Bus Company History
Thamesdown
Thamesdown Transport started as Swindon Corporation Tramways in 1904, Buses began running in 1907 on 1 route, by 1914 all services were ran by buses and the trams had been consigned to history.
The bus network grew with the expanding Town and Borough boundaries. Swindon Corporation became Thamesdown Borough in 1974 and the bus company became Thamesdown Transport on the same date. When deregulation came in 1985, Thamesdown Borough Council made Thamesdown an arms length company, when Thamesdown Borough became Swindon Borough and a Unitary Authority in 1996, it was decided to keep the buses running as Thamesdown and Swindon Borough Council is still the major shareholder of the company to this day, which makes Swindon one of the few places to have a Municipal bus company within the UK.
The Buses
Thamesdowns bus fleet was mostly made up of Daimler buses with the odd Leyland chassis which included Titans and CVG6's and the Daimler & Leyland Fleetline Double Deck, the Fleetline became the staple of Swindon services and they were mostly bodied by ECW, however a few came with Northern Counties bodies and some with Park Royal and MCW bodies and the Lion, Leopard singledeck with some Bristol RE's, second hand London Buses appeared in the 80's in the guise of Bristol LH's and Leyland Fleetlines (DMS) and ex-Manchester Fleetlines with Northern Counties bodies. Thamesdown seemed to make the DMS buses work well and it was these that made me become a bus enthusiast at the age of 7. Thamesdown also had some AEC single deck buses with Park Royal bodywork that were nicknamed spaceships.
When Leyland who had taken over Daimler in the 70s decided to end production of the Fleetline in the 80's, Thamesdown then turned to Dennis and the Domintator which domintated Swindons Double Deck fleet until the early 2000's when the last members of both the Dennis Dominator and Leyland Fleetline left the Fleet. The Dominator included new examples bodied by Northern Counties and some second hand East Lancs buses from Staffordshire and ex-Derby Northern Counties buses, the last new Dominators arrived in 1990 and were to East Lancs nice S-Type design, these were followed by second hand buses to the same design from London & Country and an ex-Ipswich example, and then by some ex-Bournemouth Fleetlines for schools services and an ex-Preston Leyland Atlantean. Single deck buses did include 4 single deck Dominators and then 25 Renault-Dodge S56 minibuses arrived with Reeve Burgess and Northern Counties bodies for the smaller routes and to fight off competition from Fosseway of Chippenham (on the 20 service), there was also a solitary ex-Ipswich Dodge and an ex-demonstrator S75, the other buses brought second hand were ex-Leicester Dennis Falcons and Dennis Lancets from Portsmouth (which I liked) Merseyside (which were ok but I preferred the ex-Portsmouth examples) and Luton. All of Dominators, Fleetlines and second hand Lancets and Falcons as well as the minibuses had left the fleet by 2010.
The Dart Arrives
The first 10 Dennis Darts arrived in 1993 to run services 5 and 11 and were originally branded as Dartline but this was dropped in the late 90s. The dart became King with the original 10 8.5m examples joined by 15 9.8m examples and then the Low Floor era began with 8 Dart SLF for the 17 & 18 services and they were joined by the Longer SPD and Plaxton Pointer 2 Darts and 4 ex-Kings Ferry Dart SLFs and 4 ex-Isle of Man step entrance Darts. Now in 2014 the Dart SPD provides most services with 4 MPDs for the smaller services 21, 22, 23 & 25. The step entrance darts had all left by 2012 and the earlier SLF darts have left, the only SLF darts left are SPD's and the 4 MPD's.
Double Deck Revial
Thamesdown's bus services are now in the hands of Single Deck buses but Thamesdown has to use Double Deck buses on some school & other contract services as well as to increase capacity at peak times on sutible services, for this Thamesdown purchased some ex-Lothian Leyland and Volvo Olympians which apart from 9 in fleet livery were painted Bournemouth Yellow & Blue for School contracts, these left the fleet in 2013 and in their place has come 9 ex-London United Scania East Lancs OmniDecks and 4 ex-Lothian Tridents. Thamesdown also had 2 ex-London Tridents.
Scania Takes Over - With Help from Optare & Wrights
After the collapse of Transbus (who owned Dennis, Plaxton & Alexander), Thamesdown had to go elsewhere for new buses and the Swedes came answering, Thamesdown now purchased Scania buses and have 28 which provide the main service fleet on the 1, 1A, 13, 14, 17 & 18 services with the Dart SPD & MPD providing most other services, Thamesdown then purchased 8 MAN engined Optare Versas for the 20 & 24 services (which now operate the 11 & 12 services) and followed this with 6 Cummins Engined & VDL SB200 chassied Wright Streetlite DF's (5 worked in London for the 2012 Olympics) for the 15 and at the time of writing this have just acquired another Streetlite from Wrights to increase capacity where needed. The reason for this is that Transbus was rescued and became Alexander Dennis and Thamesdown did not want to buy buses which where owned by a certain Sir Brian Souter of Stagecoach fame, but they will not admit this and say it is because they want more seats but buses purchased seat the same as or less than the Dart SPD? The Versas are now being reengined with Cummins engines.
