Adventures to the capital

This post will expand a little on our adventures to London. As a rural bus and coach operation, we only visit London when customers like us to go. It remains a far off place and most Somerset people visit this foreign wilderness a few times in their lives. Whereas I'm quite widely travelled and would happily hop in a coach and play chicken with the traffic in the city. 

Back in 2011 we were looking at our coach operations and to our amazement noticed that no model fleet was providing a service from Wellington, Taunton and Bridgwater to London. There were services from Taunton obviously, but none from the home base of the company. 

Berrys Coaches operate three services in real life under the 'superfast' banner having launched the first route at the start of coach deregulation in the early 1980s. The route ran from Wellington, Taunton, North Petherton and Bridgwater before hitting the M5 and the M4.  It ran as such for around 10 years.

In 1993 they began operating the second service, which was branded Superfast 2 and took in Ilminster, South Petherton, Yeovil, Ilchester, RNAS Yeovilton and Wincanton before hitting the A303 and going towards London. Southern National even sold tickets for them. Quite an about turn as I'll explain later. 

What was odd, in model fleet terms was that the first service (Wellington/Taunton/Bridgwater) wasn't provided by any operator, but the second one was. This seemed incredible to us. When the long suffering Miss Southwestbus and I were 'courting' I used to travel on the Superfast service quite often so got to see how well it loaded. 

It is something of a Somerset secret but it is very popular with locals as it offers a faster connection to London than the train does. If you want to go from Bridgwater to London on the train, first you have to go to Taunton and change. 

So Berrys' have been rather clever in targeting towns which are either not or poorly served by rail and providing a twice daily link to London. The three services require(d) 5 vehicles and there was often duplication at weekends. The work was done by a dedicated team of drivers who didn't do other things.

I worked for the company a couple of years ago and it wasn't long before I was driving turns on superfast during the weekends. 

Heston services after completing first solo trip to London in June 19 - one way duplicate on Superfast 2

 

In 1991, Berrys decided that there was potential for double deck buses to run local services in Taunton. Bus deregulation meant operators could register services wherever they wanted, in competition with established ones. 

So out they went and bought some Bristol VRs and the 'Beaverbus' services began. Southern National, who provided shuttle services in the town (16 seater Ford Transits on high frequencies) quite naturally took exception to this incursion and a fleet of blue and cream Leyland Nationals appeared with 'superbus' branding. These ran alongside Berrys Beaverbuses.

Just to poke a little more, they also decided that there was potential for an express coach service to London. Thus was born the 'Apple Arrow'. A secondhand, but very modern G registered Leyland Tiger Plaxton Paramount was branded for the service. Southern National's parent company had evidently dome some research on superfast and targeted the busiest days of the service. 

If you're going to make a point, use anguage the opposition understands :D

 

So, having made their point publicly, Berrys' concluded that perhaps running town services round Taunton may not be the wisest of business decisions, and the Beaverbuses were withdrawn. And coincidentally the Apple Arrow service was withdrawn around the same time. Berrys' found other lucrative business ventures and today are one of the largest providers of schools contracts in Somerset, undertake a lot of incoming tour work and have three daily services to London. 

In 2013 they bought the 'modern' side of Steve Morris' Quantock operations and have 70 discs and c60 vehicles. They've also benefited from the demise of several smaller coach firms in the county taking on work at short notice and keeping it.

Returning to 2011, we'd identified a very obvious business opportunity for the model fleet which wasn't being done. There's only one course of action when you find an opportunity, you take it. 

So we started the London Flyer. A trip to a toyfair meant a pair of Van Hool Alizee T8s were sourced cheaply (on the basis that if things didn't work out we could redeploy them onto other work) and the service began operating. Sadly photos of the first coaches don't exist (thanks to data loss of images from that time) and I don't appear to have retained a timetable either. 

Here's one from 2014, which shows the basic pattern of service we provide 10 years on. 

The outside of the leaflet has been unchanged sinxe 2011, the inside has altered on several occasions....

You'll note that Tiverton, the first and last calling point on Superfast 1, appears and disappears. The real service runs through to Tiverton Bus Station, linking up another poorly served railway town (Parkway Station, like all good stations isn't where it purports to serve). The real service in practice ends at Taunton and any onward customers are placed in a minibus and dropped off by a feeder driver. 

The length of the route, and where it goes, often meets traffic in unhelpful places, so it's possible to max your driving time just getting to Taunton. Having driven the feeder quite a few times, it's debatable whether that extension to Tiverton is viable given the resources it takes up. 

Those who've worked the route commented then how it 'wasn't like the good old days' - presumably the original route was fully loaded most of the time, whereas I could see journeys where we'd be carrying a handful of people, and whilst I don't know the minimum load factor, I do know from early in my career that you needed a minimum of 18-20 people on a excursion or holiday to cover all the costs of operating.

Like in reality, we've experimented with providing a second route (via Ilminster/Yeovil/Wincanton), the third route (via Street/Glastonbury/Shepton Mallet/Frome/Warminster) and the fourth route (Burnham on Sea/Weston/Clevedon -  a replacement for Bakers Dolphin London Flyer in part) at various times, but we've returned to the original route each time. The 2017 fleet (4 67plate triaxle Irizar i6's) was the most ambitious timetable we've provided in the 10 years we've done the flyer. 

The high point. 2017 saw the arrival of 4 triaxle Irizar i6's for the service

 

The route came to an end last year thanks to Covid. Prior to that we'd truncated the frequency of the original route, so that the twice daily journeys ran when the loadings were high enough (Friday through to Sunday), and Monday to Thursday was taken care of by one round trip with two drivers on a rather long day.  The route then became part of the Flexicoach network, enabling us to operate on demand rather than be constrained by a timetable which means you turn up when it says it will.

We're now in a position to relaunch the route, and we've decided upon a new name for the service as well. It's a name from 30 years back..... :D  

We'll need to brand one coach for the route, and at weekends we'll use another, plus any duplication as needed. We don't envisage it to be a money spinner, but we do intend to keep it running as it does deliver some profit to the business. 

After a year of operating the Flyer, in 2012 the route gained a pair of Van Hool Alizee T9s.

In August 2013 the first brand new coaches arrived - two Mercedes OC500s with Caetano CT650 bodies.

Rear of the 2013 pair. Unlike normal Levante coaches, these have offside conteintal doors and centre toilets.

 

In terms of vehicles we've run on our London services, the original pair of Volvo B10M/Van Hool Alizee T8s gave way after a year to two VDL SB4000XF/Van Hool Alizee T9s. 2013 saw the first brand new coaches, two Mercedes/Caetano CT650s which were wheelchair accessible. Think of the mechanical parts of a Mercedes Tourismo and then add a dreadful body to a dreadful chassis and you have the ultimate in dreadfulness.... :D

In 2017 we replaced the Mercedes with 4 Scania/Irizar i6 triaxles which had the wheelchair lifts in the front platform beside the driver. The Mercedes moved onto other work rather than be disposed of - PSVAR compliant Euro 5/6 vehicles tend to attract a premium on the market so it made sense to keep them, dreadful though they are.  The 2017 fleet ran the service through to 2020 when the service stopped. We're reluanching with just one 21 plate Scania/Irizar which awaits branding. 

It'll look good once we brand the sides.....