National Express UK Expansion:

[knutstransport]

RE: National Express UK Expansion:

(22/09/2021 00:00)Mrboo Wrote:  When I worked for Megabus back in 2014
Hyde Road had 1 coach over night that would do first Trip to Newcastle and did the last return. They would also supply all drivers on Newcastle to Birmingham route. with Rugby doing Birmingham to Leeds runs and hyde road did do some Manchester to watford gap when Preston drivers did not take over from Scottish drivers. But that not the case anymore as MP Travel now run Manchester office for Stagecoach and also do London trips with far less drivers now from Hyde Road.

Both NX and Megabus now use 3rd party's to run their services with NX now taking more inhouse.

What's also changed since 2014 is we had a COVID related shutdown of the networks and the new networks emerging are different to the old ones. For example, if you wanted to travel between Manchester and Bristol you had a choice of Megabus or NX direct services, now Megabus offer the only direct services with NX requiring a change at Birmingham.

The Megabus booking site does indicate where a 3rd party runs a service. You know if you're going to get a service run by MP Travel, as it's advertised as being operated by MP Travel. This is similar to when Megabus services stopped serving Blackpool and Megabus tickets started to be sold for travel on the X61 instead, with it being advertised as being operated by Stagecoach in Lancashire.

On the other hand I once caught a NX from Liverpool to Manchester and it was operated with a plain white coach, with the only branding on it being the legal lettering for Hayton's near the door. Certainly nothing on the ticket to indicate someone else operated the service on behalf of NX. I also once travelled from Dublin to Leeds on the overnight Eurolines service, using a National Express ticket. That was operated by Bus Eireann.

I've also noticed with NX on occasions the coach company running the service is based at one end of a long route and the coach turns up with 2 drivers on board, rather than the relief driver joining at a point in the middle of the journey.

Quote:the interdecks was got due to a Brian Souter owning share in Plaxton and was cheaper then the Van Hool they used before and the Van Hool had issues with them having to have smaller fuel tanks fitted in end as 90 seats on them with 20kg bag limit pushed them over there limit so for short time they had to undersell the coaches until they got the smaller tanks fitted . the interdecks had I think it was 75 seats and the Plaxton B12a they replaced was 65 seats they also had a few B9s 49 seats for euro routes but did not stay long on megabus

I'm not an expert on coach models but there are still some proper double decker coaches running Megabus services, in addition to the interdecks which seem to be the norm for Megabus.