Coach to Newquay

In 1970 I went to Newquay for a holiday and travelled by coach from Bolton. I can't remember much about the trip now but wondered if anybody would know if the journey I took would be a regular route or a summer time arrangement only? I remember leaving on a Friday evening and seem to think we changed vehicles at Exeter? The second part on the journey from Exeter was delayed on the Saturday due to this coach breaking down. I'm not sure who the operator was, perhaps somebody may know?

Paul Warnock

16/09/12 - 07:09

Paul, The first part of the journey you undertook would have been on Ribble Motor Services Colne - Paignton service. Departing Bolton at 21.53 due in to Exeter at 06.37. The onward journey would have been by Royal Blue departing 08.00 arriving Newquay 11.20. Now I am prepared to have a small wager that you travelled to Exeter on a Ribble coach but Royal Blue needed so many coaches on summer Saturdays that it could have been one of many operators. Apart from their own Royal Blue vehicles it could have been either Western or Southern National (who jointly owned Royal Blue); one of the other NBC subsidiaries - Greenslades or Grey Cars or one of the independents Royal Blue used regularly, Mitchells of Perranporth spring to mind for Newquay journeys.

The attached photo is of a Ribble Leyland Leopard with Harrington body in Exeter coach station in July, but not off your service. I wonder how close to the scheduled arrival time of 06.37 you got in? The queues for Exeter, even at 6 in the morning usually stretched back about 10 miles at that time of year, but for any young coach enthusiast it was worth getting up in the middle of the night to be in the seventh heaven that was Paris Street in those days. Coaches came from everywhere and National White hadn't been invented. In the background there is a good line up of Yelloway AEC Reliances and to the left of the Ribble Leopard another Reliance belonging to Maidstone and District.

David Grimmett

17/09/12 - 07:02

David, sorry to introduce an unhelpful, (but typical OBP), digression, but I was intrigued by the appearance of the M&D Reliance. I don't think M&D had any express routes that called at Exeter. However, they did visit that city on some of their holiday tours. Do you know, David, how the vehicle came to be in your picture?
Royal Blue certainly did hire vehicles in the summer - a practice I came across also at West Yorkshire who regularly hired dozens of coaches every summer Saturday. On the other hand, none of BET's three southern companies did much hiring, which is why they all kept fleets of second line coaches which managed only very low mileages. I've always suspected that explains their heavy involvement in the Beadle rebuilds.

Roy Burke

17/09/12 - 07:05

David.
Thank you very much for your quick reply to my enquiry. Superb detail, now you have jolted my memory I'm sure the second part of my journey was on a coach belonging to Royal Blue. I'm not sure about the time it took but I do remember being in a long queue into Exeter. Could Ribble have used another company to supply coaches from Bolton as I don't remember it belonging To Ribble? Thank you for the photo, lovely coach and a cracking line up in the background. If only I had been interested in photography then I could have had some great photo,s.

Paul Warnock

18/09/12 - 07:09

Coming from Taunton there was always a height of activity at the bus station on summer Saturdays with any coach being used for all sorts of duties. However as a railway enthusiast I was more interested in seeing the trains at the station which also brought in a number of surprises.

To remind you about onward travel to Newquay by Royal Blue coach I attach the above picture showing 2 running in convoy. Actually taken in 2010 during that years Royal Blue run it's a reminder of coach travel in the South West. A Bristol LL6B leads a Bristol RE both ultimately heading for Porthleven.

Ken Jones

18/09/12 - 07:10

Roy and Paul, Sorry Roy, M&D did run to Exeter. There were two services nominally joint with Royal Blue. Gillingham - Paignton and Gillingham - Perranporth. The Paignton would certainly have been an M&D operation. It was a day service and possibly the vehicle in the photo could have a been a relief working only to Exeter. The Perranporth service was overnight, depart Kent on Friday arrive Exeter 07:19 in time to catch the 08:00 Royal Blue. The network of Royal Blue interchanges offered so much flexibility that someone coming from Maidstone could have travelled to Exeter with M&D and then on to Newquay, sitting next to Paul who came from Lancashire. The back room staff were rarely seen but charting these services was either a joy or a nightmare. Anyway I digress. Of course, remember we are talking about peak summer so through journeys happened putting vehicles in odd places but I suspect the M&D Reliance had arrived on this overnight service from Kent with passengers for all sorts of Devon and Cornwall destinations and changed them all over at Exeter. The service did last into National Express days as 054.

