East Kent Road Car Company Ltd: Services of the Golden Jubilee Era

Richard Wallace

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781785005589
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

East Kent - Services of the Golden Jubilee Era takes the reader on a journey along the routes of all the stage-carriage services operated by East Kent in 1968, just after the Company celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1966/7, and immediately prior to the National Bus Company (NBC) taking full control. This book reveals the contrasting nature of East Kent's services from rural byways to the seasonal, but very busy routes serving the still-popular resorts around the Kent coast. It includes a comprehensive fleet list and details a specimen allocation of cars to each service on a typical day in 1968; local route maps of all major town services as well as a sectionalised reproduction of the original East Kent network map of 1968 and, finally, a summary of the Centenary celebrations of 2016. It is superbly illustrated by over two hundred and fifty photographs, most not published before, of nearly every bus route as well as most London express services and all the operational garages. The author has worked as a driver and a conductor for EKRCC and part owns an ex-East Kent AEC Regent V.

PART I

Canterbury – East Kent’s Hub

Canterbury was the base of the Company, with the head office, central works and coachworks all located close to each other in the St Stephen’s area of the city. All have now gone, although the head office building does survive as flats. The bus station, built in 1956, was on the opposite side of the city close to the main shopping areas. It replaced the earlier site at St Peter’s close to the Westgate Towers. The magnificent cathedral, dating from the eleventh century, dominates the skyline and is visible from all of the main roads radiating from the city. In this section, the interurban routes serving Canterbury are dealt with first, followed by Canterbury’s local city services and then the special services running to the relatively recently established University of Kent, situated to the north of the city.

CHAPTER 1

Country Services from Canterbury

Canterbury, being centrally located, was the focus of the majority of the Company’s longer-distance interurban routes. These connected the hub of the cathedral city with the major towns in the east of the County of Kent, most of which are situated on the coast about an hour’s run from the city, and were generally 15 to 20 miles in length.

The numbering system introduced in 1937 commenced with these trunk routes and adopted a clockwise incremental progression, with the exception of services 10 and 67 which had already been utilized by sister company M&D for the jointly operated routes operating to the west of East Kent’s operating area.

Service 1: Canterbury – Chartham – Chilham – Wye – Ashford

Operating garages: Canterbury; Ashford

Operating mode: Crew

Weekday frequency: Hourly

Running time: 54 min.

The 1 was one of the Company’s original routes from 1916 (originating with Deal & District) but by the mid-1960s it was struggling financially, due in part to the proximity of the competing rail service, now electrified. Despite this, it was still crew-operated, with 72-seat AEC Regents. Although the distance to Ashford was shorter as the crow flies, the route had a number of diversions that impacted on its overall journey time. Ashford was once a major market town, but although the Tuesday cattle market with associated shopping stalls survived at this time, it would move out of the town centre in the late 1990s.

MFN 952F, the very last of the AEC Regents delivered to East Kent in 1967, waits at Canterbury Bus Station in April 1969 on service 1, the blinds displaying the onward connection to Hastings available at Ashford on this service.

Leaving Canterbury’s bus station, the route headed south in company with the 22 and 67 as well as the City services bound for Thanington, skirting the Dane John Gardens and the remains of the city walls on the right and Canterbury East Station on the left. A sharp left turn then took it under the railway bridge carrying the railway line between Dover and Faversham and out via Wincheap. In its formative years, the 1 also crossed under the old Elham Valley line a little further down. Although this line closed soon after the Second World War, with the bridge subsequently being demolished, its former passage could still be discerned in the 1960s before the development of a shopping retail park and the adjacent diverted A2 obliterated most traces.

The route headed straight on, down Thanington Road, before bearing right, crossing the River Stour and railway by a bridge with fairly tight corners, particularly on the western side. Before the bridge, one service operated from Canterbury by Drew’s, the last independent stage carriage operator in East Kent territory at the time, would head off via Larkey Valley to Chartham. Past the bridge, another would turn right to serve Chartham Hatch. Heading out into more open countryside, at the time graced by many hop fields but increasingly given over to fruit cultivation, the 1 served Chartham. It stopped on the main road whereas one of Drew’s other services turned left here to access the centre of the village. Shalmsford Bridge was passed where the 22 diverged right to serve Old Wives Lees. Seven miles from Canterbury the service reached Chilham, a picturesque village; as at Chartham, the 1 did not serve the village centre. Swinging left off the main Charing Road, leaving the 67 to head straight on towards Maidstone, the nearest the 1 could get to the village proper was the Woolpack pub at the bottom of a short hill leading to the square. As well as incurring a time penalty, this diversion also required the bus to reverse at the Woolpack, a terminal shared with the 31 from Faversham. This was a tight turn, which made crew operation mandatory for larger buses, with a conductor to supervise reversing. Eventually, planned conversion to D/C operation in 1969 required an easier reverse further east down Bagham Road at Felborough Close, even further away from the main village.

Peak short workings to Chilham were operated by Canterbury garage, as shown by Loadmeter car WFN 839 seen in the Bus Station in 1969.

