Associated Motorways

Associated Motorways was a consortium of scheduled coach service operators that provided a network of services mainly centred on a connecting hub at Cheltenham Spa, Gloucestershire.

Associated Motorways never operated any vehicles of its own. Services were operated by the individual member companies using coaches in their own fleet livery.

By the Summer of 1934 the consortium comprised Red and White, Midland Red, Greyhound Motors (later Bristol Tramways re-named the Bristol Omnibus Company), Royal Blue (Elliot Brothers), United Counties and Black and White Motorways, the latter company owning the coach station at Cheltenham fundamental to the hub/interchange operated for around 50 years.

The six members later grew to eight in the mid-1950s with the addition of the Lincolnshire Road Car Company and the Eastern Counties Road Car Company. Crosville joined in the 1960s and Southdown in 1972. All these companies became subsidiaries of the National Bus Company in 1969 and when National Travel was formed in the early 1970s the Associated Motorways pool was no longer necessary and so ceased to be.

The Cheltenham hub also included services of some non-consortium operators most notably the famous independent Yelloway Motor Services of Rochdale which diverted its Rochdale to Torquay service into Cheltenham from August 1936. Ribble Motor Services was another both Ribble and Yelloway came to operate daily services into Cheltenham from the North West of England. Other operators became involved with services operated jointly with Associated Motorways in later years.

For those interested in the history of the consortium and how it functioned I can recommend the book published by Venture Publications in its Prestige Series, ‘Associated Motorways’ by Keith Healey published in 2002.

Associated Motorways was a consortium of scheduled coach service operators that provided a network of services mainly centred on a connecting hub at Cheltenham Spa, Gloucestershire. Associated Motorways never operated any vehicles of its own. Services were operated by the individual member companies using coaches in their own fleet livery. By the Summer of 1934 the consortium comprised Red and …  (read more)

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