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EXCELSIOR MOTORWAYS EXCELSIOR EUROPEAN MOTORWAYS EXCELSIOR HOLIDAYS |
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![]() A brief history and reprise |
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In memory of happy
times with my good
friends and colleagues
Peter Holmes and Wally Gollings RIP
1920 to 1997 . . . the Maitland years Excelsior was founded in 1920 by Walter Maitland (a Scot come south) from his home in Southcote Road with a 20-seater Reo coach; the name came from a popular brand of motor cycle. Walter married Marie in 1925 and their fleet of coaches grew to five by 1939 and the outbreak of war. The limited company was founded in 1928 and a booking office was opened in Holdenhurst Road to rival another established local coach operator Shamrock & Rambler. The successful expansion of the business in post war years to become the best known operator in the Bournemouth area and beyond was principally due to the activities of his eldest son Vernon (1926-2018) who resigned his commission in the RAF in 1947 to join the family business when his father was reaching retiring age. Originally working a local excursion programme the company grew by starting holiday coach tours to Scotland in 1949 and then to continental Europe in 1950, the latter using the name Excelsior European Motorways for the first time. The pick up area for the holiday tours was gradually extended over the years from the immediate Bournemouth area right across the south of England, using an interconnecting series of pick-up coaches meeting with the main tour coach at points like Winchester. Expansion led to the remarkable first coach tour to Russia in 1957 and Moscow and Leningrad became regular features of the holiday programme for many years. A feature of Excelsior's coaches were the names of the many countries visited by the tours painted along the mid-rail - a list that grew as years went by to two dozen or more names! After an exploratory trip in a Ford coach to India in 1969 subsequently tours were operated overland through Turkey and Iran to India and Nepal on behalf of Penn Overland of Hereford until 1979. Culmination of these expansionist expeditions was when Vernon and a driver took a coach (Ford/Plaxton YPR300T) 'round the world' in 1978-79, visiting South Africa, Australia and the United States along the way. A long held ambition was to operate the first coach tour across Asia along the Silk Road to China and this happened in 1990.
Operation of the daily London route continued independently by Excelsior subsequent to the break up of the short-lived British Coachways consortium. Eventually the frequency grew to two hourly on the 'London Shuttle' from Bournemouth and Poole to Heathrow Airport and the capital. Excelsior were long time supporters of the Ford R-series chassis for nearly twenty years since their introduction in 1965 but an alternative chassis had to be sought when production was discontinued. The 1984 season started with the acquisition of twenty Quest VM 12-metre chassis (with Ford engine and Plaxton body) in substitution. The chassis was named after managing director Vernon Maitland and had been designed to retain the economic advantages of operating lightweight coaches on Excelsior's two year replacement cycle. Some were built at Telford, some at Andover. But they were destined to not be a success and were blighted with reliability problems from new, especially with their rear-mounted Ford Sabre marine diesel engines. It was a fraught summer responding to phone calls from drivers reporting problems with their tour coaches resulting in two Quest engineers being based on standby at the Excelsior depot in Bournemouth. Quest subsequently ceased trading in June 1985. In 1985 the Excelsior fleet totalled 55 vehicles, just seven of which had cherished registration marks at that time. As the years went by all vehicles were eventually to carry cherished plates, notably in the A1-20 XEL and A2-20 EXC series. Despite having always a modern fleet there was some trading advantage to 'anonymising' the year of the coach, no matter how luxurious or well appointed the vehicle the average passenger could tell an E-registered coach from a F-registered coach and given the choice would inevitably choose the newer vehicle (even if only by one year!). The London service that had started in 1980 continued to prosper and was worked from 1984 to 1988 primarily by the very first Plaxton Paramount 4000 Neoplan double-decker (XEL24). This proved to be quite an eye catcher making two round trips to the capital a day and was operated with headlights on to make it even more conspicuous. From 1988 to 1994 a pair of Volvo Van Hool bodied double-deckers became the regular performers on the London route. In general the Excelsior coach fleet moved from lightweight chassis to heavyweight at this time, primarily Volvo. It was the people who made it all happen every day. Busy days working at that time with colleagues Peter Downs and Helen Ivars in traffic, Wendy Holmes and Debbie Smithers in reservations, Hussein Jaffer and Ursula Liechti in travel. Looking back forty years some of the drivers I recall from that time include Alan Rosling, Les Parker, Chris Fowles, Alf Seton, Keith Nichol, Barry Score, Derek Waygood, Peter Holmes, Jim Lebbern, Mike Wanklyn, Wally Gollings, Simon Mullarkey, Andy Bell, Chris Holbrook, Ken Audley, Jim Campbell, Eddie Butterworth, Eric Roberts, Ken Fochard, Roy Greenhalgh, Alan Williams, Mike Holmes, Ernie Bull and Joe Lee. The main garage and workshop was located at Southcote Road in Bournemouth and it was the domain of mechanics 'Jumbo' Whatley and Bob Quick, with Ron Hanham from Kiddles in Iford Lane looking after the bodywork. The six foot long model coach in the Sea Road departure lounge intrigued many a waiting passenger, young and old. Happily the model has been preserved in Dorset. The 75th anniversary of Excelsior was proudly celebrated in 1995. Still a family owned business a commemorative brochure was published with a history of the company. Two years later in a probably timely decision, with the world changing and lessening demand for the traditional long standing programme of excursions and coach holidays, Vernon Maitland decided to retire at the end of the 1997 summer season after fifty successful years at the helm of his business (sadly he died at his home in Florida in August 2018 aged 92). After 1997 . . . Flights, Robins and More The Excelsior business with sixty coaches was quietly and unexpectedly sold to Flights Coaches of Birmingham in September 1997. Flights, like Excelsior, was a long established family business and was founded in 1913. The period from 1997 to 2001 is perhaps best glossed over as Flights did not seem to make a success out of their purchase. In January 1998 the Excelsior daily service to London was merged with that of National Express under the Flightlink name. The Excelsior service to London was the sole surviving route from the short-lived British Coachways operation which was disbanded in October 1982. At first things seemed to go on in a similar manner to the way things had been done before (perhaps lacking the local knowledge and touch though) but the local day excursion programme was abandoned, which in its heyday had employed up to twenty coaches. Long standing seaside holiday traditions had changed as the years went by. Four years after the new owners arrived financial difficulties were reported. Citing as part-reasons a decline in traditional touring and excursion activities, coupled with the effects of the foot and mouth outbreak, administrators were called in to Excelsior during 2001. At this time the Portsmouth depot operation was sold to Tellings Golden Miller of Surrey and the Lymington depot closed.
After fifteen years, with twenty-two coaches and a staff of thirty-eight, the time came for Ken Robins to retire. This brings us to the current chapter in the Excelsior story with MoreBus (the local Go Ahead group subsidiary previously known as Wilts & Dorset) buying the business from Robins in October 2016. A prime attraction for them no doubt - apart from the prestige of the Excelsior name - was the spacious yard and depot in Southcote Road near Bournemouth railway station. Since June 2006 More had been parking 21 of their buses there overnight for their M1 and M2 routes, with 65 of their drivers based there. So today Excelsior Coaches is under its fourth ownership and the name continues - but now it is only a name. A new livery was introduced, changing from the long standing familiar beige livery to a two-tone blue designed by Ray Stenning of Best Impressions. Most vehicles are based at the Damory Coaches depot at Pimperne near Blandford, and only three coaches still work out of the traditional Excelsior home at Southcote Road. |
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