 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2020) |
 Alexander Dennis Enviro400 in Lincoln in 2008 | |
| Parent | Stagecoach Group |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Lincoln |
| Service area | |
| Service type | Bus |
| Depots | 5 |
| Website | www.stagecoachbus.com |
Stagecoach in Lincolnshire is a bus company, formerly known as Lincolnshire RoadCar, operating services throughout Lincolnshire. The company is a division of Stagecoach East Midlands, which is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group.
The Lincolnshire Road Car Company was formed in 1928 after being renamed from the Lincoln-based Silver Queen Motor Omnibus Company, which was first formed in 1922 and initially ran services to Grantham and Louth. Lincolnshire Road Car had acquired a number of independent operators before joining the Tilling Group in 1929, then going on to acquire the Lincolnshire operations of United Automobile Services in 1931. [1] [2] Under the Transport Act 1968 Lincolnshire Road Car, by then a part of the state-owned Transport Holding Company, became part of the National Bus Company. [3]
The company ran services from throughout the county of Lincolnshire including some services over the county boundaries to such towns as Newark-on-Trent and Retford in Nottinghamshire as well as Kingston upon Hull and Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Many rural services ran from Lincoln's St. Marks Bus Station to the outlying villages surrounding the city. Although these services ran within the city boundary, passengers were not allowed to use them for internal journeys within the city. Bus services within the city of Lincoln were provided by Lincoln City (Corporation) Transport. Lincolnshire Road Car not only provided long-distance services within the county but also town services within many towns in the county, such as Louth and Sleaford.
When the Transport Act 1985 deregulated bus services, the National Bus Company was broken up and Lincolnshire Road Car was acquired by the Yorkshire Traction Group in 1988. [4] Prior to this, the company began painting their fleet green and yellow and used fleetnames simply reading 'RoadCar'. [5] A hire coach operation named 'Coachlink' was also founded under Traction Group ownership, however it would be dissolved by March 2004 due to the business becoming financially unviable. [6]
Upon deregulation, passengers were also permitted to use RoadCar services for journeys wholly within the city of Lincoln and RoadCar and city buses started competing on many routes in Lincoln and around the surrounding villages, the city buses leaving the confines of the city for rural routes for the first time. Lincolnshire RoadCar took over Lincoln City Transport in 1993 after the company incurred losses from competing with RoadCar and had a management buyout offer rejected. [7] [8]
In 1988, RoadCar acquired the business of Newark-on-Trent independent company W. Gash & Sons. Initially, the company was operated as a separate entity from RoadCar, but in 1989, both companies merged after inspections found the Gash fleet to be mechanically deficient, which saw the traffic commissioner strip Gash of its operating license. [9]
RoadCar introduced its first low floor buses on Skegness town services in late 1997. These were single-deck buses branded as "Super Buzz", adopting a yellow, red and blue striped livery that featured a stylised bee graphic. [10] [11] Roadcar later expanded its low-floor fleet from February 1999 through being a founder operator of the Lincolnshire County Council administered Lincolnshire InterConnect rural bus network; RoadCar introduced three "Lo-Liner" branded single-deck buses on service 6 between Lincoln and Skegness, which originally ran alongside high-floor "Hi-Liner" double-decker buses. [12] [13]
In 2001, RoadCar introduced their first low floor double deckers. These buses originally ran alongside the existing Hi and Lo-Liners on their Connect 6 route before they were fully replaced by these new buses a year later. These low floor double deckers were later be introduced on their "Super Buzz" branded routes in 2004, which by then the brand was already introduced across the Lincoln, Newark, Grimsby and Scunthorpe Town Service routes.[ citation needed ]
RoadCar became a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group in December 2005 following the group's purchase of the Traction Group. [14] [15] In September 2006, RoadCar was rebranded as Stagecoach in Lincolnshire, becoming part of an enlarged Stagecoach East Midlands subdivision that moved its headquarters from Chesterfield to Lincoln. [16]
From March 2006, Stagecoach purchased new buses for the company, among them four Alexander Dennis Darts and five MAN 18.220/Alexander Dennis ALX300s for the Gainsborough area, in a bid to improve services, gradually phasing out the oldest of RoadCar's buses. The new vehicles temporarily featured RoadCar logos in the front and side windows, and buses from other Stagecoach areas were seen in the area during the transition. The existing fleet then had their RoadCar logos removed.
At the beginning of August 2006, Stagecoach caused considerable controversy[ citation needed ] with their decision to make major changes to the bus network in Lincoln. Some services were withdrawn without replacement while others benefited from frequency increases. Following a local media campaign, the company agreed to make some changes to return services to those areas which had lost them. At the same time, the company also lost a majority of its service work in Nottinghamshire to Veolia Transport's subsidiary Dunn-Line and local company KJB.