Leaving Chilham and retracing its steps, but then bearing right to reach the Ashford Road directly, the bus turned right at the road junction, heading south through more rural country and crossing the Stour again before passing the hamlet of Godmersham. The attractive flint church here, which is visible from the road, mostly dates from Norman times but there is evidence of an earlier Saxon church as well. There is now some ribbon development of houses alongside the road at Bilting. The last major village on the 1’s route is Wye, which also required an extended double-run off the main Ashford road. Turning left, along Bramble Lane, the route had to cross the Ashford to Canterbury railway by a level crossing adjacent to the station, as well as a further bridge across the Stour before a loop was performed around the village. It would briefly meet service 118/A before returning to re-cross the river and railway before turning left down Harville Road to rejoin the Ashford road, now in company with schooldays service 120.

One reason for the 1 hanging on to crew working was the tight reverse at Chilham, Woolpack, which was unsuitable for the longer single-deckers. GJG 742D reverses there in May 1969.

On the last five miles into Ashford, the service skirted the suburb of Kennington near Penlee Point, where it was joined by town service 125 and then M&D’s service 11 at Faversham Road. Finally, the 124 came in at Bybrook Road before the services crossed the Ashford by-pass, entering the town via North Street and turning left into the High Street. By this time, Ashford had introduced a one-way system and, while most passengers would get off here, the 1 continued, turning right into Station Road and terminating outside the Company’s garage and enquiry office. Before returning, the bus would turn left off Station Road and run through the garage itself before stopping at the small bus station for country services, facing west on to Station Road.

On its return to Canterbury, the service exited the garage, turning left then right into Vicarage Lane and Tufton Street, before taking a further right into Bank Street, thence High Street, and left into North Lane to leave the one-way system.

The 1 had a close relationship with service 2, which in earlier summers also ran from Canterbury to Ashford before continuing on its main itinerary to Rye and Hastings. By summer 1966, the 2 had ceased to operate north of Ashford or west of Rye, although cars on the 1 connecting with the 2 advertised ‘Ashford for Hastings’ on their destinations, maintaining a link with earlier days. The main weekday frequency on the 1 was supplemented by peak short workings between Canterbury and Chilham on weekdays and Ashford and Wye/Godmersham, although the latter were mainly on schooldays.

As noted earlier, the 1 was not the most profitable of the Company’s routes and by the late 1960s there was an imperative to convert it to D/C operation, in order to reduce losses. However, the double-runs at Chilham and Wye and the assumed need for more running time to cater for driver fare collection meant that the hourly frequency could not be maintained with two vehicles. In addition, an alternative reversing point had to be found at Chilham, which could be negotiated by a driver-only vehicle. Eventually, in May 1969, the conversion was achieved, although allocating three vehicles to achieve the original frequency was untenable and this was initially reduced to every 90 minutes, plus odd short workings to fill key gaps. The hourly service did return later.

By 1971, D/C working had commenced following revised reversing arrangements at Chilham. AEC Swift VJG 199J crosses the river Stour at Wye, bound for Canterbury.

Service 3: Canterbury – Harbledown – Dunkirk – Boughton – Faversham

Operating garages: Canterbury; Faversham

Operating mode: Crew (D/C from 9/68)

Weekday frequency: 30 min.

Running time: 35 min.

Resuming the logical clockwise order of the trunk routes radiating from Canterbury, the 3, following the A2 to Faversham, had only recently been reincarnated. Prior to the summer (30 June) 1968 timetable change, it had, for a time in the early 1960s, been linked to the Margate service as a through route, numbered 8, crossing Canterbury. Interestingly, a link such as this was part of the initial East Kent services upon formation in 1916 before being separated, certainly by the early 1920s. Impending D/C conversion meant that such long routes were split once again to facilitate ease of operation, although through fares to/from Margate interchanging with service 8 were offered for a time.

In this period, routes could run both ways through Canterbury’s High Street and the 3 would do that, leaving the bus station and turning left to run through the city centre. It passed over a narrow bridge crossing the Great Stour river, flanked by the Eastbridge Hospital on one side and the sixteenth-century Old Weavers’ House on the other. Care was needed on the bridge when passing other buses, especially as the 3’s later D/C conversion in September required three of the new longer AEC Reliance Marshall-bodied saloons from 1967/8, which were over 8ft (2.4m) wide. Approaching the Westgate Towers, as with all other outbound services the 3 skirted around the southern flank of the towers, but on return passed directly through the arch. This normally required a retraction of the driver’s offside mirror on these wider single-decks. Services 5 and 26/28 part company here, heading right down North Lane.

Picking up opposite the historic Falstaff Hotel, Station Road West, site of the Company’s head office, is passed on the right before St Dunstan’s level crossing on the line between Ashford and Canterbury West/Ramsgate, the cause of much congestion on this heavily used road, even in the 1960s. The 29 turned right just afterwards. Bearing left along London Road, where the 4/4A/6 group, 23/27 group and 32 part company, the service then joined what was at the time the main roa...