Stagecoach Lincolnshire is a bus company, formerly known as Lincolnshire RoadCar, which runs services throughout

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

. Stagecoach in Lincolnshire is the trading name of the Lincolnshire Road Car Company Limited, which is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, and part of its East Midlands division.

History

The Lincolnshire Road Car Company was formed in 1928 after being renamed from the Lincoln-based Silver Queen Motor Omnibus Company, which was first formed in 1922 and initially ran services to

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...

and

Louth Louth may refer to: Australia *Hundred of Louth, a cadastral unit in South Australia * Louth, New South Wales, a town * Louth Bay, a bay in South Australia **Louth Bay, South Australia, a town and locality Canada * Louth, Ontario Ireland * Cou ...

. Lincolnshire Road Car had acquired a number of independent operators before joining the

Tilling Group The Tilling Group was one of two conglomerates that controlled almost all of the major bus operators in the United Kingdom between World Wars I and II and until nationalisation in 1948. Tilling, together with the other conglomerate, British Ele ...

in 1929, then going on to acquire the Lincolnshire operations of

United Automobile Services United Automobile Services was a bus company, which operated local and regional bus services in County Durham, Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear, England. It provided bus services across a wide geographical area, stret ...

in 1931. Under the

Transport Act 1968 The Transport Act 1968 (1968 c.73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The main provisions made changes to the structure of nationally owned bus companies, created passenger transport authorities and executives to take over pub ...

Lincolnshire Road Car, by then a part of the state-owned

Transport Holding Company The Transport Holding Company (THC) was a British Government-owned company created by the Transport Act 1962 to administer a range of state-owned transport, travel and engineering companies that were previously managed by the British Transport C ...

, became part of the National Bus Company. The company ran services from throughout the county of Lincolnshire including some services over the county boundaries to such towns as

Newark-on-Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road bypasses th ...

. Many rural services ran from Lincoln St. Marks Bus Station to the outlying villages surrounding the city. Although these services ran within the city boundary, passengers were not allowed to use them for internal journeys within the city. Bus services within the city of Lincoln were provided by Lincoln City (Corporation) Transport. Lincolnshire Road Car not only provided long-distance services within the county but also town services within many towns in the county, such as

and

Sleaford Sleaford is a market town and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. Centred on the former parish of New Sleaford, the modern boundaries and urban area include Quarrington to the south-west, Holdingham to the nor ...

. When the

Transport Act 1985 The Transport Act 1985 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It introduced privatised and deregulated bus services throughout Great Britain and came into effect in October of 1986. The Act was created as a response to growing concern ...

deregulated bus services, the National Bus Company was broken up and Lincolnshire Road Car was acquired by the

Yorkshire Traction Yorkshire Traction was a bus operator in Yorkshire that operated from 1902 until 2005. History In March 1902 the Barnsley & District Electric Traction Company Limited was formed. It operated trams around the Barnsley area until around 1930 ...

Group in 1988. Prior to this, the company began painting their fleet green and yellow and used fleetnames simply reading 'RoadCar'. Upon deregulation passengers were also permitted to use RoadCar services for journeys wholly within the city of Lincoln and RoadCar and city buses started competing on many routes in Lincoln and around the surrounding villages, the city buses leaving the confines of the city for rural routes for the first time. Lincolnshire RoadCar took over Lincoln City Transport in 1993 after the company incurred losses from competing with RoadCar and had a management buyout offer rejected. In 1988, Lincolnshire RoadCar acquired the business of

independent company W. Gash & Sons. Initially, the company was operated as a separate entity from RoadCar, but in 1989, both companies merged after inspections found the Gash fleet to be mechanically deficient, which saw the

traffic commissioner The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain are responsible for the licensing and regulation of the operators of heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, and the registration of local bus services in Great Britain. History The Road Traffic A ...

strip Gash of its operating license. Stagecoach bus 47399 Optare Solo YM55 SVL in Lincoln 11 July 2008

RoadCar became a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group in December 2005, when that company purchased RoadCar's parent company, Traction Group. The company now trades as Stagecoach in Lincolnshire. From March 2006, Stagecoach purchased new buses for the company, among them four Alexander Dennis Darts and five MAN 18.220/Alexander Dennis ALX300s for the Gainsborough area, in a bid to improve services, gradually phasing out the oldest of RoadCar's buses. The new vehicles temporarily featured RoadCar logos in the front and side windows, and buses from other Stagecoach areas were seen in the area during the transition. The existing fleet then had their RoadCar logos removed. At the beginning of August 2006, Stagecoach caused considerable controversy with their decision to make major changes to the bus network in Lincoln. Some services were withdrawn without replacement while others benefited from frequency increases. Following a local media campaign, the company agreed to make some changes to return services to those areas which had lost them. At the same time, the company also lost a majority of its service work in Nottinghamshire to

Veolia Transport Veolia Transport (formerly Connex and CGEA Transport) was the international transport services division of the French-based multinational company Veolia until the 2011 merger that gave rise to Veolia Transdev. Veolia Transport traded under the ...

's subsidiary

Dunn-Line Dunn-Line was a bus operator based in Nottingham, England, with services throughout Nottinghamshire operated from depots in Nottingham and Tuxford. The company also had a presence in the Lincoln area, largely through County Council contracted ope ...

and local company KJB. In Autumn 2007 Stagecoach announced the withdrawal of some services in Louth, Lincoln and Gainsborough. The threatened services survived after successful negotiations with the district councils over subsidies. In August 2008, the company's depot in Louth was closed, with some routes being taken over by Skegness and Grimsby depots and a number of contracted routes surrendered. The company opened their brand new depot in Skegness in September 2009. It is located on Burgh Road and cost £2.2 million.