Paul, You might be right about it not being a Ribble coach. I forgot the Colne - Paignton service was joint with Yelloway, which gives me the opportunity to include a photo of their fleetname, which is still phoenix-like in use today, and digress again and get in another mention of one of the greatest express service operators of the country, must be careful how this discussion goes - getting a bit too recent for OBP.

David Grimmett

18/09/12 - 07:11

Those 10 mile queues you each mention I'm sure refer to the dreaded Exeter By Pass which I remember so very well in those long sunny Summers. My parents hired out caravans in Shaldon, Near Teignmouth so many weekend Saturday mornings were spent driving down from Bristol to do the cleaning/hand overs etc. between 1956 and 1963. The By-Pass was always very slow and in my young mind was partly dual carriageway and well decorated with red geraniums which stuck firmly in my memory.
I'm sure that none of it remains now because the M5 sweeps through the area yet each time I pass through at a legal 70mph, there is a large red cliff face on the right hand side which back then was at a junction where traffic "turned right" for Cornwall which was a big headache spot. I can still see the steaming Ford 8's, Minor's, Minx' etc. etc. as they crept patiently towards seaside heaven!
Maybe this will ring a proverbial bell concerning your long trip down from the North!

Richard Leaman

19/09/12 - 07:03

Thanks, David, for your extra information. You certainly live and learn on this site, (well, I do at least!), because the Gillinham - West Country express services were completely unknown to me. What an inexcusable gap in my education. Maybe I became too involved in M&D's London express services.
However, the reference to both Royal Blue and Ribble reminded me of an incident at Victoria Coach Station. Recounting in the canteen there how I had just avoided accidentally directing a passenger for Shoeburyness onto a coach for Sheerness, a Royal Blue driver told the story of how he had once driven from Victoria all the way to Penryn with an elderly lady passenger bound for Penrith. 'Was she upset?' I asked. 'Not really,' was the reply. 'She even complimented me on the comfortable ride.'

Roy Burke

20/09/12 - 07:09

Roy,
Well off topic now but that is the way these threads run.
I remember whilst supervising loading of the East Anglian Express service at Victoria to Great Yarmouth, the Southdown inspector bringing to me a rather bemused elderly lady who was retrieved from a Southsea coach as she had been advised that was the best way to get to Yarmouth and she nearly ended up on the Isle of Wight.

David Grimmett

20/09/12 - 07:10

This is literally taking us a long way from “Coach to Newquay” but here goes. When I worked in the Derby railway works, I had a colleague from Sweden for a few months. She told me of a couple of Americans travelling with Eurailpasses. Having “done” Scandinavia (!) they fancied seeing Italy. They went to the information desk at Stockholm Central station and said they wanted to go to Venice. “No problem” replied the clerk in slightly clipped but otherwise impeccable English. They should have been suspicious when he said it would take about 8 hours on an overnight train. However, obviously Europe is a lot smaller than the USA, and they thought nothing of it. Reservation made, they boarded the train and were shown to a very comfortable sleeper. They got up next morning expecting to see warm sun and the Grand Canal. What they actually saw was deep snow. And then the train arrived at the small Swedish town of Vännäs, some 300 miles north of Stockholm.

Stephen Ford

23/09/12 - 06:41

Gentlemen, thank you all very much for the great photos and information. It never ceases to amaze me the knowledge you all have. Not wanting to clog up the Q & A section of this wonderful website, but I have another couple of question.
The first. In 1966 I went on holiday with an aunt and cousin from Manchester to Butlins holiday camp at Filey. We left on a Saturday morning from I think Lower Mosley Street bus station and I think it was on a North Western coach and travelled out towards Oldham. Was this a regular service during the summer to the holiday camps and what route would it take ?
The second question is about a journey I used to take regularly in the 1960's between Carlisle and Manchester and back, I seem to remember some times the journey was on one coach either Ribble or one of the Scottish operators and then some times we went to Preston and changed for the onward journey. I really enjoyed these trips along the A6 through all the towns and over Shap and on occasions being told Shap was blocked due to snow. I wonder if anybody could share and details they may have on this route please.

Paul Warnock

23/09/12 - 19:48

You were right that the coach from Manchester to Filey would be North Western. The history of the service is quite complex and I have devoted a whole gallery to it at: davidbeilby.zenfolio.com
You will that the route had a whole variety of operators, although most of this was in later days. North Western would use anything available on busy days!