What Could of Been
Thamesdown have had some intresting demonstration vehicles since I have been alive including Volvo B6BLE's, Volovo B7's and Enviro300 and 200 demonstrators as well as hire buses from Optare (3 Solos) and buses produced by MAN (1 seed vehicle arrived with the first low floor Darts, and various demonstrators), MAN keep sending buses to Thamesdown as they are based in Swindon (Blagrove is the UK HQ for MAN) and our twin town is Salzgitter in Germany where MAN are based and founded, but these have never stayed long. Thamesdown also tried an Optare Delta and I think they had a low floor example as I remember catching it home from school one day, they had an East Lancs Spyte bodied Dart SLF and even tried the Iveco TurboCity 50 with Alexander PS bodywork. Thamesdown also had a Centrewest Goldline branded Mercedes-Benz on hire for a short time, which was used on the old 15/16 services.
Go Back On Your Word
Thamesdown have purchased 3 second hand Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 Darts from Hatts Coaches to operate the Marlborugh local services they took over from Hatts when they ceased trading. They have since purchased 4 new Enviro 200s for Town services and 2 small ones new for Calne services.
End of the Municipal Bus Company and a New Beginning
Swindon Borough Council sold Thamesdown Transport to Go-Ahead Group on 2nd February 2017 and it is now part of Go-Ahead South Coast. We will see what changes this brings to the company in this new chapter in its life.
Coaching
Thamesdown had various coaches throughout its history, these were mostly Leyland Leopard & Tiger chassis with Duple or Plaxton bodywork, but they did have a couple of Berkhof bodied Scanias and 4 double deck Scania Coaches with Plaxton & Berkhof bodywork. After a depot fire in the 90's the coaching fleet consisted of some ex-London & Country/Greenline & BA Leyland Tiger/Plaxtons, some new Volvo B10M/Plaxton, Berkhof and Jonckheere coaches and some old Leopard coaches. Thamesdown also used the Dual Purpose seated Brtistol RE's until they left, Dual Purpose seated Renault-Dodge S56's and Dennis Dominator/Northern Counties 65-68 were also dual purpose vehicles.
Thamesdown purchased Kingston Coaches jointly with Wilts & Dorset but sold its stake to Wilts & Dorset when they closed the coaching operation in the late 90's/early 00's.
A Dodge S56 was painted in Kingston colours until it and the operation were sold.
Stagecoach West
Stagecoach Started up as part of Bristol Omnibuses who ran country services in Swindon, they became part of the National Bus Company in 1974 and were split off to form Western Travel t/a Swindon & Distict (in Swindon), Stroud Valleys, City of Gloucester (also called Gloucester Citybus) and Cheltenham District, minibuses traded as Metro and they also had Midland Red South and Red & White in Wales.
Stagecoach took over in 1993 and became Stagecoach in Swindon in 2001 and Stagecoach West in 2014.
The fleet contained mostly Bristol built buses and these were slowly replaced by NBC standard Leyland Nationals, Bristol VRT's and Leyland Olympians upto deregulation.
Metro operated Ford Transits and Western Travel replaced these with MCW Metroriders in the 90's, they also purchased 2 Mercedes-Benz 811D with Wright Nimbus bodies and 5 Stagecoach Standard Alexander bodied Leyland Olympians and then purchased some ex-Manchester Leyland Titans for Swindon.
When Stagecoach took over they started stripping out the older Olympians, Bristol VRTs and Leyland Nationals and brought in Standard Volvo B6's and Darts as well as Mercedes-Benz 709D minibuses, ex-London Titans began appearing with ex-London Olympians and Darts, then came the Low Floor revolution and Volvo B6LE's which soon moved to Banbury and the Dart SLF, for the 51, 66 & 70 came Volvo B10M buses and these have now also left.
Stagecoach West Fleet in Swindon in now made up of Scania/Enviro 400 & Dennis Trident (& Transbus/Alexander Dennis) Double deck buses and Dennis/Transbus/Alexander Dennis Darts and 2 Optare Solos for Devizes Town Services that were taken over from Hatts Group. Stagecoach did have 3 Enviro 200 Darts for the 6 service, but these have been exchanged for ADL Darts from Cheltenham.
There was a breif period of Volvo B10BLEs operating the 51 and 3 Dart SPDs operating in Swindon but theses have now all gone.
Stagecoach operate GOLD specification double deckers on service 66. These sometimes appear on other services inbetween 66 duties.
Other Companies of Note that operated in Swindon area.
Regis coaches of Wantage used to operate the X47 before closing, Carterton Coaches operated the 64 before selling out to Thames Transit (Stagecoach in Oxford) who then operated the 64, 65 & X47 for a period.
Andy Bus (Andrew James Coaches) used to operate the 31 service before it was taken over by Coachstyle.
Cross Country Coaches of Fairford used to operate a special bus service to Blunsdon Market and Coachman used to operate a round the houses service to Wantage via Highworth, Lechlade, Fairford & Stanford-in-the-Vale.
Fosseway (now Faresaver of Chippenham) used to compete with Thamesdown in Swindon on the 20 service from PMH to Eldene, and 511 service from Fleming Way to Penhill with a collection of Ford Transit, Renault-Dodge S56 & Mercedes-Benz minibuses, they also operated the 31 service in 1996 but then lost it back to Andy Bus so competed with a 32 service, I have also recently discovered whilst looking through pictures on Flickr that they competed with Stagecoach on the 54 Service between Swindon and Royal Wootton Bassett, I previously worked for Stagecoach and cannot remember this personally, however I do remember them competing with the 55 between Chippenham and Calne and having to stand in Calne counting passengers on our buses and theirs.
PLEASE NOTE: These histories are not complete and are still a work in progress, all errors are the authors.
