Every route 100. 21 of 26.

Sunday 13th October 2024

There are two bus routes numbered 100 in Greater Glasgow. I’ve already featured Glasgow Community Transport’s service to the Riverside Transport Museum in this series, so here’s the other route operated by Avondale Coaches over in Clydebank.

It’s a route in two halves with two buses shuttling between Clydebank town centre and two nearby residential areas – Parkhall to the west and Linnvale to the east of the town centre as you can see on the map below.

The simple timetable provides for a 20 minute frequency between 08:00 and 18:00 with both Parkhall and Linnvale served by a one-way loop arrangement. It’s a Mondays to Saturdays only service.

Linnvale is just five minutes from the large shopping centre that dominates the town centre of Clydebank making for a 10 minute clockwise loop which also passes Drumry railway station…

… while Parkhall takes 29 minutes running time out and back and involves a larger anti-clockwise figure of eight loop as well as operating via Singer railway station in both directions.

A round circuit taking in both Linnvale and Parkhall is achieved in 40 minutes which is why it takes two buses to provide the 20 minute frequency.

The day I travelled on the route, much earlier this year, it was being operated by two of Avondale Coaches’ Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Darts dating from 2004 and 2006. The company also has eight ADL Enviro 200s.

It would be fair to say these workhorse Darts have seen better days and the interiors sported a mixture of moquettes giving away previous owners (Metrobus and Southern Vectis).

The buses are from an era when it was fashionable to include a strip of moquette on the ceiling; for some reason.

My late Tuesday morning sample journey around the route headed towards Linnvale first where we took eight passengers home from the station and shopping centre bus stops and brought a similar number back in. Everyone alighted at either of those two stops and a fresh contingent of six passengers boarded to head home in Parkhall. Coming back into the town centre again saw another four passengers.

Buses keep on the go the whole time they’re out on the road and I got the impression the 20 minute frequency serves the market well and the route is well supported.

It’s very much a local bus service serving a local market to and from the town centre.

SPT displays departure times at bus stops including a comprehensive display at the bus stops…

… conveniently sited alongside Clydebank railway station.

Roger French

Did you catch the other twenty ‘Every route 100’ blogs so far? Here’s 1 of 26 (Stevenage-Hitchin) 2 of 26 (Crawley-Redhill), 3 of 26 (Lincoln-Scunthorpe), 4 of 26 (Glasgow-Riverside Museum), 5 of 26 (Campbeltown local), 6 of 26 (Guildford’s Onslow Park & Ride), 7 of 26 (Warrington-Manchester), 8 of 26 Chatham-St Mary’s Island, 9 of 26 St Paul’s-Wapping, 10 of 26 Syston-Melton Mowbray, 11 of 26 Wellington-Telford Sutton Hill, 12 of 26 Hanley-Stone, 13 of 26 Burgess Hill-Horsham, 14 of 26 Aylesbury-Milton Keynes, 15 Pontypridd-Royal Glamorgan Hospital, 16 Barry circular, 17 Farringdon Park-Larches (Preston), 18 Hastings Conquest Hospital-New Romney, 19 Morecambe-Lancaster University, 20 Wakefield-Eastmoor.

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19 thoughts on “Every route 100. 21 of 26.”

  1. This weekend’s blogs show how much bus provision much is at the mercy of geography.

    Looking at the map of Cyldebank neither end of this route seems suitable for a through route, which leaves all the local traffic for a reasonably high frequency town service. Both ends are also just about short enough for a loop, although I wonder how many people in Radnor Park walk to the main road on the way into town rather than sit on the bus the whole way round.

    In contrast, East Moor yesterday doesn’t work with a loop and a whole bunch of local traffic is presumably creamed off by the Arriva 102/103 running through the area. That leaves the choice of having no provision for people living away from the main route and/or travelling to the local shops or the very fiddly service the local authority tenders and hardly anyone uses.

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      1. The main road (Kilbowie Road) is serviced by the high frequency First 2 and 81, along with Avondale’s 300.

        Following the same route in and out is impractical, as the required right hand turn on to Kilbowie Road is almost impossible. It is a crossroads half way up a steep hill, the northbound direction is from an awkward angle with very poor visibility.

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  2. There appears to be a change to driving laws that could affect community bus services, Drivers over 70 will not be entitled to drive class C1 and D1 vehicles

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  3. I must have travelled on HW54BTZ many times during its earlier life on the Isle of Wight. Especially for the incredibly tight squeeze off Cowes High Street to the Red Jet terminal.

