Dumbartonshire Tour
Travelled from Dundee to Glasgow today, to participate in the Omnibus Society Dumbartonshire Tour. As usual with the first tour of the year, it is a mix of hello to everyone you've not seen since the last one, mixed up with the usual bus-spotting. The times of getting there and back were designed to allow for food and shopping both ways. You can view all the pics now, or read on for the highlights.....
Following my sightings of the first Megabus Neoplan on Monday morning, got a run on one - 501029 - today, from Dundee to Glasgow. The front door area is a little narrowed due to the crew seats protruding a bit! These are licensed as 91 seaters, but two are crew only, and Megabus seem to allow four seats for cross-border journeys for such purposes. The coaches are more than twelve meters long - I forget exactly how long - but you have to squeeze past the gangway of more than thirty seats (some with tables!) downstairs before you get to the back (front entrance only!) to get upstairs for the sixty five or so seats. All in very good vehicles, and driven fairly smoothly. The powerful MAN engine meant we got to Glasgow substantially early - I think about twenty minutes or so, but easily more than that! We were in plenty time for the 1200 start time.
Firstly, we left Glasgow on a Motherwell (or was it Cumbernauld?) based coach seated Olympian of First Glasgow No.2 Ltd, and headed straight up the Maryhill Road to Allander's Travel at Milngavie. A few buses were pulled out for us, including this somewhat tidy Bova Futura, and former Northern Scottish NLO40. Yes, the shadows were a bit restrictive, but you get the idea.
We then progressed via a small part of Stirlingshire as we crossed in and out of the former Strathclyde boundary, heading for McColls garage at Balloch. On the way past, we passed the Ferrymill/McColls overspill yard, and I opened the camera, and stuck it up for a picture. So, for everyone who asked, here it is!
The owners at McColls had already supplied us a printed list of their buses (not quite a fleetlist as it was just registration, fleet and seats) but it was good enough - but not good enough for the owner, as apparently he'd inadvertantly omitted the 04 plated Darts from the list... So, we all got another copy, this time two stapled sheets against the original double sided A4. As we visited, one of the 04's passed us on former HAD Coaches tendered service 309 - didn't McColls do the 309 for a few years with a Volvo B10BLE??? Dennis Dart V200CBC was not included on our lists, but was sitting in the depot.
This is the location I used for a pic of our tour chariot, which was 31520, CO24x something in old money. It's also known as WLT 741, a number that was once on one of the many RM's operated by Kelvin in days of old.
We then proceeded to First's depot at Dumbarton. If there are a lot of people walking around in hi-vi's in these pics, yes, they are us! First had insisted all visitors to the depot were in hi-vi's - fair enough, although the Soc had to purchase these in bulk ourselves... these were at an attractive price anyway, but these are to be kept for future endeavors. Besides, gives me the blatantly obvious line of "I said I'd be wearing this..." for many times to come.....
Many of First London's DM's are heading to Scotland, ex-Westbourne Park, for use to replace other vehicles. DM227 is now 41227, and is the first one I photographed at the depot. The shop steward encouraged us to go in for a look, and pushed open the doors twice when the "open" button refused to... Many of my London readers will be aware that many of the DM/DMS/DML's had one window removed to strengthen the Marshall bodywork, and the inside of the job can be seen here. DM221 is now 41221, but being a Saturday afternoon they were a few in besides this.
We stopped in Dumbarton and Clydebank town centres, scooping one of the SPT-liveried Optare Solo's of First, and McColls former Inverness Traction Mercedes, before proceeding back to Glasgow.
On return to the bus, discussions with many, and purchased the 2005 edition of the now-annual Scottish Transport magazine. This included an article on a passenger's recollections of a summer in the Mearns, including the time when he got on the Stonehaven to Aberdeen via Cookney bus, and was told very loudly in an Aberdeenshire accent by the clippie "this bus goes by CookNEY", with emphasis on the last bit. Thankfully, that never happened to me when I did Laurencekirk to Aberdeen the week before this! (But yes, it's a little mad...)
Trip to a few shops around Argyle Street, and spotted another Ailsa on the 9! (Sorry no pic!) before using an hour up on a double-run to Castlemilk by Stagecoach Glasgow MagicBus Service 175. Not a particular tourist attraction, just a means to kill off some time... Now, when the route started back in the mid 90's, 60p single or £1.10 return. Now, 65p single or 90p return! So, £1 in the exact fare vault did not exactly seem like a loss. Travelled south on an ex-A1 Olympian, and north on an ex-Busways example.
Back home on former Tube 50048 to Dundee.... All in all a good day, and special thanks to the two smaller operators for making us feel most welcome.
posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:29
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