{"id":32,"date":"2014-10-01T11:48:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T11:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/?p=32"},"modified":"2014-10-08T14:49:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T14:49:11","slug":"50-years-of-bus-services-dalgety-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/2014\/10\/01\/50-years-of-bus-services-dalgety-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years of bus services – Dalgety Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"
A shorter version of this article appears in\u00a0 the Dalgety Bay Diary October 2014 edition <\/a>.\u00a0 <\/strong>The good news is that the unnamed author has\u00a0 passed the complete story to CN for publication,<\/em><\/strong> and we will now<\/em> quote from that…
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
” Dalgety Bay – W Alexander (Fife)<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"W<\/a>
A typical coach on the W Alexander Fife service. Photo used with the permission of the copyright owners The Bus Gallery see http:\/\/www.thebusgallery.co.uk\/fife<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Prior to the creation of Dalgety Bay as we know it today, W Alexander (Fife), operated a Kirkcaldy – Dunfermline bus service stopping at a point which is now the corner of A921 road and Eastern Access Road serving the small community clustered around the church towards Barns Farm area.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>
Another coach circa 1968 on the W Alexander Fife service. Photo used with the permission of the copyright owners The Bus Gallery see http:\/\/www.thebusgallery.co.uk\/fife<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Dalgety Bay grew in size from 1965, Alexanders\u2019 route 7A <\/b>linked Dunfermline and Dalgety Bay. In 1985 the company became part of the Scottish Transport Group when the government introduced a policy of deregulating the bus industry to promote greater competition; W Alexander Fife then became Fife Scottish Buses.<\/p>\n

Fife Coastliner, Service 57<\/strong><\/p>\n

Capitalising on the growth of the town, a development in July1990 was the introduction of the ambitious \u201cFife Coastliner\u201d Service 57 between Anstruther, Leven and Edinburgh\u00a0 stopping at Pentland Rise.<\/p>\n

During the early-mid1990\u2019s, the town expanded westwards<\/b> with a large number of houses built on the site of St Davids\u2019\u00a0 harbour; shortly afterwards representation was made by residents to provide a bus service. Stagecoach responded by diverting a number of early morning\/late evening service 7, Dunfermline \u2013 Kirkcaldy buses.<\/p>\n

Bayliner<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Commemorating the 25th<\/sup>. anniversary of the town in 1990,<\/b> Service 79 between Dunfermline and Dalgety Bay was route branded\u201d as \u201cBayliner\u201d using single deck buses painted with a \u201cBayliner\u201d logo above the windows. In July 1991, the Stagecoach bus group purchased Fife Scottish Buses for \u00a39.1M which was then renamed Stagecoach Fife.<\/p>\n

Two years later, a Kirkcaldy independent operator trading as Orion Buses challenged<\/b> the Stagecoach monopoly by operating a \u201ccircular\u201d Dunfermline-Cowdenbeath-Kirkcaldy-Dalgety Bay-Dunfermline service. This competition was nullified by Stagecoach who increased the frequency of their established services and Orion was forced to withdraw within the year.<\/p>\n

This was a sign of \u201cthings to come\u201d and over the years, many well established Fife bus and coach operators were absorbed by the Stagecoach empire including such well known names \u00a0used by local schools for outings such as Rennies of Dunferrmline, Allisons Coaches, Moffat & Williamson, Glenrothes.<\/p>\n

As time progressed, it was recognised that Stagecoach Fife wished to abandon a number of uneconomic bus routes and they stated their intentions to Fife Council. Following the \u201cBayliner\u201d brand, Stagecoach revised route 79 as Dalgety Bay \u2013 Kelty via Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline running to a half hour frequency.<\/p>\n

Two uneconomic routes subsidised<\/strong><\/p>\n

About this time and in order to maintain a service where hardship would be caused to communities if a bus connection was lost, Fife Council agreed to subsidise two uneconomic routes which served Dalgety Bay that is;<\/p>\n

\"Bus<\/a>Service <\/b>83 Inverkeithing \u2013 <\/b>Dalgety Bay (<\/b>Ridge Way, ASDA<\/b>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Service 83 was subsequently withdrawn without replacement on 13 August 2011 and Service 80 renumbered to Service 87, August 2011 using single deck buses on an hourly schedule, Dunfermline \u2013 Duloch \u2013 Hillend \u2013 Dalgety Bay \u2013 St Davids \u2013Inverkeithing- North Queensferry (Rail Station).<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \"Bus<\/a>Service 80 Dunfermline \u2013 <\/b>Duloch \u2013 Hillend \u2013 Dalgety Bay \u2013 St Davids Harbour \u2013 Inverkeithing \u2013 Ferrytoll Park & Ride<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An advantage with using single deck buses on service 87<\/b> was that they complied with a 7.5 tonnes weight limit imposed on B916 road Hillend \u2013 Dunfermline to protect the late 18th<\/sup>. century bridge west end of the railway station; double deck vehicles previously used exceeded B916 road weight limit by 2 tonnes although some Inverkeithing High School buses still use double deck vehicles.<\/p>\n

Swedish Scania Omnilink Services 53 Dalgety Bay and 55 Dunfermline<\/b><\/p>\n

A new initiative occurred October 2007 when Stagecoach purchased a number of six wheeled high capacity Swedish Scania Omnilink single deck buses intended for use on Dunfermline \u2013 Edinburgh Service 55 and new Service 53 Dalgety Bay \u2013 Edinburgh via St Davids which operated on a 30 minute frequency.<\/p>\n

