Inveraray, it was full of these bright coaches. At one point a colour matched timber lorry (below) got in on the act.
The three from the Glasgow depot, travelling in convoy (below), looked like an invasion force as they dominated the pretty stretch of the A83 into Inveraray before turning secretively away into the castle grounds.
The sheer drama of these coaches will sell the route. Wherever they’re going, you want to be going there too. ‘Take me to the party.’ They’re nothing less than motorised pied-pipers.
John Patrick
I can see the background, the castle, is iconic, but surely the Campbeltown bus company could have done this in the Wee Toon.
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Nice looking buses. I just wished McColl’s buses would replace their stinking fleet.
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The Wee Toon can be rightly proud of West Coast Motors. They have a can do attitude, don’t take prisoners and have an eye on the future. And they’re nice people too!
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For Swanseajock:
We imagine that they chose Inveraray as the half way spot on the journey – because they need to reach equally to both ends of the route.
The more that Glasgow folk realise that they part ‘own’ the route, the more they will be interested to come and find out how much Kintyre and Campbeltown are worth a visit.
The real story is just how much WCM is investing in this commitment to the wee toon and attracting Brian Souter’s investment and support as well.
Together these businesses – with the creative initiative coming from WCM – are bringing real industry muscle into play to contribute to Campbeltown’s development
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In the circumstances, It would probably be wrong to be rude about Sir Brian Souter; it’s just that news of this ‘joint venture’ brings to my mind the behaviour of another of Sir Brian’s joint ventures, with Sir Richard Branson.
Their companies jointly own Virgin Trains, which will whisk you quickly from Glasgow to London and back and which, in the past (in the guise of Virgin Cross Country) used to whisk me fairly quickly from Glasgow to southwest England and back.
No more – following the upgrade of the westcoast main line Virgin somehow negotiated a ‘limitation of competition’ agreement with the Department for Transport, who re-let the Cross Country franchise to Arriva, but without the stretch up the westcoast mainline to Glasgow. The six through trains a day between Glasgow and Devon and Cornwall disappeared; the choice now is a tedious change of train in the Midlands, or a marathon trip on the occasional Arriva train that goes from Glasgow ‘around the houses’ via Edinburgh, Newcastle, York, and Leeds to rejoin the direct route at Birmingham.
This adds three hours to the journey, and it’s easier (and a lot cheaper than Arriva) to fly, or travel via London. Such is progress, thanks to Brian and Richard, and I wish the Craigs well; it’s called ‘swimming with sharks’ but I think they’re up for it.
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While driving south past luss I saw the fire engine putting out a fire on the 926 service busabout 11am. Just past that I met the three new buses. Did they pick up any of the stranded passengers? Why can I not see any of the pictures which you have on your news pages? Can you help me sort out the problem
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For thorn in the flesh: we’re asking our Internet Services Director to look at this. We note you are an aol subscriber and are aware that this can be an awkward platform but he-who-knows will post some suggestions for you here. It is not a site problem.
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@thorn in the flesh Our images are served from Flickr.com because this ships out the cost of displaying them and also means that they are available in another format in another place — a proto Content Delivery Network such as have been developed by many major sites using third party hosting like Amazon. We suspect the reason you can’t see the pictures will be to do with the set up on your PC / browser or your internet service provider. In the former case consider trying another browser, eg. Firefox or Google Chrome, or adjusting your preferences to allow images from third party sites to display, and in the latter case you *may* be able to adjust your account settings to do the same. I hope that’s helpful!
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Thanks for your help. Will let you know if it works
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Do those mirrors retract automatically when they sense an approaching hgv (or even worse, another of the new buses) or do people get a reward for picking mirrors off the road and returning them to WCM?
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They look lovely, and I’m sure they’ll improve the service no end, but they also illustrate a problem–vis. that people buy larger and larger vehicles, squeeze them down roads that haven’t got larger, then complain that the roads are too small…
…also, Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute’s largest town is completely bypassed by all the Highland bus services, and without decent connections via Tarbet or Arden, will continue to be so.
Sorry to be a wet blanket!
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There’s a bus service between Balloch and Helensburgh but I don’t know how good the connections are; on the subject of the size of the new buses, they’ll surely emphasise the need for Argyll & Bute Council to sort out the narrow blind bends half way between Muasdale and Glenbarr – either by widening or ideally by complete realignment (for which I’ll bet there are already plans gathering dust in the Roads Department)
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Stephen
Having spent last night frequenting the Helensburgh hostelries I can categorically state that the people of Argyll should be glad the buses don’t pass through it!
Being serious though I have often wondered why that route totally bypasses Helensburgh. I would have thought there would be some demand for passengers in both directions and it would only add about 15 minutes to the journey.
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The buses used to come here, then go up Loch Long. Then they built the new A82…
The Helensburgh – Balloch service is a lot better than it used to be, but there aren’t any decent connections, and you have to cross the busy A82 to make them in any case. For the moment I’m sticking to driving, and I suspect a lot of other people are too.
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I was on the 926 bus which caught fire on the day of this photoshoot and 4 of these buses drove past us while we stood at the side of the road in the rain for an hour. They didn’t stop to pick us up. Very unimpressed with West Coast Motors, new buses have been long overdue as almost every journey involves some problem that makes the journey at least 1 hour longer with a change of bus. I feel sorry for the drivers though, these buses are not suitable at all for this route, they are made for motorways.
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to Robert Wakeham we are professional at our job and do not need retractable mirrors, the satisfaction of driving these routes for a company like WCM makes our job so much easier and do so with safety of passengers first and foremost
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