Go Whippet

Plaxton President bodied Dennis Trident 2 at St Ives bus station in May 2012
Slogan The community's local bus company
Parent Transit Systems
Founded 1919
Headquarters Swavesey
Service area Cambridgeshire
Service type Bus services
Destinations Cambridge
Huntingdon
Peterborough
St Ives
St Neots
Website www.go-whippet.co.uk

Go Whippet[1] is a bus operator based in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire. It is a subsidiary of Transit Systems.

History

Plaxton Centro bodied Volvo B7RLE on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway on the opening day 7 August 2011
Northern Counties Palatine bodied Volvo B10M in St Neots in March 2012

Whippet Coaches was founded in Huntingdonshire by bicycle salesman Henry Lee in 1919. The first Whippet coach was converted from an American ambulance.[2]

Originally based in the village of Hilton, they moved into a depot at Fenstanton in 1977. In 2009 the company sold these buildings to Stagecoach in The Fens and moved to a depot at Swavesey. In November 2014, the family business was sold to Transit Systems.[3][4]

Whippet used to operate some summer only services to the coast. These have been running in various forms from 1957 up to 2013, and ultimately served Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Clacton-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea.

Current operations

Go Whippet has a fleet of over 50 vehicles, a mixture of single and double deck buses with around eight coaches. Local buses are run throughout north Cambridgeshire, including town services in St Neots, and the company also operates a number of school and college contracts.

Contracts

In 2014 it became a contractor for the National Express as well, and in 2016 also for the University of Cambridge's Universal service. It also used to operate Tesco Bar Hill Free buses but Tesco stopped funding them and they stopped operating.[5]

Whippet Coaches now operate National Express routes:

Guided Busway

Since 7 August 2011 Whippet has operated service C on Cambridgeshire Guided Busway from Somersham to Cambridge city centre on the section between St Ives and the Cambridge Science Park. This is being run in conjunction with Stagecoach in the Fens (who run routes A and B) who jointly with Go Whippet have exclusive use of the route for a period of five years in exchange for providing a minimum service frequency between the times of 07:00 and 19:00 each week day.[6] Whippet spent a total of £420,000 on three Plaxton Centro bodied Volvo B7RLE buses[7] that have been sold since and replaced by four Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs.

Whippet launched a new bus service route U (for Universal) in Cambridge in July 2016, running originally from Madingley Road Park & Ride (now: Eddington) via West Cambridge to Addenbrooke's Hospital. It is subsidised by the University of Cambridge and replaced the Uni4 service, formerly operated by Stagecoach in Cambridge.[8] The service was rerouted between Cambridge railway station and Cambridge Biomedical Campus via the southern part of the Busway, starting 3 December 2016, after delivery of seven more Wright Eclipse bodied Volvo B7RLEs fitted for use on the guided busway.[9]

On 21 June 2017 at approximately 15:48, a Cambridgeshire Guided Busway service, operated by Whippet, derailed near the entrance to the busway at Cambridge railway station. It was travelling towards Addenbrooke's Hospital. The bus crashed into a wall, with damage sustained to the driver's position but there were no serious injuries.[10] Whippet initially blamed cyclists for the accident saying that they had caused the driver to swerve to avoid them.[11] They later deleted those tweets, apologised to the cyclists and dismissed the driver for causing the crash by travelling above the speed limit on the entry to the busway.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Companies House extract company no 520428 Whippet Coaches Limited
  2. ↑ "About Us". Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  3. ↑ Lee family completes sale of Whippet buses to Aussie firm Hunts Post 18 November 2014
  4. ↑ Tower Transit adds Go Whippet Coach & Bus Week 18 November 2014
  5. ↑ "Timetables". Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  6. ↑ Menzies, Bob (26 November 2008). "Guided Busway – Your Questions Answered". BBC Cambridgeshire. BBC Online.
  7. ↑ Elliot, Chris (1 February 2010). "Operators hit out at costly hold-ups to guided busway". Cambridge News. Archived from the original on 21 September 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2010.
  8. ↑ Universal bus service links West Cambridge to Cambridge railway station University of Cambridge 29 June 2016
  9. ↑ Changes to route U from 3 December 2016 Go Whippet
  10. ↑ "Driver hurt in Cambridge guided busway crash". BBC News. 2017-06-21. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  11. ↑ Starnes, Anna (2017-06-21). "Guided busway driver crashed after 'swerving to avoid cyclist'". cambridgenews. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  12. ↑ "Speeding Cambridgeshire guided bus crash driver sacked". BBC News. 2017-06-21. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.