Bus, Trolleybus and Tram Routes of Kingston upon Hull Corporation
Predecessors and Successors. 1899 to 1986

Chapter Fourteen

Pier & Miscellaneous

Road Service Licence No’s: BH101/20, /28, /43, /44, /59, /96, /154, /155, /156, /162, /163 BH101/164 to /183 (HCC contracts)

There was only one Municipal tram and bus route that ran southwards from the city centre and this was to serve the cross-Humber ferries of the Great Central Railway and its successors. The ferries plied between New Holland in Lincolnshire and the Corporation Pier in Hull. Incidentally, the latter was the only station in the country which never served any trains!

The first Municipal service was the electric tramway route ‘P’ which commenced operating in October 1908, having replaced the horse trams. Notable was the re-routing of the electric tracks by the way of Alfred Gelder Street and Lowgate, instead of Whitefriargate which had been used by the horse trams.

The electric trams ran almost continuously right up to 1931, when in September motorbuses completely replaced the trams. During the First World War the line suffered damage from a German Zeppelin airship, but it was soon repaired and brought back into use. Late night services from October 1923 were made by motorbuses, and this was to be granted on licence BH101/20, when the effects of the 1930 Road Traffic Act were realised. The route was number 50 which was at the end of the numbers to be used. This was fitting as numbers were allocated in a clockwise order starting in West Hull.

The original intention was to have replaced all tramway routes by trolley vehicles but the Corporation was defeated in this by the Corporation having put the application to operate trolley vehicles into a Parliamentary Bill with a lot of other items and the Bill did not pass through Parliament and consequently powers were not at that time obtained. Thus not only did the Preston Road route suffer, but so did the first tram replacement and in the event trolleybuses never operated to the Pier, or along Preston Road either! The replacement was duly made by motorbus, which, like the night service, was numbered 50 and was granted on licence BH101/28. The service ran virtually unchanged, except for frequency and timings for the next fifty years until the opening of the Humber Bridge rendered the ageing ferry boats obsolete. When started, the city terminus of the 50 was situated in Ferensway, moving to the new bus stands in 1933 and to the Coach Station upon its opening in October 1935. The night service, however, remained in Queen Victoria Square.

Upon the advent of the Co-ordination Agreement between the Corporation and East Yorkshire Motor Services Ltd, which took effect in July 1934, the Corporation was granted three licences, BH101/43, /44 and /59. These were unusual in the fact that they did not specify any specific routes or termini, but just the fares and conditions upon which services were to be operated. BH101/43 covered services to various parts of the city from Paragon Railway Station, which connected with late excursion trains and were operated after cessation of normal service. The second, BH101/44 was similar but it covered services from local Dance Halls (sic) to outer parts of the city after the end of normal services. The final licence, BH101/59 was for emergency replacement of tramway services by motorbuses in the event of a failure of the tramway system. From 1937 this was extended to cover breakdown by trolley vehicles also, but the routes were virtually the same in any case. At the outbreak of the War the following services and licences were held:

Soon after the outbreak of the War the night service to the Pier was discontinued and the licence was eventually surrendered.

As a fillip to the War and early post-War depression, a special exposition was held focusing on Britain’s heritage and the expectant future boom, this was, of course, the 1951 Festival of Britain, and whilst the major events were held in London there were local events taking place also. Mention has already been made of Royal Navy vessels visiting the city, but the Corporation, which had taken its full title of Kingston upon Hull in 1945, also commenced operating a tour of the city. Although the route is not known, it would have taken in the city centre, which was now being re-built after the air raids and there were also the large housing estates at North Hull and Bilton Grange which were being completed. This was granted on the licence BH101/96 and it operated every summer until the end of summer in 1954. It ceased for the winter and did not re-commence, the licence being subsequently surrendered. Ten years later in November 1964, licence BH101/59 was also surrendered as the final trolleybus service was converted to motorbus operation, and there was now no need for emergency replacements as all services were now operated by motorbuses.

Twenty one years after the demise of the city tour another licence was provisionally granted for a tour, the licence was BH101/153 and the tour commenced in August 1975. The substantive licence BH101/154 was granted in October, the provisional licence being then surrendered. In November, another licence BH101/155 was also granted, this time for a tour of the Eastern Docks during that month.

