By the time I took this photo of Lincolnshire Leyland National 2828 in
Lincoln the Privatised company had become known as Roadcar, maybe it
hoped to expand beyond it's traditional Lincolnshire area but as far
as I know it never really did, eventually getting snapped up by
Yorkshire Traction. But think had it been the other way around YTC
might have become known as 'Traction' or even of course it's nickname
'Tracky'. At least thankfully Lincolnshire never became 'Roady'. lol
I think the RoadCar name had less to do with trying to be trendy (something bus companies are not particularly good at) and more to do with that being what the locals had called the company since long before the National Bus Company (let alone its privatisation) was a twinkle in a politician's eye.
ReplyDeleteThe Manager (later MD) at the time of privatisation, Paul Hill, had a good idea of how to make simple but effective changes which would emphasise the move from national to local control. Unfortunately it was also followed up with some pretty drastic retrenchment which saw RoadCar pull out of most of the south of Lincolnshire.
It always was Lincolnshire Road Car Company of course, but as you say many former bus empires lost their geographic identity through incursion and cut-bcks. It's a pity in the early Seventies politicians didn't decide to make public transport more of a priority. Many of the bus services that were cut back were the same that had replaced the trains. If something isn't done soon even smaller cities like Lincoln will become closer to gridlock with everyone out in their cars.
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