Criss-Crossing the City of Edinburgh
Part Two
15 September 2024
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 1100 (SJ19 OXT), a tri-axle Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB, turns from Pricess Street into Lothian Road in Edinburgh CIty Centre, whilst working route 47 (Cammo to Penicuik). This picture was taken on Friday 8 September 2023, but most pictures in this article were taken on Wednesday 13 September 2023, unless otherwise stated.
There's a tradition with Lothian Buses in Edinburgh that, if two or more buses reach a bus stop at the same time, the second one will not open its doors immediately, but will wait behind the first one until that one has completed its business, and then move forward onto the stop. It's certainly better than, say, London, where the second bus will sometimes use the 'cover' of the first one to skip the stop altogether, but it must add a lot of time to schedules in busy areas of the City Centre. There are also some stops where the second bus could pull right in and load up without difficulty.
I reflect on this as I'm waiting at bus stop "SB" in Shandwick Place, just off Princes Street, for "whatever comes first".
As I said in Part One of this article, I have completed the planned part of the day and am now just going to follow my nose a bit. There are various services from this stop - any will do.
Actually, the first bus that turns up is a 44, which I have already sampled a bit of. This would take me back to my hotel and then start repeating what I've already done today. So maybe not "whatever comes first"!
But what comes second is a service 25, heading for "Restalrig", which actually appears to be the edge of Craigentinny. But I have to wait for the 44 to leave before I can board this. The 25 is a Volvo B5TL ADL Enviro400 MMC, and we start off again down Princes Street.
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 1071 (SJ19 OWF), a Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB, pulls into the bus stop at the top of the Waverley Steps (the entrance to Edinburgh Waverley station) on Princes Street, working route 16 (Silverknowes to Torphin). The grand building next to the steps is the Balmoral Hotel. In the distance, the pillars of the National Monument of Scotland can be seen, with the Nelson Monument next to it.
The majority of buses along Princes Street, including the 25, dive into Leith Street, in the heart of Edinburgh's shopping and leisure district. It's here that I reflect again on the "one bus at a time" rule, as a plethora of vehicles can be seen ahead.
ABOVE: Four Lothian Buses' vehicles are in evidence here in Leith Street, Edinburgh.
Various bus services head onto what becomes the Leith Walk - the main road to Leith, a north-east suburb of Edinburgh. It's a route cars and buses share with the Edinburgh Trams.
As "one of the longest streets in Edinburgh" (1.2 miles), Leith Walk dates back to the mid-15th century. The Leith Edinburgh website tells us that it was initially a rough pathway that evolved over the years into a bustling thoroughfare. The street owes its existence to a defensive rampart built in 1650, which later developed into a footpath. By the 18th century, Leith Walk had become a coach route, and it was re-laid as a causeway in 1810. The website also tells us that, at the "Foot of the Walk", the building of the former Leith Central Station still stands.
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 422 (BN64 CSV), a Volvo B5TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, heads from Haddington Place into Gayfield Place, on the Leith Walk, just outside the City Centre, on route 25 towards the Heriot-Watt University. Behind is a Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB on route 11 (Western Harbour to Hyvots Bank).
The 25 takes me to the "Foot of the Walk" in Leith, before taking a sharp-right turn and heading towards Restalrig. We're becoming more residential here, and I'm not sure that I'm going to find anything more of interest, so I decide to bail out at the "Quadrant" stop in Lochend, just before Restalrig itself.
Lochend nowadays is basically a 1930s housing estate, about two miles from the City Centre (although my records show that it has taken 37 minutes to get here - admittedly the long way round)! Lochend is named after Lochend Castle (long gone) and the adjacent Lochend Loch. The Loch, a stunning lake in Lochend Park, is fed from underground springs with no outlet stream.
There's only the 25 here, so I walk back to a stop called "Hawkhill" on Lochend Avenue, where I have seen another bus route, the 21. The bus for this trip is a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, and is the first Lothian double-decker of the day without a TV screen at the front, which makes forward vision much better - espcially with the panoramic front windscreen of the Gemini 2 which, along with the original Enviro400, has never been bettered.
We retrace the steps of route 25 as far as Leith, but here the 21 runs straight across the "Foot of the Walk", onto Great Junction Street rather than turning onto the Leith Walk itself.
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 416 (BN64 CRV), a Volvo B5TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, heads along Duke Street, near the "Foot of the Walk" in Leith, on route 21 towards Clovenstone. The spire of St Andrew's Church can be seen in the background. The gates just visible on the right appear to be part of a Tesco Superstore (possibly its loading bay), but may be part of the old Leith Central railway station.
In Part One, I said that most Lothian Buses seem to run via the City Centre of Edinburgh. But I've managed to stumble across one that doesn't. The 21 follows a broad horseshoe structure from the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, south-east of the City Centre, to the Wester Hailes area in the south-west, almost due west of the Infirmary. It drives round the northern suburbs of the City Centre to do this. It takes about an hour-and-a-half from end to end and also has a weekday bifurcation to the Gyle Centre. A long, busy and complicated route in fact!
