Dennis Basford's Rails, Roads and Runways: 'Scene’ on the West Coast of Scotland part 1.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

'Scene’ on the West Coast of Scotland part 1.

I recently had a short break staying at the Alexandra Hotel in Oban where most of these images were taken. The tour company was ‘Highland Heritage’ (HH) with whom I have no connection other than as a satisfied customer.

SN05 DWK

A Volvo B12BT with Van Hool Alizee 59 seat bodywork.

One of ‘HH’s fleet of 16 identical vehicles. All carry different names to identify them to passengers because there are times when more than one is at the same place.

‘West Coast Motors’ (WCM) is by far the biggest operator of bus services in this part of Scotland

‘WCM’ was founded in 1923 in Campbeltown where they are still based. Operating across Argyll and Bute and as far away as Glasgow, the company has a fleet of approximately 200 vehicles.

The ‘Flagship’ route is probably the 926 linking Campbeltown with Glasgow which requires over 4 hours to cover the 140 miles.

Oban is linked to Glasgow by the 976. Both of these routes together with the 918 Oban to Fort William service operate as ‘WCM/Scottish Citylink joint services.

Most of the vehicles on these services that I saw were Irizar i6’s.

YT11 LVH and YR61 RWF seen in ‘joint’ livery.

While i6 Y90 WCM appears in fleet livery.

‘WCM’ seem to have a policy of buying new vehicles then keeping them for most if not all of their lives. When trying to trace previous and or subsequent operators, I have been largely unsuccessful in doing so.

The number of ‘WCM’ suffixed registrations in the fleet is noticeable

YJ05 PVK

A DAF SB120 with Wright Cadet bodywork. One of a batch of four buses with consecutive registrations.