David Beilby

24/09/12 - 06:35

The Colne-Bolton-Cheltenham-Exeter-Torquay-Paignton was indeed a joint operation between Yelloway and Ribble and carried the service number X65 from the Ribble service numbering series. The service began in 1968 initially with summertime Friday overnight and Saturday daytime services southbound with Saturday daytime and Saturday overnight services northbound. Later it became a daily daytime service in summer to Torbay and in winter just as far as Cheltenham. Following the agreement with National Travel in 1976 whereby Yelloway and National exchanged some services (the Ribble share had by then come under the control of National), Yelloway took over sole operation of the X65.
On behalf of Ribble and National, Yelloway looked after most of the administration relating to the X65 arranging the timetable leaflet printing, doing all the 'charting' for the service at Rochdale, arranging the hired coaches for duplication and, at peak times, it was usually the Yelloway Traffic Office staff that were sent to the places where the heaviest loadings were (mainly Friday evenings and Saturday mornings of the wakes weeks) to carry out loading duties. I worked in the Chart Room and the Traffic Office at Yelloway between 1967 and 1974 and along with my colleagues we were assigned to various towns over the summer period. My most regular location was central Manchester but I also covered Bolton and Wigan from time to time on the X65.
All the services to the south-west were very popular not only with passengers travelling through to the ultimate destinations in Torbay but also with passengers making connections at Exeter to Royal Blue's Cornwall services and at Cheltenham to the services of Associated Motorways which served all resorts across the south of England.
I can't remember specific passenger numbers although on one occasion I totalled up over 1200 passengers on just one of the Friday night wakes week service departures. This equates to 24 x 53 seater coaches and was just part of the evenings total.
With such phenomenal passenger numbers meant that numerous additional coaches had to be hired each and every weekend over the main summer period (mid June until early September). These hires came from a range of favoured independents - the likes of Tatlock's of Radcliffe; Church Inn Garage of Little Hulton; Shutt Brothers of Burnley; Hodder of Clitheroe - just four I bring to mind as I write. These operators were given a commitment or understanding that their coaches would be hired each weekend and during the days leading up to the required date the Yelloway Traffic Office would 'fine tune' the 'where and when'. Consideration to where the company was based usually led to where the coaches would be positioned for convenience and to save a lot of dead running. Tatlock's and Church Inn Garage were well located that they covered duplication of the X65, the X35 (Rochdale-Leigh etc-Paignton operated jointly with Lancashire United) or on the sole Yelloway 'Devonian' services.

Spurred on by this topic I have added some literature to my Flickr page which include: X65 timetable for summer 1976: www.flickr.com/photos/a
The Royal Blue London-Exeter-Cornwall services for summer 1971:
Westbound www.flickr.com/photos/b
Eastbound www.flickr.com/photos/c
Also the X35 for summer 1970 www.flickr.com/photos/d

Yelloway worked so closely with Ribble over the years beginning with the 'Fylde Coast' pool in the 1950s so much so many of the public always thought that Yelloway 'were owned by Ribble'.

David Slater

24/09/12 - 10:27

This picture is the best I can offer to relive memories of Yelloway coaches in the SW. It is being followed by an older AEC from Grey cars and the date ------- June this year ---- both vehicles were participating in The Royal Blue Run. The Yelloways Coach had recently been bought by Stephen Morris from Quantock Motors and he drove this coach during the entire weekend.

Ken Jones

02/10/12 - 15:03

Gentlemen, many many thanks for your replies to my question about my trip to Newquay and Filey. Fantastic information and photos.

Paul Warnock

28/04/14 - 09:41

Regarding hiring in by express service operators, although the overnight services such as the one in this 'story' would have used local operators for duplicates, on the Saturday services coaches which had worked Forces leave services on friday night did lots of duplicates on Saturdays. Just a couple of examples are West Yorkshire from Leeds used Triumph, Silver Star and Creamline to Scarborough and Morecambe, and a photo exists of no less than 3 Triumph Tiger Cubs working Midland red's Birmingham to Bournemouth service.

Paul Statham

28/04/14 - 17:32

On the side-issue of mis-direction, I had a colleague who, with his family, set off to go by coach from Bristol to Newquay, Cornwall and finished up in New Quay, near Aberystwyth! In the end, they got digs there for the week and his retired parents spent an unexpected break in Newquay, going by car (perhaps to play safe, I wonder!). Both parties enjoyed themselves.

Chriis Hebbron

28/05/14 - 07:52

Reading through this posting I note that it is stated that Maidstone & District passengers changed coaches at Exeter for onward travel. On the E7 overnight journeys Gillingham - Newquay and return, the driver's changed at Exeter but the same M & D vehicle was used for the entire trip. I actually did this in 1964, leaving Gillingham Kent at 8.40 pm and arriving the next morning in Newquay East Street at 11.36 am the following morning! The return was on the Saturday Evening.
Link to my photograph on Flickr; www.flickr.com/photos/

Peter Jewell

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