This is an interesting drive - probably worthy of a longer inspection at some other time. We pass through the Trinity district, a 19th-century housing suburb, and Crewe Toll, named from the Toll House which once stood at the junction of Ferry Road and Crewe Road North and South. But, after a fairly slow 40 minute plod, I find myself wondering where I might end up, and decide to bail out at the next point that looks like it might have a few shops (I'm in need of a cuppa if I can find one) and an alternative route to this one.
I bail out into a pretty village that has a coffee shop - result! As the kind of person who plans all my travels far, far ahead, I use the opportunity to book my train ticket back to London for the next morning!
I'm not even sure exactly where I am, but it turns out to be a place called Davidson's Mains. Wikipedia suggests that this former village was named after William Davidson, a wealthy merchant who bought Muirhouse, east of the district, in 1776. A "mains" is simply an estate farm or home farm.
There are some lovely old cottages on Main Street.
ABOVE: Main Street, Davidson's Mains
From here I am going to catch the 47 bus, which really does go into the City Centre! This runs broadly every 20 minutes, though the 1644 hasn't gone when I reach the stop at 1650, and two buses are being promised in close succession by the real-time information, in about 15 minutes' time. A bus eventually arrives at 1706 (no idea if it's the 1644 or the 1704 - the other one is reportedly close behind)!
The bus is a Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB, one of Lothian's extended tri-axles, which gives me a chance to appreciate the extra length of the vehicle. There are 52 seats on the top deck and 29 downstairs (a standard London MMC seats about 41 up and 23 down). And, in case you're wondering, these are dual-door vehicles, unlike most Lothian Buses.
There are dual TV screens again on this vehicle, which really reduces what would otherwise be a decent panoramic view out of the front. However, this bus also has skylights, so we can always admire the clouds instead of the view ahead?
ABOVE: Two TV screens restrict forward vision. Surely some pertinent information could be presented out of ONE screen of half the depth? Note the skylight above. This is the junction of Queensferry Road with Craigleith Road.
The 47 is a straight-forward run into Edinburgh CIty Centre from the north-west suburbs. We're in the heart of the rush hour now and progress, at times, is slow. The bus is busy at times but not rammed - the extra capacity of this extra-long vehicle may be helping here.
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 1124 (SJ19 OZC), a Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB, crosses the busy Hillhouse Road / Strachan Road junction in Blackhall
It's only a 22-minute run into the City Centre, and I'm soon back at Shandwick Place, where this time the 44 is the route I want. Another 22 minutes brings me back to Duddingston Mills, jounrney's end, where I left my hotel some ten-and-a-half hours before.
This is not quite the end of my Edinburgh account, though. A few days before the main event, whilst staying in Glasgow, I have come into the city on Lothian Country Buses route X27 from Bathgate via Livingstone, a run of around 21 miles. Bathgate is around halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh and this ride lasts one hour and 52 minutes.
Lothian Country is a subsidiary of Lothian Buses and operates longer-distance routes out of Edinburgh (as does East Coast Buses, another subsidiary). There's a Day Ticket that covers all three operations, as well as Edinburgh Trams. The only problem is that my X27 driver can't immediately find it on his machine (here we go again)... It takes so long that I offer to buy a single into Edinburgh, but he perseveres and does eventually find the Day Ticket for me. How much time we lose going through all this I'm not sure.
Legroom in the front upstairs seats of the Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3s used on this route is cramped, and it's quite an uncomfortable journey into the city for that reason. But, in every other respect, it's a lovely, scenic ride.
ABOVE: Lothian Contry Buses 590 (SJ67 MHF), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, is somewhere in the Deans area of Livingston, on Friday 8 September 2023. In the background, ADL Enviro400 YX62 BKF works a journey on an Eastern Scottish route. McGill's ran Eastern Scottish, after taking over from First Scotland East in 2022. But the company couldn't make it pay, and withdrew from the area later in autumn 2023.
It's a lovely city, Edinburgh, and I need to come back and do some of the Lothian routes from end-to-end - and some more of the longer routes of its subsidiaries. With the exception of route 22, and (almost) route 12, I have not done any end-to-end routes at all today. But it's been a lovely visit!
ABOVE: Lothian Buses 1110 (SJ19 OYM) shows off the additional length of the Volvo B8L ADL Enviro400XLB, when seen at Foot of the Walk in Leith on Friday 8 September 2023.
The approximate routing described in Parts 1 & 2 of this article is as below. Route 22 (subject of a separate article) is not shown here, and nor is route X27 from Bathgate, the inclusion of which would drastically affect the scale of the map! For more of a perspective of Lothian bus routes across the city of Edinburgh, see the operator's Network Map.
