EXPAIG1014 ALL THE WAY FOR DORSET INDEPENDENT
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Victory Tours is to shed rural stage routes as schools traffic builds up. By Derek Moses
ONE operator with no delusions about the future of the rural stage bus is the Dorset independent Adams Bros (Handley) Ltd, based on the picturesque village of Sixpenny Handley, in the heart of Cranborne Chase.
Mr N. J. Adams, one of the company's directors, firmly believes that the problem will resolve itself within the next 10 years. By that time, he claims, there will be no rural bus services.
Mr Adams' theory is based on a combination of logic and good business sense. While, by the end of this decade, many old people living in country areas will have died, succeeding generations will include far more car drivers. So, eventually, the demand for stage bus services will have simply disappeared.
This does not mean that the family firm of Adams Bros (fleet name Victory Tours), which celebrates its golden jubilee this year, is declining. On the contrary, it is an expanding business, and the apparent anomaly is not brought about by expanding private hire and touring work alone.
However, school children do not meet any of these categories, and the school-journey trade is flourishing. The population explosion, a headache to town planners, is also a feature of many rural areas. A combination of this, the tendency for education authorities to concentrate on fewer, though larger schools, and, to some measure, the reduced level of rural stage services, all leads to a growing demand for school transport.
Victory Tours at present have contracts with Dorset County Council calling for nine coaches and one minibus engaged on schools services, three coaches for Hampshire, and one for Wiltshire. It also has a contract with Dorset for carrying school meals.
Declining stage services
Before examining these operations in greater detail, a brief description of the stage services now running at 42,000 miles a year, once the bread and butter side of Victory Tours operations, underlines the decline that has taken place. The company's first stage service was started in 1921, when Mr A. Adams and his eldest son, Mr C. A. Adams, set up in Sixpenny Handley, a general carrier's business.
Today, the company operates a daily works service from Tollard Royal to Salisbury, two services to Blandford Forum and a morning service to Shaftesbury on Thursdays only (market day in the respective towns), and a Friday service to Bournemouth. The Thursday morning service to Shaftesbury gives shoppers 2-1hours at the market. Average takings on all stage ser vices are 5p (1s) a mile—well below the economic limit.
Approaches have been made to Dorset CC regarding subsidies for these services, but the council's attitude is "very negative", Mr Adams told me. The public, as is so often the case, do not help the psv operations either. Very often 15 to 20 potential passengers use their own cars, or give lifts to other people, leaving only about 12 people who actually use the bus. This might suggest extending the use of minibuses—the present fleet of 17 vehicles includes one minibus—but the growth in schools traffic calls for larger, rather thazsmaller, psv.
Even if the county councils were willing to grant-aid services, they would still not be a viable proposition for the company, Mr Adams claimed. And he made it clear that he was not interested in running any stage services pushed-off by the National Bus Company.
Another argument against minibus operation is Victory Tours' rejection of the suggestion in the Transport Act 1968 that members of the general public could be carried on school buses when seats were available. All the school buses are already full!
Expanding fleet
To meet the increased work for local education authorities, Victory Tours have had to add a bus or coach to their fleet with each new contract secured. Each school day six of the larger coaches leave the Handley/ Tollard Royal area, together with the minibus, en route for Cranborne comprehensive school, the largest school served by the company. Two vehicles operate to Blandford Forum comprehensive school, one each to Shaftesbury, Wilton and Fordingbridge, and two to Tisbury secondary modern school. Most of the school buses serve local village schools on the way to the larger units.
The maximum possible utilization of rolling stock is made to keep the coaches employed, and some of the many private hire contracts can be slotted between morning and evening school runs. Victory Tours also operate a wide range of excursions and tours based on Handley, and also on Shaftesbury, where the company has a travel office. Work handled includes extended tours of England and Wales, private hire Continental tours, old people's tours lasting eight days, and tours arranged by the schools themselves.
Some of the latter operations can be worked in with the normal school journeys. Although Sherborne is beyond the normal picking-up area of the company, Victory Tours now run a two-week educational tour each year from there. Another source of private hire work is the Army, and the high standard of Adams Bros operations results in inquiries coming in from an increasingly wider area.
A notable recent addition to the itinerary is work for a language school in Bournemouth. Pupils fly in to Heathrow or Gatwick and are met by the company's coaches which transport them to Bournemouth. Earlier this month they handled a party of 300 Japanese students.
Part-time drivers I never cease to be amazed at the way everyone seems to chip in and help with the running of some of the independent bus and coach businesses, and that of Adams Bros is a good example. Even the milkman drives a school bus on a part-time basis. He collects his bus from the company's garage on a Monday morning, and after the school run he parks it alongside his house on a special hard-standing area. He then does the evening run, and keeps the bus overnight, repeating this procedure until Friday evening when, after the school journey, he delivers the bus back to base for routine inspection and servicing.
Indeed, the whole schools operation depends largely on part-time drivers. Some of them are men who have retired from fulltime work, others work A morning or afternoon shift at a nearby factory, and fit in driving with this work, and the landlord of the local public house is also on the driving roll!
In addition there are two coach fitters, a storeman, and one other mechanic who also drive, and both Mr Adams and his uncle, Mr C. A. Adams, MBE, who is managing director, do their driving stints. In order not to contravene the drivers' hours regulations, special forms dividing each day into 15minute intervals are provided so that an accurate check of the total hours worked can be maintained. This also applies to the eight drivers employed on a permanent basis. Several drivers in addition to the milkman are allowed to park their vehicles "at home" —this practice may change, at least for overnight parking, however, when a new garage is built to replace several smaller garages.
The Victory Tours buses and coaches are painted in an extremely smart livery of pale blue and white, and are well maintained. While always on thelook out forgood secondhand coaches, it is the company's policy to buy a new coach from time to time to "keep up morale". Coaches bought new range from a 29-seat Bedford OB with Duple Vista body acquired in 1950, to a Bedford VAL with Plaxton Elite 53-seat body introduced last year.
Most of the vehicles are Bedfords, including seven SBs (three bought new), three VALs, including the vehicle mentioned above, one VAM, one VAS 29-seater and the OB. To augment the schools services, three Bristols were acquired from Southern Vectis —low-mileage vehicles from Isle of Wight service. One of these is a lowb ridge doubledecker, which carried a capacity load away from Cranborne school on the day of my visit. An earlier double-decker was repainted in the pale blue and white livery "just for fun", but the present Bristol double-decker retains its green and cream livery. The singledeck Bristols have been repainted, however.
The company does all its own vehicle maintenance, apart from major coachwork repairs. Local men do the painting, while signwriting is done by an expert from Salisbury, and a local upholsterer undertakes any necessary repairs to seats, etc.
At the time of my visit, Adams Bros, negotiating new contracts with Dorset CC, had elevated the price to a reasonable level and the council was none to o happy. However, Mr Adams insisted that he should get the right price for the job. Meanwhile, the council had bought a 1966 coach to operate its own school services. Working only 198 days a year it was unlikely to be a viable exercise, thought Mr Adams.
The esteem felt for the company is clear from the fact that it does a lot of work for other operators, including NBC undertakings. In summer, Victory Tours coaches are to be found regularly on Royal Blue coach services. I feel sure that the company can look forward to a golden future.