Saturday 14th November 2026
Having completed all 22 routes numbered 99 in England, and the one such numbered route in Wales, it’s now time to bring this series towards its conclusion with the first of the two route 99s to be found in Scotland.
Until recently both routes were operated by Stagecoach but as we’ll see in the final instalment next month, that all changed in October, but for now Stagecoach definitely still operates route 99 between Dundee and St Andrews and indeed at the end of September introduced a fleet of 16 Volvo BZL MCV battery electric buses to the route as captured in the above photograph by Steve Sellars (thanks, Steve).
Like last time, it’s another journey I made earlier this year when the days were long, sunny and warm which explains why the rest of the photographs in this blog are of the former diesel powered buses to be found during my visit.
Stagecoach East Scotland operates the long established route 99 between Dundee and St Andrews. It’s a well used, busy service providing a frequent connection between the two locations with the majority of passengers travelling from one end of the route to the other.
St Andrews is a sizeable town in Fife without a rail station but route 99 passengers enjoy a link not only to the station in Leuchars, which is on the route, but buses also a serve bus stop right outside Dundee station itself. For those heading down to Edinburgh there’s also the option of Stagecoach’s route X58 from St Andrews to Leven where the restored Levenmouth line heads to the capital city, albeit the connections between bus and rail are not particularly convenient.
Back to the 99 and peak hour buses run as frequently as every seven minutes on Mondays to Fridays with some intervals between buses as small as five minutes in the afternoon peak period. Daytime buses run every nine minutes but the service is sold as a ‘turn-up-and-go’ affair with an “at least every 10 minutes” message on the online timetable and buses displaying “every 7/8 minutes”.
Students at St Andrews University are a key part of the market for the route with evening departures from Dundee as late as 01:15 and through until 03:20 on Saturday and Sunday early mornings. Even on a Sunday evening there’s a last departure from Dundee at 23:48. A couple of late night journeys extend on to the University site during term times.
My journey began at the bus stop immediately outside Dundee railway station where buses arrive from St Andrews and commence a circuit of Dundee city centre including the bus stop in the commercial centre in Crichton Street followed by a quick call into the city’s bus station…
… and then back towards St Andrews crossing over the huge expanse of water that is the River Tay.
I caught a departure from outside the station schedule for 16:28 on a Monday afternoon and boarded with one other passenger as the bus arrived six minutes late with six passengers alighting and 10 still on the bus. Impressively, a real time departure board by the station exit informed me of this and other bus departures…
… while at the bus stop itself there was a map showing city bus routes as well as the 99 to St Andrews.
All the passengers on board prior to the station alighted at the next two city centre bus stops where we picked six more passengers up before reaching the bus station where three boarded making for 10 on board as well as a Stagecoach driver heading back to St Andrews where the company has a bus garage as part of the town’s small bus station.
Once over the River Tay…
… it was a fast ride over to St Andrews with the first part of the journey on a dual carriageway…
… before calling in at Lechars railway station but there were no passengers to pick up from what be one of Britain’s longest bus shelters.
You get a sense of the high frequency of the service as heading towards St Andrews we kept passing Dundee bound buses all with impressive numbers of passengers on board.
Arriving into St Andrews at 17:14, just one minute late, the driver set down the ten of us opposite the bus station then pulled into the first bay ready for a return to Dundee at 1721 having changed over drivers.
I got the impression this is a very fast paced service, with some bunching of buses at peak times but one that is well used.
Indeed my return journey to Dundee carried 27 passengers from St Andrews with six alighting on the journey and one boarding and the rest Dundee bound indicating to me that St Andrews is the big attractor for the service for commuters from Dundee but the student market is St Andrews based heading into Dundee for recreation making for some good two-way flows of passengers.
As you can see from the earlier photograph the route used to be branded as ‘taylink 99’ but with the introduction of the new battery-electric Volvos the route’s livery has been downgraded to the uninspiring steel blue corporate colours Stagecoach now proudly displays along with the inappropriate “we got you” slogan. Sadly the ‘taylink 99’ brand is yet another one for the history books. A shame.
Roger French
Did you catch the previous 23 blogs in this series? 1 Eastbourne-Hastings, 2 Petworth-Chichester, 3 Woolwich-Bexleyheath, 4 Tilbury Town-Tilbury Ferry Terminal, 5 Chippenham-Swindon, 6 Ubley-Chew Valley, 7 Exmouth-Brixington-Exmouth, 8 Taunton-Chard, 9 Pontypridd town circular, 10 Cheltenham-Gloucester, 11 Leigh-on-Sea-Shoeburyness East Beach, 12 Malton-Chelmsford, 13 Lowestoft-Southwold-Halesworth, 14 Solihull-Kingshurst, 15 Telford-Shawbirch circular, 16 Newcastle-under-Lyme-Chell Heath, 17 Doncaster-Retford, 18 Barnsley-Denby Dale, 19 Manchester-Prestwich, 20 Whiston-Prescot, 21 Scarborough Beachcomber, 22 Spennymoor-Shildon, 23 Grangetown-Hylton Castle.
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