Eastern Scottish coach and driver at Cambridge - 8 Sep 1989 (100-15/16)

Friday 8 September 1989 (approx 0755) - National Express and Scottish Citylink (and their predecessors) had a working relationship that spanned around 60 years but those arrangements came to an end during October 1989 when open competition then began.

One of their joint services was service 377 from Cambridge to Edinburgh worked by Cambus on behalf of National Express and Eastern Scottish Omnibuses on behalf of Scottish Citylink.

These two snapshots were taken at Cambridge just before the Eastern Scottish coach departed at 0800 for the Scottish capital where it was due to arrive at 1910. The driver, Driver Coutts I believe, mentioned that he had worked for SMT/Eastern Scottish for over 20 years. Based at Dalkeith garage about six miles south east of Edinburgh his duties involved all types of driving work covering local bus services and Scottish Citylink coaching. The latter included driving day and night Edinburgh-London services together with services to Inverness etc.

Yesterday he drove south from Edinburgh and today returned home - two 11 hour duties, about 350 miles each way.

On the left he checks a passenger's ticket and on the right has a final chat with the National Express inspector before leaving.

The coach was XCL564 (B564 LSC), a Duple Caribbean bodied Leyland Tiger new in 1985.