A BIT OF HISTORY - (Thanks go to Barry Sanjana for this info)
W Alexander & Sons (Northern) Ltd was created to take over the Northern area of the Alexander "empire" on 15th May 1961. All vehicles initially carried the same fleet numbers as before the split, but all were allocated an "N" prefix in early 1962, although some older vehicles never carried this. In the vehicle lists, these are shown as "Series 1" fleet numbers.
The company was renamed Northern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd on 1st March 1985. On 17th June 1985 the reorganisation of Scottish Bus Group companies to follow Scottish Region boundaries led to the loss of the operations at Arbroath, Blairgowrie, Dundee, Forfar and Montrose to the newly formed Strathtay Scottish Omnibuses Ltd. The latter company also took over the Perth area operations of Midland Scottish (formerly Alexander (Midland)) on the same date.
On 27th March 1991, Northern Scottish was sold to Stagecoach (Holdings) Ltd, and from then on the "N" prefix to fleetnumbers was dropped. At this time, Stagecoach Scotland had operations in the Perth area (having effectively driven Strathtay Scottish out of Perth), and in Inverness (operating as Inverness Traction), the latter having been acquired by Stagecoach in November 1989. The Inverness Traction operation came under control of Northern from September 1991. However the Perth operation remained with Stagecoach Scotland until October 1994.
From February 1992, Northern's vehicles were renumbered into the same numeric series as those of Stagecoach Scotland (shown as "Series 2"). This was a somewhat confusing system, with many fleetnumbers being reused, and vehicles not always numbered alongside others of the same type. On 3rd March 1992, Northern Scottish was renamed Bluebird Northern Ltd. On 30th October 1992, the name was changed again to the present-day title of Bluebird Buses Ltd.
In October 1994, the Perth area operations were merged into Bluebird Buses, together with depots in Perth (Ruthvenfield Road), Spittalfield and Crieff, and Stagecoach Scotland ceased as an operator.
In April 2000, Stagecoach Group acquired JW Coaches Ltd of Banchory, operating from Dykehead Garage, Blackhill, Banchory. This company continued as a separate operator with its own operating licence, despite being in the middle of Bluebird territory, and this situation persists to this day. Transfers between Bluebird and the relatively small JW Coaches (with around 20 vehicles) are not infrequent.
In common with all other Stagecoach fleets, Bluebird's vehicles were renumbered into the national Stagecoach numbering series in January 2003.
The October 1994 merger of the Perth area operations was reversed on 23rd July 2007, when Perth, Crieff and Spittalfield were once again transferred out, this time to Stagecoach (Scotland) Ltd. (This time with brackets in the company title).
www.northernscottish.com is owned and © by Walter Burt.
www.northernscottish.com is operated by Walter Burt and Barry Sanjana.