In 1961 Scotlands biggest bus company W Alexander & Sons of Falkirk was divided into three separate businesses. A new Midland company took over what had been the southern area of the business & retained Alexanders blue livery & its Falkirk head office. It operated local services to the north & east of Glasgow & in Stirling Falkirk Alloa Perth & Oban. It also operated inter-urban services throughout this area & to Edinburgh & Dundee. Operations in Fife passed to a new Fife company with local services throughout the region & long-distance services to Glasgow. The Fife company had around 500 buses & adopted a new livery of Ayres red. It established its head office in Kirkcaldy. Alexanders northern region became the new Northern company. Its operations covered the east of Scotland from Dundee to the Moray Firth. As well as a comprehensive network of services throughout the area it had limited local operations in Dundee & Aberdeen & ran long-distance services south to Glasgow & east to Inverness. For the following 24 years the three companies operating territories remained largely unchanged. Each of them acquired many of the small number of independent bus operators in their areas as the 1960s progressed. The Scottish Bus Group was reorganised in June 1985 & this affected two of the Alexander companies. Midland lost its Glasgow area operations to a new company Kelvin while its operations in Perthshire went to another new company Strathtay. Northern lost its operations in & around Tayside to the new Strathtay business reducing the Northern fleet from 320 to 250 buses. Fife was unaffected by the changes. They were privatised in 1990-91 when Midland was sold to GRT Holdings & continues today as part of First Group. Northern & Fife were sold to Stagecoach which would later also acquire Strathtay. This book outlines the Alexander story in its early years then examines the effect of the split in the company in 1961 & the following years up to privatisation. It also
Includes:: a postscript looking briefly at the vehicles inherited by Stagecoach & First & at the former Alexander operations as they are today. Alongside various colour photographs the book will also features tables showing a summary by vehicle type of the three fleets in 1961 1985 & at the time of privatisation & a map copied from a 1960s timetable to illustrate the extent of the three companies operating areas.