National Express on Wellington Street

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Mon 24 Mar, 2008 9:25 pm

Before I passed my driving test, we went on a trip to Alton Towers from Wellington Street Coach Station. It took forever to get there, calling in at every town with a population of more than 100, or so it seemed and then the same on the way back.

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Mon 24 Mar, 2008 10:36 pm

Terrym wrote: Hi,I dont think they go through Leeds, possibly cannot compete with Yorkshire Coastliner who do a great job with some fantastic vehicles. Is that Yorkshire Coastliner or the company they belong to? Because I believe the same company operate Lancashire United and also the Lancashire Witch Line buses, which travel from Manchester to Colne.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Mon 24 Mar, 2008 11:27 pm

Trojan wrote: Terrym wrote: Hi,I dont think they go through Leeds, possibly cannot compete with Yorkshire Coastliner who do a great job with some fantastic vehicles. Is that Yorkshire Coastliner or the company they belong to? Because I believe the same company operate Lancashire United and also the Lancashire Witch Line buses, which travel from Manchester to Colne. Yorkshire Coastliner is part of the Blazefield Group (formed when the National Bus Company was privatised and companies sold off)) which is now owned by Transdev. The Group operate to the very highest standards of service and maintenance, and many of the really big groups would do well to step back and observe, and strive for the same excellence, but they won't be doing regrettably.YORKSHIRE COASTLINER is actually the Malton Depot of the old West Yorkshire Road Car Co. Ltd.HARROGATE AND DISTRICT was formed on the former Harrogate operations of West Yorkshire - although nowadays in a different depot at Starbeck.KEIGHLEY AND DISTRICT as the name suggests arose from West Yorkshire's base in that town.THE GROUP'S LANCASHIRE OPERATIONS are successful and are expanding regularly.They richly deserve all the success they enjoy.

Terrym · Post by **Terrym** » Sun 30 Mar, 2008 10:26 am

Hi,Yorkshire Coastliner themselves were the most profitable company. Although at that time they were part of Blazefield the figure were for the Coastliner part of the group.

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 12:06 am

I was thinking about Wellington Street today. When I was a kid we went to Scarboough several times from here. But in my memory, the buses departed from some spare land rather than a proper coach station.I remember one occasion travelling on a red rear entance single deck bus - I'm not sure it was West Yorkshire though - did Yorkshire Traction run to Scarborough from here, or call here en route from South Yorkshire?Another occasion that comes to mind is travelling there (from the same piece of spare land) on a standard Bristol Lowdekker, and because of the nortorious bottlenecks at Tadcaster, York and Malton, it taking five hours!Maybe Blakey can throw some light on just where the buses departed from?

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 1:19 am

I spent far too long in that arthole of a bus station. Nevertheless its stinking inadequacy does stir feelings of Nostalgia. Being afflicted with Newcastle United i used to go up North quite a lot, on one retrun journey I was the only soul on a hopelessly late Scotland to somewhere service. The driver asked me where i lived and dropped me off at the end off the road in headingley.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 9:31 am

Trojan wrote: I was thinking about Wellington Street today. When I was a kid we went to Scarboough several times from here. But in my memory, the buses departed from some spare land rather than a proper coach station.I remember one occasion travelling on a red rear entance single deck bus - I'm not sure it was West Yorkshire though - did Yorkshire Traction run to Scarborough from here, or call here en route from South Yorkshire?Another occasion that comes to mind is travelling there (from the same piece of spare land) on a standard Bristol Lowdekker, and because of the nortorious bottlenecks at Tadcaster, York and Malton, it taking five hours!Maybe Blakey can throw some light on just where the buses departed from? A pleasure to help Trojan. The coach station proper was on the north side of Wellington Street, and after closure in recent years was quickly built over with new office accommodation. At the City Square end it had a booking office block, with cafe upstairs, and a waiting room and toilets at the back. It was a dangerous place from the start with coaches reversing and "scattering" waiting passengers. As vehicle sizes progressively increased the manoeuvering problems got worse and worse and more dangerous than ever. In all seriousness, how waiting/loading passengers were never flattened is a miracle.The impression you have is of busy peak times, summer weekends particularly, when a huge amount of extra departues were from the sloping ground adjacent to Central Station on the station side of Wellington Street. Relief coaches/buses were hired in from many operatoors to cope with the demand. West Yorkshire was a key supplier of extras, and Samuel Ledgard had a very large and worthwhile contract for this, often himself hiring in even more vehicles from minor firms. The rear entrance single deckers you mention (and their older front entrance predecessors) would be West Yorkshire's standard "Tilling Group" machines which put in heroic work on "seaside specials" even though they were not really ideal for that purpose. Samuel Ledgard had very few single decker service buses and so provided hordes of Leyland and Foden and Guy coaches every weekend.Other major operators who took part in scheduled long distance bus and coach services from the main station included United, Yorkshire Traction, East Yorkshire, East Midland, Lancashire United etc etc.There, you should know better to start me off on a nostalgia trip like this

