Operators based in North East Wales

[DLG817]

RE: Operators based in North East Wales
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The 13th July will always be a date that many will remember as the anniversary of the last day of operation of services by GHA Coaches. Following the collapse on this date all Local Authorities were extremely busy finding new operators to run the very many services and contracts that were abandoned due to the demise of the firm.

This date, by coincidence, was also the final day of operation of services by Coastline Taxis of Rhyl (JWS [Cars] Limited). Perhaps not to the same scale, but nevertheless, the officers of Denbighshire County Council have been extremely busy recently sorting new contracts to fill the void left by Coastline's demise. <LINK> to the new timetables. I have this week been looking at the new operations.

55/X5 Ruthin - Corwen - Wrexham (and Cynwyd)
The new operator for this service is Lloyds of Machynlleth. I must admit I had not expected this firm to be the new operator but I believe they will be an excellent contractor. On the first day of operation they provided two buses very suitable for the task and excellently presented with two experienced drivers. One had transferred from Coastline and the other, Charlie Williams, having been a supervisor with GHA was able to bring his skills, talents and experience to the route. Initially one vehicle starts at Ruabon, the same base where two T3 buses are outstationed, whilst the second one arrives at Corwen from Dolgellau. They are swapped around to ensure that both buses returns to Dolgellau for fuel and cleaning every other day. The buses had suitable and excellent destination displays programmed and apart from a delay due to traffic congestion caused by the abnormal loads of turbines on the A5 I was able to observe that the vehicles kept excellent timings.
Both buses seen at Corwen at change-over time <BOTH at CORWEN>
Seen arriving at the Council Offices in Ruthin <RUTHIN>
Seen at Ruthin preparing to start the extension to Cynwyd serving the factory of Ivor Williams Trailers. <CYNWYD>

40 Prestatyn Town Service
The chosen operator for this element of the former Coastline workings is Townlynx of Greenfield. They clearly provided their best vehicle and driver for this operation. The vehicle was YX17NZA, one of their pair of ADL A20D MMCs with 41 seats which has been acquired new in March 2017. It was well presented but did not have its destination programmed. Something I understand is being organised. Initially on the first journey it showed its destination and service number by a card in the window but showed on the LED display 'Sorry not in Service' which perhaps was not appropriate <DYSERTH>. Later it was changed to show the company's name - but one of the three pre-programmed displays included Townlynx buses serving Flintshire - which was unfortunate as it was a service provided by Denbighshire albeit it was working in an area that prior to 1974 was within the county as displayed!! <RHYL>. The driver, Dave, was observed by me to be a credit to the firm in both the area of customer relations and driving skills. He clearly created excellent rapport with the customers of the service and he negotiated the very narrow roads brilliantly with many badly parked cars with skill and confidence.

140 Taxibus --- Bodfari - Tremeichion - Rhuallt - Cwm - Dyserth - Rhyl.
This element of the former Coastline 40 service is now provided by one of Denbighshire's own fleet of minibuses with their own driver. It is operated on a reduced basis only working on Tuesdays and Fridays. It has been given the new route number of Taxibus 140. The vehicle used on Tuesday was CX68VAE an 8 seater Peugeot Expert. It displayed a card with the service number and destination in both the front and rear windows. It appeared to be carrying a few passengers. <Rhuallt> - <CX68VAE fos> - <CX68VAE rear>