Depots

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

(Lusher Way, Corringham Road Industrial Estate) *

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

(Great Northern Terrace) * Newark (Now regarded as outstation of Lincoln) *

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town and unparished area in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, England of which it is the main administrative centre. Scunthorpe had an estimated total population of 82,334 in 2016. A ...

(High Street East) *

Skegness Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 19,579 as of 2011, ...

(Skegness Road, Burgh Le Marsh - previously at Grosvenor Road)

Services

InterConnect

Stagecoach in Lincolnshire are the main operator of the 'InterConnect' service, a network of rural and interurban bus services around the county. Bus services operate to urban destinations such as

and

via the rural communities in between. Buses are painted in a purple livery based on the previous Stagecoach livery. The service is also jointly operated by Brylaine Travel.

Simplibus networks

In Lincoln, Stagecoach first introduced the Simplibus network in February 2017, the third such network to be launched in Stagecoach East Midlands. A £3 million investment into the city's bus services saw ten new single-deck buses enter service on a numerically renumbered route network. This development coincided with the opening of Lincoln's new bus station in January. In Scunthorpe, Stagecoach entered a partnership with local independent bus company Hornsbys and

North Lincolnshire Council North Lincolnshire Council is the local authority of North Lincolnshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It is one of fifty five unitary authorities. It provides a full rang ...

as part of a Quality Bus Partnership in October 2018. This saw the creation of 'Simplibus North Lincolnshire', which launched a joint remuneration of Stagecoach and Hornsbys bus services around Scunthorpe and

Brigg Brigg ( /'brɪg/) is a market town in North Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 5,076 in the 2001 UK census, the population increased to 5,626 at the 2011 census. The town lies at the junction of the River Ancholme and east–west tra ...

and surrounding areas into numerical order, a circular route created in Scunthorpe, and buses branded with Simplibus logos across both fleets. The launch of the new Stagecoach Group liveries in 2020 has seen the Simplibus branding in both towns being slowly phased out.

Humber FastCat

The Humber FastCat is a half-hourly cross-river bus service over the

River Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between t ...

that connects Scunthorpe and

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-ea ...

via the Humber Bridge. Numbered the 350, the service was first operated by Lincolnshire RoadCar as a National Bus Company subsidiary in 1981 following the opening of the Humber Bridge. The 350 was relaunched as the 'Humber FastCat' by Stagecoach in Lincolnshire in 2009, receiving an investment of six branded single deckers, each of which carried a name on a special orange livery. The service was also launched as a joint operation with East Yorkshire, who operate a single bus independent of the Stagecoach fleet. The FastCat livery would later be refreshed in 2014, in conjunction with the introduction of the sister 'Humber Flyer' service at Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes. Stagecoach later invested in a £1 million fleet of six new

Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC The Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC (sold as the Alexander Dennis Enviro200) is a single-decker city bus produced by Alexander Dennis since 2014, as the successor to the Enviro200 midibus and Enviro300 full-size bus. The first Enviro200 MMC ...

s for the service in 2017, featuring USB charging and leather seating.

Seasider open top buses

Stagecoach operates a number of

open top bus An open top bus is a bus, usually but not exclusively a double-decker bus, which has been built or modified to operate without a roof. Early buses were constructed without roofs but in more recent times they have only been built for tourist and ...

es on the

seafront. Originally branded as the 'Coastal Cruiser', this service was relaunched in April 2014 as the 'Skegness Seasider'. Six buses were refurbished in colourful liveries and given names for the service, while three more buses named Teddy, Sunny and Sweetie were added to the fleet in 2018. Two open top buses also operate on the Cleethorpes seafront.

Accidents and Incidents

On 11 April 2004, a Volvo B7TL double-decker bus with

East Lancs Vyking The East Lancs Vyking is a type of double-decker bus body built by East Lancashire Coachbuilders. It is the double-deck version of the Spryte. It continued the long line of 'misspelt' names which continued until the Scania OmniDekka. It was ...

bodywork operated by Lincolnshire RoadCar collided with a number of pedestrians outside the main entrance to

Fantasy Island ''Fantasy Island'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by Gene Levitt. It aired on ABC from 1977 to 1984. The series starred Ricardo Montalbán as the mysterious Mr. Roarke and Hervé Villechaize as his assistant, Tattoo. ...

amusement park on Sea Lane in

Ingoldmells Ingoldmells ( ) is a coastal village, civil parish and resort in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A52, and north from the resort town of Skegness. Most housing is found in the west of the village in l ...

. Five pedestrians were killed and six more injured, two critically, in the accident. Following the accident, RoadCar were found guilty of breaching safety provisions for allowing the driver to operate the vehicle type without proper training and for operating a vehicle with faulty brakes; as a result, they were fined £2,000 at Skegness Magistrates Court on 8 August 2005. The bus driver was found guilty of five counts of

causing death by dangerous driving Causing death by dangerous driving is a statutory offence in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is an aggravated form of dangerous driving. It is currently created by section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (as substituted by the ...

and a single count of

driving without due care and attention Driving without due care and attention or careless driving is a legal term for a particular type of moving traffic violation in the United States, Canada (at least in Ontario), the United Kingdom, and Ireland. It is often punishable by fines or endo ...

, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on 9 November 2005.

References

External links

Lincolnshire section of Stagecoach websiteLincs InterConnect website
{{Bus companies in the East Midlands Stagecoach Group bus operators in England Bus operators in Lincolnshire Companies based in Lincoln, England