PHASES OF PASSENGER TRAVEL
Page 66
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Notes on Every Aspect of Coach and Bus Development.
RAPID PROGRESS BY A NORTH-COUNTRY CONCERN.
Northumbrian Seaside Resorts Brought Within Easy Reach of Newcastle's Industrial Areas.
TlIAT prominent north-country road passenger-carrying concern, Wakefield's Motors, Ltd. of North Shields and Newcastle, one of the first companies to become associated with the Loudon and North Eastern Railway Co., in the big joint-working programme which it now has in operation is playing a leading part in coping with the holiday traffic of the people of the north, by means of both its utility services and its series of pleasure tours.
The history of Wakefield's Motors, Ltd., is comparatively short, but is one of rapid progress. The company was formed less than two years ago, for the purpose of developing the regular-ser vice business, and since that time the extensive pleasure-touring side, built up in the past nine or ten years by Mr. Thomas Wakefield, one of the pioneers of motor coaching on Tyneside, has also come within the scope of the concern.
Just now the company has in service 43 vehicles, of which 31 are A.E.C., Reliance, Dennis and Leyland 32-seater buses, and 12 are motor coaches, for the most part provided with all-weather equipment. The coaches, which range from 18-seaters to 32-seaters, are Leylands and Dennis—two makes that have always figured prominently in the well-known " Tynemouth " coach fleet since its earliest days.
At present six regular bus services are worked, with a route mileage of approximately 40. The longest routes are those between Tynemouth and Newcastle, and North Shields and Newcastle, the remaining services being short and providing connecting links between Wallsend, North Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay and Monkseaton. The services provide rapid and regular transport facilities between Newcastle, with its population of over a quarter of a million people, and the chain of
B32 popular seaside resorts lying on the East Northumbrian seaboard, about ten miles distant.
As indicating the ability of the present-day bus to undertake bigger mileages than its predecessor, it is interesting to note that each vehicle that is engaged on service work covers a daily mileage of between 170 and 200, whereas in the north the accepted daily mileage of a service vehicle two or three years ago was not more than 150. The company has extensive garages and depots at North Shields and Newcastle, and, in addition, is completing a large new garage in the North Shields neighbourhood. A short time ago Wakefield's Motors, Ltd., absorbed a smaller undertaking, Messrs. Archer Bros., who worked, in the same area, with a fleet of about ten vehicles.
This year the coaching activities of the company are on even more ambitious lines than in the past, and excellent business is being done. Day and halfday outings to various beauty-spots
within a 60-100-mile radius of Newcastle have proved exceptionally popular, and to date the coaches have averaged daily about 150 miles in this class of service.