In Autumn 2007 Stagecoach announced the withdrawal of some services in Louth, Lincoln and Gainsborough. The threatened services survived after successful negotiations with the district councils over subsidies. In August 2008, however, the company's depot in Louth was closed, with some routes being taken over by Skegness and Grimsby depots and a number of contracted routes surrendered. [17] A new depot in Skegness was later opened by Stagecoach in September 2009, costing £2.2 million to construct. [18]
Stagecoach first introduced the 'Simplibus' network concept to Lincoln in February 2017, the third such network to be launched in Stagecoach East Midlands. A £3 million investment into the city's bus services saw ten new single-deck buses enter service on a numerically renumbered route network. This development coincided with the opening of Lincoln's new bus station in January. [19] A year later in Scunthorpe, Stagecoach entered a partnership with local independent bus company Hornsbys and North Lincolnshire Council as part of a Quality Bus Partnership, creating 'Simplibus North Lincolnshire'. This Simplibus network was launched with a joint remuneration of Stagecoach and Hornsbys bus services around Scunthorpe and Brigg and surrounding areas into numerical order, a circular route created in Scunthorpe, and buses being branded with Simplibus logos across both fleets. [20]
Stagecoach in Lincolnshire is the main operator of the 'InterConnect' service, a network of rural and interurban bus services around the county. Bus services operate to urban destinations such as Lincoln, Gainsborough, Skegness and Scunthorpe via the rural communities in between. Buses are painted in a purple livery based on the previous Stagecoach livery. The service is also jointly operated by Brylaine Travel.
Stagecoach operates a number of 'Seasider' branded open top buses on both the Skegness and Cleethorpes seafronts.
In the RoadCar era, open-top Roadcar buses in Skegness were originally branded as 'The Open Topper', and consisted of various Leyland buses, before being replaced by MCW Metrobuses in 2004. Originally, the buses wore a livery of white, yellow and blue, similar in design to RoadCar's standard fleet livery, but in 1997, the open top livery was changed to yellow, red and blue.[ citation needed ]
After Lincolnshire RoadCar came under Stagecoach ownership, the open-top services were rebranded in 2007 as the 'Coastal Cruiser', with buses receiving a new livery as a result of this rebrand. In 2010, the MCW Metrobuses were replaced by Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 buses. The service was relaunched in April 2014 as the 'Skegness Seasider', with six Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 buses refurbished in colourful liveries and named 'Rocky', 'Candy', 'Pierre', 'Shelly', 'Sandy' and 'Salty'. [21] [22] Two Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B7TL buses named 'Rolly' and 'Milly' joined the fleet in 2015. In 2016, 'Rocky' was replaced by an open top Alexander Dennis Enviro400, coinciding with the introduction of the Cleethorpes Seasiders: two Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B7TLs named 'Lolly' and 'Splash'.[ citation needed ]
Three more Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident 2 buses named 'Teddy', 'Sunny' and 'Sweetie' were added to the fleet in 2018, [23] followed by a twelfth bus named Scoop in March 2022. [24] The Skegness Seasider buses were replaced for the 2024 season with twelve Alexander Dennis Enviro400H hybrid electric buses transferred from Stagecoach Manchester. [25]
The ThreeFifty is a half-hourly cross-river bus service over the River Humber that connects Scunthorpe and Kingston upon Hull via the Humber Bridge and Barton-upon-Humber. The service was first operated as 'Humberlink' service 350 by both Lincolnshire RoadCar and East Yorkshire as National Bus Company subsidiaries, commencing operations on 24 June 1981 following the opening of the Humber Bridge and replacing the pre-existing Humber Ferry. [26] [27]
The ThreeFifty was relaunched as the 'Humber FastCat' by Stagecoach in Lincolnshire in 2009, receiving an investment of six branded single-deckers, each of which carried a name on a special orange livery. The service was also launched as a joint operation with East Yorkshire, who operate a single bus independent of the Stagecoach fleet. [28] The FastCat brand was later refreshed in 2014, in conjunction with the introduction of the sister 'Humber Flyer' service at Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes. [22] Stagecoach later invested in a £1 million fleet of six new Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMCs for the service in 2017, featuring USB charging and leather seating. [29]
The service was rebranded to 'ThreeFifty' during the summer of 2023, with the 'Humber FastCat' Enviro200 MMCs being repainted into a revised orange livery. [30]
On 11 April 2004, a Volvo B7TL double-decker bus with East Lancs Vyking bodywork operated by Lincolnshire RoadCar collided with a number of pedestrians outside the main entrance to Fantasy Island amusement park on Sea Lane in Ingoldmells. Five pedestrians were killed and six more injured, two critically, in the accident. [31] [32] Following the accident, RoadCar were found guilty of breaching safety provisions for allowing the driver to operate the vehicle type without proper training and for operating a vehicle with faulty brakes; as a result, they were fined £2,000 at Skegness Magistrates Court on 8 August 2005. [33] The bus driver was found guilty of five counts of causing death by dangerous driving and a single count of driving without due care and attention, and was sentenced to five years of imprisonment on 9 November 2005.[ citation needed ]
Lincolnshire, abbreviated Lincs, is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to the north, the North Sea to the east, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland to the south, and Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire to the west. The county town is the city of Lincoln. Lincolnshire is the second largest ceremonial county in England, after North Yorkshire.
