Where independents differ . .
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Martin Watkins examines the coaching operations of Grey-Green, Bee-line and Tricentrol groups
THE PARENT companies of three of the major British coach groups are operating in the diverse fields of express coach services, the travel business and oil exploration. And, not surprisingly, these groups—Grey-Green. Bee-Line, and Tricentrol—not only have different origins but also vary in their operating philosophies.
Grey-Green Coaches started as a cartage business run by George Ewer in the East End of London at the end of the last century and has since expanded into a major coach and transport group. Express services have always been a • strong point with the Ewer Group and it now runs a pooled operation with National Travel on services to many parts of the country.
The operations of Bee-Line Roadways, under the GoldCase Travel group, grew by a different path; recently the company has branched out from Teesside into a more national operation. The GoldCase group has wide interests in the travel field owning five travel agencies and three hotels; its coach fleet is used largely for holiday tours.
A new name in the coach field appeared in 1974 when Tricentrol Coaches were formed as a separate division of Tricentrol Ltd, an exploration and development company, by the gradual take-over of five existing coach companies in central England. Other Tricentrol group interests include cars, trucks, builders' mer chants, garden supplies, engineering and property.
Coach rotation
They operate in very different manners. And even within a company such as BeeLine operations differ greatly in each of its main operating centres. Some 56 coaches, all Fords, •are based at the BeeLine headquarters in Middlesbrough and are used mainly on extended summer tours both of this country and the Continent. So seasonal is the traffic here that only 10 or 12 coaches are needed on winter weekdays with about 20 in use over winter weekends. Managing director Trevor Barker told me that they found it cheaper to keep all 56 coaches taxed and insured for the winter and then to use them in rotation. He found that when coaches were laid up not only did the interiors deteriorate, but mechanical troubles were often caused by the lack of use.
Coach drivers were fairly easy to come by in Middlesbrough and many staff worked only for the summer.
Both of Bee-Line's subsidiary companies, Salopia of Whitchureh and Banfield of London, had different arrangements because of local differences. Salopia Saloon Coaches work mainly locally on stage carriage and school services with hardly any excursion traffic. When Bee-Line acquired Salopia in 1971 it still operated some 60 petrol-engined coaches, which had to be quickly disposed of. Some vehicles were also working on Sunday to Sunday eight-day tours and were standing idle for the rest of the week.
The Salopia company was quickly rationalised and in 1973 Bee-Line bought Banfield and moved into the London market for the first time. The 13anfield fleet was also run down, and replacing this quickly meant retaining the Bee-Line Fords beyond their five-year planned life. The seven-year Certificate of Fitness examination meant that a six-year life was uneconomic, so at present the Bee-Line coaches are retained for seven years. The newer vehicles are used for Continental work and cover about 40,000 miles annually. Most are fitted with Dynair and all with Telma retarders.
Chartroom design
Some novel ideas are employed in the design of the Bee-Line tour chartroom at Middlesbrough. Peg boards on the wall represent all tours being operated, allowing the clerk to see at a glance by the number of pegs in the coach plan whether seats are available for a particular tour.
Mr Barker is always looking for new tour venues and recently introduced cut-price short holidays to the grot own Gretna Hall Hotel. He E introduced a number of cc vans on to this site to ei for people looking for a greE degree of independence their holidays.
This business keeps 95 cent of Bee-Line's 146 coac (including the Salopia Banfield fleet) on the road summer weekends. The GI Case Travel group env' about 600 summer staff, only some 300 in win Salopia drivers are retained the year round, although ti is little work in the win as seasonal staff are so diffi. to recruit in Whitchurch.
Mr Barker sees London being a major growth a and has his sights set further expansion. Gold-C Travel (the Bee-Line pa] coinpany) is always lool for likely businesses to acq. especially those which I extended tour licences. HI sure that there is a large, tapped market for a 1 operator to organise cc holidays out of • Low Apparently, a very low portion of Londoners 1 coach holidays, and he is vinced that with proper r keting this business could greatly built up.
A tenuous link exists betv Bee-Line and Grey-Green, biggest London indepen operator. When the Ban coach fixT11 first came onto market Bee-Line tried to the business for cash, eventually Banfield was boi by CCH investments for 1 and shares. CCH air owned a 30 per cent stak the Ewer Group (Grey-Gr and presumably there some original intention combine Banfield and C Green. This merger did materialise a n d Gold(Bee-Line) was able to acC Banfield in a deal which j CCH a 30 per cent holclin bold-Case as well as the Ewer ;roup.
East London and East Anglia ave always been the stamping round of the George Ewer ;roup (under its fleet name ;rey-Green) ever since George .wer started his carting busiess in the 1880s. In recent rears Grey-Green has consoli.ated its operation on the East inglian and South Coast exTess services from London. It as also moved firmly into the xtended tour field and now rperates to all parts of Britain nd to the Continent.
Rather than diversifying into elds outside transport, Greyereen has in recent years conentrated on acquiring other oach businesses and in coperating with National Travel o extend the express service .etwork. Other transport ctivities include a garage hain and tanker and van hire nd leasing concerns.
In 1953 Grey-Green took ver Orange Luxury Coaches; .1 1971 Birch Bros Coaches; nd in 1974 the majority 70 ,er cent shareholding in World Vide Coaches. These takevers brought 25 Birch vehicles .nd 77 World Wide vehicles to irey-Green, although it was ot to operate all these.
cast Anglian pool
The breakthrough with xpress service operation was o doubt the formation of a pooled operation with the other perators on the East Anglian ervices in 1967 to be folawed by pooling arrangements ,n other services mainly ,perated by the National Bus ornpany and its subsidiaries. At the time of the formation I the East Anglian pool, :astern National ran the serice from Victoria coach tation to Jaywick while Sutons Coaches of Clacton ran rom Kings Cross to Jaywick nd Grey-Green ran from Kings :ross to Walton and Harwich. 'his pooling arrangement was oon extended to the London o Felixstowe and Yarmouth ervices in co-operation with :astern National, Eastern :aunties and Norfolk Motor ervices.
