Shipyard launches bus service
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• Plagued by absenteeism and late arrivals, a shipyard is laying on special coaches to make sure its workers clock in on time. The company, Lithgows Ltd., claims that the local bus service is "deplorable". It has already won approval for its own bus service in Port Glasgow, which will start on August 25.
Moves to improve the situation are being made by the town council and applications to augment local services are being considered.
According to Mr. R. Claude Abrahams, personnel officer of Lithgows, this step has been taken after difficulties with Western SMT. "They have their staffing problems, but so have we. Arrangements have now been made which will ensure that at least 104 of our workers get to work on time and arrive home at a respectable hour. These may well be extended eventually to cope with many more", he said.
Town clerk Mr. James Wooler is reported to have stated that after numerous complaints from workers and housewives the council decided to seek applications from private firms in the hope of getting a dependable bus service in the upper part of the town. -The Western SMT timetables are satisfactory'', he said, "but unfortunately the buses seldom turn up.
Mr. Martin Home, traffic superintendent at the Inchgreen depot, Greenock, has said, on behalf of the company: "We are short of 63 drivers and 50 conductresses. Services have been bad recently, mainly because of the holiday period." But he claimed that the company was "catching up."