Newsman · Post by **Newsman** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 11:48 am

From 1995-ish...

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 10:06 pm

BLAKEY wrote: A pleasure to help Trojan. The coach station proper was on the north side of Wellington Street, and after closure in recent years was quickly built over with new office accommodation. At the City Square end it had a booking office block, with cafe upstairs, and a waiting room and toilets at the back. It was a dangerous place from the start with coaches reversing and "scattering" waiting passengers. As vehicle sizes progressively increased the manoeuvering problems got worse and worse and more dangerous than ever. In all seriousness, how waiting/loading passengers were never flattened is a miracle.The impression you have is of busy peak times, summer weekends particularly, when a huge amount of extra departues were from the sloping ground adjacent to Central Station on the station side of Wellington Street. Relief coaches/buses were hired in from many operatoors to cope with the demand. West Yorkshire was a key supplier of extras, and Samuel Ledgard had a very large and worthwhile contract for this, often himself hiring in even more vehicles from minor firms. The rear entrance single deckers you mention (and their older front entrance predecessors) would be West Yorkshire's standard "Tilling Group" machines which put in heroic work on "seaside specials" even though they were not really ideal for that purpose. Samuel Ledgard had very few single decker service buses and so provided hordes of Leyland and Foden and Guy coaches every weekend.Other major operators who took part in scheduled long distance bus and coach services from the main station included United, Yorkshire Traction, East Yorkshire, East Midland, Lancashire United etc etc.There, you should know better to start me off on a nostalgia trip like this Thanks for that Blakey. My memory must be playing tricks - I seem to remember departing from the opposite side of Wellington Steet - may have been just off Wellington Street - a large area of ground that was unpaved, however it was more than fifty years ago!I certainly remember travelling to Scarborough on the Lodekka, but also a year earlier on a luxurious coach (Plaxton I think) It was black and cream. We booked with West Yorkshire. I also remember the return jouney. The jam stretched back from Malton lights well over the level crossing and back into Norton, once we'd crossed the level crossing, the driver took a short cut through what appeared to be a West Yorkhire (or United) bus garage, and cut out half the queue!We also went to Rhyl from Wellington Street. However there was no direct bus so we travelled on the limited stop service to Manchester, I can't remember who's coach it was, could have been West Yorkshire, Yorkshire Woollen, Northern, United or North Western - I know they all used to ply the route. At Manchester after an hour's wait we boarded a Lancashire United for the journey to Rhyl. These journeys both to Scarborough and Rhyl were booked with the Morley office of Yorkshire Woollen, so there must have been some connection somewhere.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Tue 04 Aug, 2009 10:50 pm

Ah yes Trojan - at the very busiest times there were duplicate departures galore from the very piece of waste ground you remember rightly - it was called Saville Street and was on the same side as the coach station, but just behind Little Queen Street. Samuel Ledgard and others also used the spare ground for long layovers of service buses to avoid traffic problems on King Street and Park Place etc etcAs regards the booking of tickets at Yorkshire Woollen Morley - there was a considerable amount of of very sensible co-operation, not to be confused with competition, between most of the major operators in the area, to the advantage of everyone. These were very happy times of rightful Company pride without any venom or spite - the stringent conditions of the admirable Road Traffic Act of 1930 kepy everything ship shape - until a certain character of Grantham origin wrecked all that common sense in October 1986 - she should have stuck to her famous motto - "NO, NO, NO" and we'd all be better off now.