A quote from Ross Newman in response to an email on another forum,
which clarifies a couple of points.
"This is an Ensign job, we also have Buses at Hitchin, St Albans, Stevenage, Hatfield, Welwyn GC plus St Pancras and 3 Bridges overnight. It’s about 45 buses per day, will run until 22 July at least."
Ross
Sent from my iPhone
Just to follow up on the above comments, if up to 45 buses are required then I suppose some 'scruffy stuff' is bound to turn up as perhaps that is all that is available.
A couple of further comments from Ensign that seem to re-enforce that,
"It’s not easy to cover these requirements at this time of the year, and after all it’s not a planned rail replacement job
Peter
EBC"
"Just to add to my last posting we were asked to supply 10 buses this morning to operate Northampton - Rugby, which is well out of our territory
We couldn’t do 10 but we managed 3
Peter
EBC"
(Posted Saturday)
Yesterday, International Coachlines UWR498 was being driven by a drive from Chorley near Preston.
She said she is a freelance driver who "goes where the money is", and next month she is off to Malta
to drive coaches over there.
So it looks like a shortage of available drivers as well as vehicles