This new service supplemented existing hourly Kirkcaldy \u2013 Edinburgh Service X58 and hourly St Andrews \u2013 Leven \u2013 Kirkcaldy \u2013 Edinburgh service X60 which runs via Dalgety Bay railway station and augmented early morning\/late evening service 7 buses.<\/p>\n

Regrettably although service 53 provided St Davids with a regular, reliable service, it proved to be grossly underused and was cancelled; replaced by peak time services 53, X53, 57 & X57 mainly using Scania buses. In view of low patronage, the future of these services is not \u00a0guaranteed.<\/p>\n

In August 2014, following complaints of poor timekeeping,<\/b> Stagecoach in liaison with Fife Council revised times of service 87 from an hourly to a 75 minute schedule<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Town Centre Study \u2013 Dalgety Bay and Hillend Community Council<\/a><\/b>\"Dalgety<\/a><\/p>\n

It is to be regretted that although the Dalgety Bay & Hillend Community Council initiated a \u201ctown centre study\u201d, final recommendations made October 2011 found no place for provision of a \u201ccentral\u201d bus station in the town. Significantly, Leven (population 8051 @ 2001 Census) boasts a comparatively new 8 bay bus station<\/b> but Dalgety Bay (population 10011@ 2001 Census)<\/b> does not appear to warrant such a facility which could create a focal transport hub as opposed to the scattered stops at Meadowfield, Regents Way, Moray Way North (opposite Community Centre) and Railway Station.<\/p>\n

Rail Link Kirkcaldy to Glasgow<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Steam<\/a>Although a rail link Kirkcaldy \u2013 Glasgow via Inverkeithing existed up to 1965, First Scotrail has chosen not to resurrect this service. The author invited Stagecoach (Fife) to consider filling a \u201cgap\u201d in present bus services by linking Inverkeithing Park & Ride to a Glasgow bus service to benefit Burntisland, Aberdour, Dalgety Bay, Inverkeithing and local residents.<\/p>\n

Stagecoach\u2019s response<\/strong> was that \u00a0they consider Dunfermline and Halbeath Park & Ride facilities as adequate.<\/p>\n

Copyright.\u00a0<\/strong> The article remains the copyright of the unnamed author and the author has given permission for this article to appear in CN and Scotland4me.\u00a0 Photographs are provided provided by:<\/p>\n

The bus gallery<\/strong><\/a> – permission to use much appreciated that is the first two in the article relating to buses in the 1960s.
\nthe unnamed author<\/strong> – photos of the 80 and 83 buses.<\/p>\n

The picture of the train is from Royalty Free stock and the featured image is the copyright of Scotland4me.net<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A shorter version of this article appears in\u00a0 the Dalgety Bay Diary October 2014 edition .\u00a0 The good news is that the unnamed author has\u00a0 passed the complete story to CN for publication, and we will now quote from that… ” Dalgety Bay – W Alexander (Fife) Prior to the creation of Dalgety Bay as … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “50 Years of bus services – Dalgety Bay”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bus-services"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/50-Years-of-buses-Dalgety-Bay.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/2014\/11\/24\/dalgety-bay-pta-christmas-raffle-1st-prize-ipad-mini-and-cover\/","url_meta":{"origin":32,"position":0},"title":"Dalgety Bay PTA – Christmas Raffle 1st Prize IPAD Mini and Cover","author":"Jimmy Randall","date":"November 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Late last week I popped into Asda in Dalgety Bay. \u00a0What did I see? \u00a0A a very helpful lady selling raffle tickets for Dalgety Bay PTA. \u00a0The prize has been kindly donated by \u00a0Louie Brown's bar. \u00a0That is Dalgety Bay's very own leading restaurant and leisure venue. So I took\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dalgety Bay"","block_context":{"text":"Dalgety Bay","link":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/category\/dalgety-bay\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dalgety Bay PTA at Asda","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Dalgety-Bay-PTA-at-Asda.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Dalgety-Bay-PTA-at-Asda.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Dalgety-Bay-PTA-at-Asda.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/2014\/02\/28\/bruce-davies-performs-for-forth-churches-guild-dalgety-parish-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":32,"position":1},"title":"Bruce Davies Performs for Forth Churches Guild – Dalgety Parish Church","author":"Jimmy Randall","date":"February 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Bruce Davies singing at Dalgety Parish Church Friday 28th February. The evening was opened by Maureen Campbell from the Forth Churches Guild. Bruce's repertoire included songs written by Tom Paxton such as 'Home to me is the Hills of Scotland'.\u00a0\u00a0 He performed many pieces\u00a0 such as\u00a0 'I want a Hug',\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChurchEvents"","block_context":{"text":"ChurchEvents","link":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/category\/churchevents\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"BruceDavies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/BruceDavies.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":78,"url":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/2014\/10\/08\/diversions-to-inverkeithing-ferrytoll-park-and-ride-10th-oct-to-20th-oct-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":32,"position":2},"title":"Diversions to Inverkeithing FerryToll Park and Ride Friday 10th Oct to Monday 20th Oct 2014","author":"Jimmy Randall","date":"October 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to information just provided by Stagecoach for changes to bus services, Councillor A McGary (SNP Councillor for Inverkeithing, Dalgety Bay and Aberdour)\u00a0 and Traffic Scotland we are able to report:- A temporary road closure has been arranged for B981 Hope Street,\u00a0Inverkeithing from\u00a0Ferryhills Road to Ferry Toll Park & Ride\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bus Services"","block_context":{"text":"Bus Services","link":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/category\/bus-services\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cowdenbeath-news.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}