The Branchline
For a number of years, our operation has run one of the two commercially solid corridors in the county of my birth, Somerset. As the population is somewhat thinly spread those commercial corridors are as you may imagine somewhat few and far between. When Southwestbus launched in 2010 the Wellington-Taunton and Taunton-Bridgwater-Burnham on Sea corridor was targeted. It's seen a lot of competition over the years. Berrys tried to compete between Wellington and Taunton in the early 1990s, Quantock Motor Services in 2002, a very short lived operation called Somerset Rider also did so in 2001. The only company to stick at it was Webberbus, who managed almost 9 years and built up significant customer loyalty. Had they stuck to this plus their other Easylink route between Taunton and Minehead maybe they'd still be in business today. The route between Minehead and Taunton has also seen competition over the years - in 2001 Somerset Rider ran shorts between Williton...