Cleethorpes is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England with a population of 29,678 in 2021. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry, then developing into a resort in the 19th century. Before becoming a unified town, Cleethorpes was made up of the three small villages of Itterby, Oole and Thrunscoe.
Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses and express coaches in the United Kingdom.
Lincolnshire is a large county in England with a sparse population distribution, which leads to problems funding all sorts of transport. The transport history is long and varied, with much of the road network still based on the Roman model, and the once extensive rail network a shadow of its former self.
Stagecoach in Hull is a bus operator providing services in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach East Midlands, a subdivision of the Stagecoach Group.
The Alexander ALX400 is a 2-axle double-decker bus body built by Walter Alexander Coachbuilders. It was one of the ALX-series bodywork, all of which featured the same designs on the front and rear panels that were originally designed for the new generation of mainly low-floor bus chassis produced since the late 1990s.
Stagecoach South East is the trading name of East Kent Road Car Company Limited, a bus operator based in Canterbury providing services in Kent and East Sussex in the south east of England. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach Group.
Skegness railway station serves the seaside resort of Skegness in Lincolnshire, England, at the eastern terminus of the Poacher Line. The station is now owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Railway, who operate all services that run to and from Nottingham.
The coast of Lincolnshire runs for more than 50 miles (80 km) down the North Sea coast of eastern England, from the estuary of the Humber to the marshlands of the Wash, where it meets Norfolk. This stretch of coastline has long been associated with tourism, fishing and trade.
The East Kent Road Car Company Ltd is a bus company formed in 1916 and based in Canterbury, Kent. The company operated bus and coach services in Kent. In 1993 it was one of the first companies to be acquired by the Stagecoach Group, which eventually rebranded the operation as Stagecoach in East Kent, and made it part of the Stagecoach South East bus division.
Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes is a subdivision of Stagecoach East Midlands that operates buses in and around North East Lincolnshire, England, serving a population of over 150,000. It runs town services in its main hubs of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, as well as services to Immingham and nearby villages.
Stagecoach East Midlands is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East Midlands, the city of Kingston upon Hull and Lincolnshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group.
Stagecoach East is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East of England, operating in the counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered and registered in Cambridge.
Team Pennine operates both local and regional bus services in West Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of Transdev Blazefield, which operates bus services across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
The Lincoln Transport Hub is a transport interchange located in Lincoln city centre in Lincolnshire, England. It connects Lincoln railway station with the Central Bus Station across a pedestrianised plaza on St Mary's Street. There is also a 1,000-space multi-storey car park. Lincoln Transport Hub was scheduled to open in December 2017, however it was decided that the accompanying car park should be opened first and swapped the opening schedule. The new bus station opened on 28 January 2018.
Stagecoach in Newcastle is a bus company, and a division of Stagecoach North East. Stagecoach in Newcastle is the largest division of Stagecoach North East, and one of the three major bus operators in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, alongside Arriva North East and Go North East. Stagecoach predominantly provide services within the city proper, with Arriva North East and Go North East's routes extending beyond the city into other parts of Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham.
Stagecoach Midlands is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the English Midlands, operating in the counties of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered in Northampton.
Lincolnshire InterConnect is a rural bus network in the county of Lincolnshire in the east of England.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC, also marketed as the Alexander Dennis Enviro200, is a single-decker city bus produced by Alexander Dennis since 2014 as the successor to the Enviro200 midibus and Enviro300 full-size bus. The first Enviro200 MMCs entered service with National Express West Midlands in 2015. Notably, Enviro200 MMCs have been modified by Fusion Processing to be used as the basis for the first driverless bus trials in the United Kingdom.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC is a low-floor double-decker bus produced by the British bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis since 2014, replacing the Alexander Dennis Enviro400. The Enviro400 MMC is produced at Alexander Dennis' Falkirk and Scarborough factories in the United Kingdom.
Bus operators in Yorkshire and the Humber | ||
|---|---|---|
| East Riding of Yorkshire |  | |
| Northern Lincolnshire | ||
| North Yorkshire | ||
| South Yorkshire (PTE) | ||
| West Yorkshire (PTE) | ||
| National | ||
Bus operators in the East Midlands | ||
|---|---|---|
| Derbyshire |  | |
| Leicestershire | ||
| Lincolnshire | ||
| Northamptonshire | ||
| Nottinghamshire | ||
| National | ||