Service 97 commenced operation in March 1976, licence number BH101/156 being granted for the purpose. This was a mainly shoppers service which travelled around the city centre at a flat fare of 2p. The service only ran on Saturdays but patronage was poor despite the cheap fare. As it passed some city centre car parks, it could have been a useful “park and ride” scheme but it never proved to be so. In July the route was enlarged to take in the old town area and markets. Additionally, it also ran on Fridays, but in spite of this, it did not attract sufficient passengers to make it viable. Operations ceased in September but the licence was not surrendered as it ran for the Christmas and New Year periods 1976/7 and 1977/8, but after New Year 1978 it finally ceased to run. The flat fare city centre travel was subsequently incorporated into all major bus services thus there was no longer any need for such a service.

Undoubtedly, the biggest event of 1981 was the opening of the long-awaited Humber Bridge. Once opened, British Rail withdrew the car-ferry service between Hull and New Holland which overnight lost its importance which was taken by Barton upon Humber as the road/rail interchange point. The city transport, however, did not run any regular scheduled stage services across the Bridge, but with the end of the ferry, bus service 50 was finally withdrawn and the licence was surrendered.

The following year, Hull City Transport set up a dedicated coaching division which carried the fleet name “Kingstonian”, using three new and several second hand coaches. This led to express services which ran outside the city boundary, but as they were still within the 30 mile limit for deregulated coach services, a Road Service Licence was still required. Consequently, licence BH101/162 was granted for services to Bridlington and Cleethorpes. Also covered were twelve destinations for mystery tours, seven on the North Bank and five on the South Bank. Due to their nature, the destinations were never publicly revealed. What can be assumed is that the former city tour was included as the former licence BH101/154 was surrendered.

In the period between 1982 and 1985 only licence BH101/162 of the licences dealt with in this chapter was still in operation, but another miscellaneous was granted in January 1985 for a group of special services, this licence was BH101/163 and was the last normal licence granted to the Corporation and its successors.

With governmental assistance, the needs of disabled people were now to be taken into account and the Government required major operators, such as Hull City Transport to make provision for accessible public transport, particularly for those who are wheelchair bound. To facilitate this, undertaking purchased a new Leyland National II, which in addition to normal seats also had provision for wheelchairs and was specially adapted to enable them to be loaded and off-loaded with ease. This vehicle numbered 60 in the fleet and named ‘Albert Parker’ was used on a network of ten routes two each day between various outer districts and the city centre. Outward journeys were made in the morning and returned in the afternoons. The routes did not carry route numbers, neither did they compare to any extent with existing services. A list of the outer termini along with basic details of the route is given below.

The above does not give an exhaustive detail of routes travelled, but give a general impression of the routes used. The services were marketed under the name ‘Handirider’.

Two express services were introduced in May 1986. Both were operated by the Kingstonian division, as they were over thirty miles in length, no road service licences were needed, due to the deregulation of express coach services in 1980. They ran from May until September on Saturdays only. The first service was from Hull to Preston and Blackpool and was numbered X61, while the second service was to Mablethorpe and Skegness and numbered X62.

In July 1986 when the deregulation network was introduced three licences were surrendered, BH101/43 and BH101/44 plus BH101/162, leaving only the disabled services, which were also altered on four of the routes, these being

The other six services were unchanged and the ten were used as the basis of the deregulation network.

In the deregulation network, most of the school services were discontinued and at the beginning of the school year in September, the Humberside County Council had identified school services which would be required. These had been put out to tender, by the County Council and KHCT Ltd had, along with other operators, put in tenders for several of them, and, in the event, won the tenders for twenty services. As these were all new services, Road Service Licences were required, albeit only for six weeks before the deregulation took effect. Licences BH101/164 to /183 were granted to cover these services. route numbers were all given the ‘S’ suffix , but the numbers bore little or no relationship to either pre or post-deregulation service numbers! a list of services follows

In addition to these, licence BH101/180 also had a service 91X quoted, but details of these are not known. Some of these had been operated commercially by KHCT prior to the revision of the network of services, but others were completely new or extensively revised.

Upon deregulation, all the remaining licences were surrendered, to be replaced by the registered network, which was, of course, identical to the services operated since July 1986.

Keith Easton
01/2012

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