Stagecoach North East
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Stagecoach North East is a major operator of bus services in North East England. It is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group. The company is made up of two formally municipal operations; Busways and Transit.
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[edit] Busways Travel Services Ltd.
Stagecoach acquired Busways in July 1994. This takeover had to be accepted by around 1700 employee shareholders. Busways began trading in 1986 under the ownership of the Tyne and Wear PTA to take over the Tyne and Wear PTE’s bus operations. Between 1989 and 1994 Busways was an Employee Share Ownership Plan company, with the management owning 51% of shares and employees owning 49%.
Busways is a major operator of local services in Newcastle, South Shields and Sunderland. These are the three locations of the municipal operations that formed the Tyne and Wear PTE.
Busways operates three divisions:
[edit] Stagecoach in Newcastle
Operates from two depots in the city; Slatyford and Walkergate. Newcastle provides local services around the city. Newcastle also operates the 100 MetroCentre shuttle, running from Blackett Street via Central Station to the Metrocentre. The service is operated with five Alexander Dennis Enviro 300s. Night services N1, N11, N58 and N80 operate on Friday and Saturday Nights into the early hours with a flat fare of two pounds. Also operated by Newcastle is the government funded Q1 and Q2 'QuayLink' electric bus services linking Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides. This service uses ten specially imported Designline Olymbuses from New Zealand. Newcastle also have 23 Alexander Dennis Enviro 400s.
[edit] Stagecoach in South Shields
South Shields is the largest operator of local services in South Shields. The depot is in the Chichester area of the town, known locally as Chi. All services pass through South Shields Market (except the X34). As well as an extensive network of local services South Shields is also the only depot to connect to the other two Busways divisions. E1, E2 and E6 services operate from South Shields Market to Sunderland Park Lane Interchange via Whitburn. The E in the service number stands for Economic, the company that was taken over in 1975 by TWPTE. Economic ran services from South Shields to Sunderland. The X34 ‘city connect’ service operates from Horsley Hill to Newcastle and Gateshead via Boldon Colliery, the only service not to pass the Market.
[edit] Stagecoach in Sunderland
Sunderland operates a large network of local services in the city. The depot is in Wheatsheaf, which is also the head office of Stagecoach North East. Sunderland’s operations are confined to the city’s boundaries.
[edit] Cleveland Transit Ltd.
Stagecoach acquired Cleveland Transit in September 1994. The group also acquired Kingston upon Hull City Transport, now part of Stagecoach East Midlands. Darlington Transport Company Limited (DTC) refused to sell to Stagecoach, so the Busways division flooded the town with free buses and put DTC out of business [1]. The Stagecoach Darlington company later passed from Busways to Transit. Hartlepool Transport agreed a sale with Stagecoach.
[edit] Stagecoach in Darlington
Darlington runs only four peak services. This is the smallest division of Cleveland Transit and Darlington operates an ageing fleet.
[edit] Stagecoach in Hartlepool
Hartlepool operates a network of local services around Hartlepool. It also operates service 1 to Middlesbrough.
[edit] Stagecoach on Teesside
Teesside serves Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees with a network of local services. The 36 to Hartlepool is also operated. Teesside is the former Cleveland Transit.
