Strathtay Scottish
Strathtay Scottish Omnibuses Ltd, in
Scotland, was formed as a bus operating subsidiary of the
Scottish Transport Group in June
1985 from Walter Alexander & Sons (Midland) Ltd and Walter Alexander & Sons (Northern) Ltd. It is a subsidiary of the
Stagecoach Group.
From its head office in
Dundee, Strathtay Scottish has an operating area bounded by
Laurencekirk in the
north,
Newport-on-Tay to the
south and
Perth to the
east.
Strathtay is the largest operator in
Angus and is responsible for urban, rural and interurban services in and around Dundee,
Arbroath,
Blairgowrie,
Forfar and
Montrose. Depots are also located in those towns. On its creation Strathtay was also the largest operator in Perth,
Crieff and
Pitlochry, but depots in those towns have long since closed and operations scaled back, ironically due to intensive Stagecoach competition at the time.
Strathtay also provide coaches for
Scottish Citylink express work, mainly from Perth and Dundee to other points in
Scotland.
Strathtay Scottish was a brand new company created through reorganisation of the Scottish Bus Group in preparation for
deregulation of the bus industry in
1986, and eventual
privatisation. It inherited the eastern operations of Alexanders (Midland) based in Perth, Crieff, Blairgowrie and Pitlochry, as well as the southern operations of Alexanders (Northern) in Dundee, Forfar, Arbroath and Montrose. A bright
blue and
orange livery was adopted for the fleet, which would be controlled from Dundee.
The company would have a turbulent infancy, however, as Strathtay faced very heavy competition from local Perth-based firm,
Stagecoach. Strathtay purchased a number of ex-
London Transport Routemaster buses to counter the competition, which ironically also used a number of the same vehicle type on city services in Perth. A new
Perth City Transport brand was created by Strathtay to compete with Stagecoach, using a mainly red livery with
white. But as Stagecoach grew nationally it became financially stronger and had ready access to vehicles from the larger companies in
England it had purchased. Strathtay could not sustain the level of intense competition that ensued, and in
1993 it closed its Perth depot. Crieff and Pitlochry also closed, and the company withdrew from the majority of services around these towns.
Perhaps because it was pre-occupied with protecting its market share in Perth, Strathtay did not take advantage of deregulation to launch a substantial city network in Dundee to compete against the city operator there.
Despite experiencing heavy and sustained competition on the lucrative city services in Perth, Strathtay managed to remain profitable on the run up to privatisation, and in June
1991 was sold to
Barnsley-based Yorkshire Traction Ltd for
£1.9m. Now trading simply as Strathtay Buses, the new owners established and maintained a working relationship with Stagecoach around Perth, even jointly operating the trunk service between Dundee and Perth with the national operator, while the remainder of the operations remained largely unchanged from privatisation.
On 14 December 2005, Strathtay's parent company Traction Group was purchased by Stagecoach for £26m. Strathtay is bordered to the north, east and south by Stagecoach subsidiaries, all part of
Stagecoach East Scotland, which Strathtay has also joined. The Stagecoach corporate livery has been adopted for vehicles and they display
strathtay - Part of the Stagecoach Group fleetnames.
*
Stagecoach UK Bus website*
Unofficial Strathtay Buses website
