The Great North Road Bus Trip Day 4: Doncaster to Whitby

Day 3 saw me visiting Maggie Thatcher and losing heart in Scunthorpe...

Day 4: Tuesday, 19th March 1991

The Great North Road was always more of a concept than a line on the map, with several variations followed by travellers over the years and Doncaster was somewhere where alternatives were available to the northbound traveller.  The main route ran via Pontefract and Castleford on its way to Scotch Corner but many travellers preferred the roads via Selby and York and then on to Darlington to re-join the prime route and it was in this direction that I chose to continue, at least to begin with.

Bus 15: Doncaster to York

I made a lateish start for me on the 10.12 "Selby & District" service 405 to York, which actually left at 10.16. The "& District" part of the name was another example of the old style of bus company names that has now largely disappeared. Fans of 1970s TV comedy will no doubt remember "Luxton & District" (but click the link if you don't).

Selby & District was split off from the West Riding Automobile Company when that company was prepared for privatisation. At the time, the government's belief was that creating a large number of small bus companies would make them easier to sell and would encourage them to compete with each other for passengers. Of course, economic reality prevailed and competition led inexorably to the survival of the fittest and the establishment of the much smaller number of much larger bus companies we have today, which no longer see the need to compete for custom.

To begin with, the "405" (another double-decker, hooray!) gave me a fast ride across the Vale of York until we hit traffic congestion caused by the queue for the toll bridge over the River Ouse at Selby, although  we arrived on time in York at 12.10.   There were noticeably more buses around on this stretch of the trip and those that I saw were carrying more passengers.

I hadn't been to York for some time, so spent some time there looking around. Every bus in the city seemed to be a different colour and I made a note of "Target Travel", "York City & District", "Reynard Bus" and "York City Rider" as operators, later finding that they were all in common ownership.

Bus 16 (right) York to Malton

The alternative Great North Road runs through Thirsk and Northallerton to Darlington and in 2017 I followed this route in the reverse direction on a journey from Durham to York as part of my trip Around the County Towns of England. However, in 1991 either buses in this direction were very scarce or perhaps as York lacks a central bus station and buses leave from a variety of on-street stands I just never found them.

Whatever the reason, I now took a huge deviation from my notional route, heading north-east on a "Yorkshire Coastliner" bus to Malton. (Yorkshire Coastliner was another spin-off, this time from another "Road Car" company, this one the "West Yorkshire Road Car Co,)  The bus had come through from Leeds, passing through the centre of York, which at the time lacked a proper by-pass so consequently suffered from delay caused by traffic. We were, however, only seven minutes down and were back on time in Malton at 15.30.

Incident at Malton

Bus 17: Malton to Whitby

I had an hour to spend here, before continuing on another Coastliner to Whitby, although this time we set off eleven minutes late after waiting for the arrival of the following bus from York. When boarding the bus I was surprised to find the door open but no driver in place, leaving me free to take a seat. In the days of conductors this was standard practice, but the introduction of one-person-operation, with the driver also collecting the fares, usually meant a closed door policy until such time as the driver returning from a break  was ready to start work again.  There were other passengers on board, but when the driver did show up he was very annoyed, demanding to know who had opened the door and threatening not to move the bus until someone owned up.

But the passengers stood their ground and everyone maintained that the door had been open when they got to the bus stop (although my photograph, taken earlier, shows it firmly closed). Eventually he had to give in - ungracefully - and take us on our way.  A fast run followed up to Pickering and over the North Yorkshire Moors past the "golf balls" of the Fylingdales Early-Warning Radar station.  At 18.00 it was quite late in the day to be arriving at Whitby without a bed for the night, but I don't remember any difficulty in finding somewhere to stay. Nor do I remember what I did in the evening or where I ate or even what I had to drink.  I think four days of bus travel was beginning to take its toll.

Today's journey was 7h 44m in duration of which less than half, 3h 45m was spent on the move, much of the rest being sight-seeing in York and Malton.  The fares came to £6.80 bringing the total cost of the trip so far to £31.50.

I followed the "alternative North Road" between Doincaster and York, but then went wildly off-course ending up on the North Yorkshire Coast at Whitby.

to be continued...