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  4. Avondale Coaches are an interesting little company and the 100 began over ten years ago (Feb 2014) with just one bus working the Parkhall loop. At the time they had nineteen (fifteen on Saturdays) other buses employed on similar services 200, 300 and 400, although this has whittled down to twelve as a result of frequency reductions for all the usual reasons. Currently fourteen with the 100.

    By the standards of many small companies in Strathclyde during the last decade they were quite large and all services have remained remarkably stable with virtually no route alterations whatsoever. Just concentrating on their core network without endless tinkering so beloved of many. Many firms have sold out in recent years and I am surprised the McGills cheque book has not been waived under their noses. Or perhaps it has, but with just not enough zeros?

    Terence Uden

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    1. Interesting operation, they pack up between half five and six, despite the fact that areas which can support 4 to 5 buses an hour in the daytime would normally get an evening service. It’s evidently a long term thing not just a result of tendering as they even mention it on their recruitment page.

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      1. It rather looks as though their routes are all commercially operated . . . there is no mention of them on the SPT supported services page. I suspect that, in the areas they serve (being mainly infill routes), there is limited demand for early and late journeys.

        As mentioned, it also means that drivers work 0730-1830 on Mondays to Saturdays, which will aid driver retention. It is also likely that, even extending the timings one hour later into the evening, would cost extra driver duties . . . the additional cost would be unlikely to be covered by more revenue.

        All in all . . . a nice little network, serving its passengers well, not costing the public purse anything . . . just what deregulation was designed for !! Will SPT’s desire for franchisation make any changes? Probably not . . . in which case leave well alone.

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        1. A bit of digging around using Google suggests there is an evening service of sorts, and a Sunday service too. But not numbered 100 and not operated by Avondale. It is left to SPT to pick up the pieces.

          The list of SPT-supported routes includes routes 81/81B operated by McGills, providing an evening and Sunday service to Linnvale. The 81B provides a Sunday service to part of the Parkhall loop, but no weekday evening service there.

          So although Avondale might not operate any supported services themselves, public funds are nevertheless required to provide a bus service at times that Avondale choose not to operate.

          Malc M

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          1. The supported services around Clydebank don’t really align with daytime provision. The 81/A was originally just the supported element of First’s 81 service. It no longer goes to Linnvale at all but the number is still used. The SPT supported 184 has also been tweaked over the years as other services in the area have been amended/withdrawn, notably after Glasgow Citybus withdrew the small network they took over from John Morrow. Apart from the 100 Avondale’s network mainly overlaps other First services which operate for a greater part of the day. The 200 the M60, 300 the 81 and the 400 which is a combination of the 1C and 2.

            Andrew

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  5. Being my closest route 100 I have awaited this post with some interest. Having observed their operations over a number of years they survive by providing their services at the absolute minimum cost to themselves, helped by the West of Scotland attitude of supporting the ‘plucky little guy’ against the big bad Corporation/First Bus. The fleet is ‘updated’ reguarly and presentation often indifferent (note the spelling of Linnvale on one of the buses in the banner image at the top of the article) and would explain their many appearances at PI. There have been at least 8 in the last 20 years with the most recent being in February and on more than one occassion they have had to pay a penalty back to the public purse.

    The problem is that whilst they continue to run there isn’t enough custom for someone else to step in where they aren’t running in direct competition to First.

    As an aside they are one of the last operators in this part of the world too still fuel their buses at a filling station at the end of the day, 5 or 6 small E200s on a forecourt at the same time is a bit of a squeeze.

    Andrew

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    1. | note the spelling of Linnvale on one of the buses in the banner image

      Stagecoach buses in Sunderland used to serve somewhere called Hosptial according to their displays. Lasted quite a while before being corrected.

      A.N.M.

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  6. how do drivers take a break, is there one or two spare drivers a day that cover the half hour or so breaks on each of the routes ?

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    1. They have a couple of drivers that work between 10am & 3pm that will cover driver breaks for all routes in the network. All drivers get a 1 hour break with some taking the full hour and some taking it in 20/30 minute spells.

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  7. Are those destination displays legally-compliant?

    I could be mistaken, but I thought that destinations had to be shown in upper/lower case for legibility, rather than block capitals, to meet disability legislation.

    Assuming the legislation applies in Scotland as well as England and Wales, of course!

    Malc M

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