A further rationalisation °elk place last year when all :ast Anglian services, includng internal services, but exluding the London-Norwich xpress service, were pooled nd charted at the Grey-Green headquarters in Stamford Hill.
This breakthrough in cooperation between the private and nationalised sectors of the coach industry not only greatly improved the service available to the public but also achieved much better vehicle utilisation. A Grey-Green coach can now work, for example, a morning express service from Victoria to Yarmouth, then be used on an internal service from Yarmouth to Clacton before returning to London in the afternoon. Drivers, vehicles and all operating facilities are all interavailable between the different pool-operating companies.
Success
Following the success of the East Anglian pool three similar arrangements have been made in which Grey-Green participates; the Kent express services pool in conjunction with National Travel and Universal Cream Coaches; the East Anglia to Scotland pool in conjunction with National Travel and the Scottish Bus Group; the Lancashire and South Coast pool; and the Eastlender pool from East Anglia to Cheltenham via Stevenage, Luton and Oxford.
Henry Ewer and general manager Tom McLachlan told me that they saw excellent prospects for long-term growth in their express service operation. The bread and butter coach services gave a cheap, convenient service to the public that could not be bettered by any other means of transport. With large price increases forecast for both rail travel and car travel the service coach had virtually no opposition for medium-distance travel.
Other guaranteed moneymakers were the 100 different half-day and day tours run and the increasing number of five-day tours, and the "evergreen holidays" where individuals could book a week in a resort including accommodation and out and back transport but without the use of the coach for the holiday periled. This enabled much better vehicle utilisation to be possible.
Grey-Green aims at an even split of coaches into the heavy and lightweight bracket. In recent years it has standardised on Leyland Leopard and Bedford YRT/YRQ chassis to make up its fleet of 175 or so vehicles. The Leopards have a planned life of seven years while the Bedfords are replaced after three or four years in service.
Total Ewer Group staff number about 850.
In contrast to the opinion of Trevor Barker of Bee-Line, Torn McLachlan of GreyGreen reckons the London coach scene is overcrowded, particularly on tourist work. He felt that Grey-Green catered for every need in the service, excursion tour and private-hire fields, but said that the tourist clearing houses took much of the cream off the incoming tourist business. GreyGreen would take an work only at its own price and would not get involved in any cutprice operations.
Like Bee-Line many GreyGreen drivers worked only seasonally, but Grey-Green seemed to be busy through the Winter and employed parttime drivers all the year round.
Only a few Grey-Green vehicles were laid up for the duration of winter.
A third major coach company, which has emerged from a very different background to both Grey-Green and Bee-Line, is the Tricentrol Group.
Tricentrol started in 1917 as a resource exploration company; only comparatively recently has it decided to diversify into coach operation.
The group's travel operations are run by Harold Baggot, who was the owner of Bunty-Costin Coaches at the time of the Tricentrol takeover in 1971. Trincentrol intended to expand its coaching interests and to acquire further companies. Coach firms with large amounts of airport business were bought as this was forecast to be an area of longterm growth; Housden-Cauldwell Coaches at Loughborough were the first as they had a large operation based on the East Midlands airport. Buckmaster Garages at Leighton Buzzard were next on the list and were renamed Milton Keynes Coaches. ValliantSilverline with its large Heathrow Airport operation then North Star Coaches at Stevenage were the final acquisitions, bringing the Tricentrol fleet to more than 100 coaches. Each of the Tricentrol coach companies is run as a separate unit with its own general manager responsible for the profitability of the operation. Unfortunately the decrease in air travel caused a great contraction in airport coaching work and the Silverline operation in Hounslow has now been greatly run down. The insistence on local control for local operations is judged by Tricentrol management to be an essential criterion for success.
Mr Baggot told me that the fleet size for every location must be set according to the work currently available there. Every vehicle is costed separately and he knows how much it earns every month and how much it needs to earn to be a viable commercial proposition. Each of the operating coach companies is the major express service and tour licence holder in its own operating area.
Winter work
All types of other work are undertaken with a wide variety of contracts, school work and private hire throughout the year; 75 per cent of the coaches are operated throughout the year with major overhauls taking care of the spare winter capacity.
Tricentrol runs half Ford and half Bedford coaches.
As the Tricentrol truck group is a. main Ford and Bedford franchise holder maintenance is carried out on these premises when spare capacity is available.
Most of the coaches cover about 60,000 miles per year, with engine replacement usually after two years' work. A four-year planned replacement programme results in about a quarter of the fleet being replaced each year.
Tricentrol is very keen on improving employment conditions for its drivers and has introduced a pension scheme and a free medical scheme for drivers' families.
Expansion plans for the group are largely aimed at increasing its share of the lucrative tour market. Three and four-day tours are currently on offer from the Luton area— one of the most popular is to Amsterdam—and day tours to Calais are run from all the coach operating centres.
Tricentrol uses a new unified livery for all its coaches and the old fleet names are being played down. Bee-Line too uses a unified livery for its coaches, whereas Grey-Green will retain the fleet names and livery of Orange Luxury Coaches and World Wide Coaches. The Birch name is still used for bookings but is being phased out on vehicles which are now appearing in Grey-Green colours.