History
Strathtay Scottish was a brand new company created through reorganisation of the Scottish Bus Group in preparation for deregulation of the bus industry in 1986, and eventual privatisation. It inherited the eastern operations of Alexanders (Midland) based in Perth, Crieff, Blairgowrie and Pitlochry, as well as the southern operations of Alexanders (Northern) in Dundee, Forfar, Arbroath and Montrose. A bright blue and orange livery was adopted for the fleet, which would be controlled from Dundee.
The company would have a turbulent infancy, however, as Strathtay Scottish faced very heavy competition from local Perth-based firm, Stagecoach. Strathtay Scottish purchased a number of ex-London Transport Routemaster buses to counter the competition, which also used a number of the same vehicle type on city services in Perth. A new Perth City Transport brand was created by Strathtay Scottish to compete with Stagecoach, using a mainly red livery with white. But as Stagecoach grew nationally it became financially stronger and had ready access to vehicles from the larger companies in England it had purchased. Strathtay's managing director, Neil Renilson, moved to Stagecoach in 1989. Strathtay Scottish could not sustain the level of intense competition that ensued, and in 1993 it closed its Perth depot. Crieff and Pitlochry also closed, and the company withdrew from the majority of services around these towns.
Despite experiencing heavy and sustained competition on the lucrative city services in Perth, Strathtay Scottish managed to remain profitable on the run up to privatisation, and in June 1991 was sold to Barnsley-based Yorkshire Traction Ltd for £1.9m. Now trading simply as Strathtay Buses, the new owners established and maintained a working relationship with Stagecoach around Perth, even jointly operating the trunk service between Dundee and Perth with the national operator, while the remainder of the operations remained largely unchanged from privatisation.
On 14 December 2005, Strathtay Buses' parent company Traction Group was purchased by Stagecoach for £26m. Strathtay is bordered to the north, east and south by Stagecoach subsidiaries, all part of Stagecoach East Scotland, which Strathtay has also joined. The Stagecoach corporate livery has been adopted for vehicles and initially, most displayed Strathtay - Part of the Stagecoach Group fleetnames, however almost all buses have now been re-branded with "Stagecoach Strathtay".
Read more about this topic: Stagecoach Strathtay
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