Wombwell depot and Yorkshire Traction history (Read 7,061 times)

[foxydebs]

The Yorkshire Traction Company Limited was formed in 1902 and was originally called The Barnsley & District Electric Traction Company Limited. It operated trams around the Barnsley locality until around 1930. In 1928, prior to the trams being withdrawn, the company title changed from the Barnsley & District Traction Company Limited (the 'electric' part of the name being dropped some years earlier).
Wombwell depot opened in 1923 and was previously a tram and trolleybus depot before becoming a bus depot. Locally it was known as "Car Barns".

'Tracky' - as the company became affectionately referred to - was sold in 1986 by the then Tory Government in 1986 to a management team lead by Frank Carter. Until selling the business to Stagecoach on 14 December 2005, Carter expanded the business by purchasing other operators including:

Barnsley & District ( which was formed in July 1990 when Traction bought the bus business of Tom Jowitt Travel of Tankersley)
Yorkshire Terrier
Andrews (Sheffield) Ltd
Lincolnshire RoadCar Company
Lincoln City Transport
South Riding
Strathtay
Methans

Yorkshire Traction bus depot in Barnsley (head office) and its subsidiaries were owned by The Traction Group, which was owned by Frank Carter, together with small shares owned by a Carter Family Trust and employees who worked for the company when it underwent privatisation.

In December 1999, bus drivers, engineers and clerical staff united on the picket lines in their battle over pay with Barnsley based Yorkshire Traction buses. Around 567 workers across west and south Yorkshire joined in the one day official strike. Workers had rejected his latest 2.7 percent pay offer by 474 to 83 votes and had voted by six to one to strike.
In 1994 the workers held a ballot to strike over pay. The boss of Yorkshire Traction, Frank Carter, sent letters to each worker threatening to sack them if they took action. "Unfortunately it frightened staff enough to withdraw the action," said David Levitt, the branch chair of the workers' TGWU union at the time.

There were picket lines across depots in Barnsley, Wombwell Huddersfield, Doncaster and Rawmarsh. The picket line at Shafton, near Barnsley was close to the Grimethorpe pit that shut under the Tories' mass pit closure plan of 1992. A number of those sacked miners then went to work on the buses for yorkshire traction.

One of them said, "Carter can get away with paying low wages because there is high unemployment in the area. He divides everybody with the pay rates. This is the first time everybody's been united. We're all just fed up with the conditions."

Yorkshire Traction management used managers and inspectors to take out around 15 buses from the Barnsley depot. This enraged the 40 picketers there, who stood in front of each bus and shouted, "Scab!" Several eggs were thrown at windscreens by the picketers.

The drivers on the lowest rate were drivers contracted by Yorkshire Traction to drive long haul journeys for National Express coaches. They got as little as £3.70 an hour basic pay - only just above the minimum wage. Another driver said, "I get £138 for 38 hours flat. I've got to put in six days a week to get a decent wage."

The solid strike cost Carter £120,000 for each strike day as services across west and south Yorkshire were hit.
Since privatisation Carter built up a lucrative bus empire, Carter tried to intimidate the strikers by attempting to victimise three picketers at Yorkshire Traction's Rawmarsh depot. The best way for the union leadership to fight any attack on the strikers is to step up the action.

Wombwell depot's last day of operation was 28th July 2000. The majority of drivers transferred to either Rawmarsh or Barnsley depots, although 1 driver went to Doncaster depot and 2 drivers went to Shafton depot. At the time when Wombwell shut there was approximately 100 staff employed there including drivers, fitters, clerical staff and canteen staff. No drivers or fitters were made redundant when the depot closed, only clericaql staff and canteen staff. The canteen staff were made redundant as they were not actually employed by yorkshire traction they were paid for by the depot's sports and social club.
The vehicles of which there were approximately 30 left and routes were shared out between Doncaster, Rawmarsh and Barnsley depots.

Source of information: - Stephen Greaves (Foxydebs Dad) - ex ytc driver of 25 years.

[busman3]

Question : wasnt the barnsley and district operation part of the shearings group who were running services in Barnsley ?

[foxydebs]

Not from what my dad remembers, although you may be right, when i speak to him again will have to try to remember to ask him, if i mention it, it may joke his memory.

[foxydebs]

Phoned my dad earlier and as far as he remembers shearings did not have any involvement with barnsley and district. Have got some info on old routes that the depot ran, which i will post when i have chance.

[busman3]

Sorry but shearings were definatley operating in Barnsley and the competitton ended when traky bought them out end of 1980's I suspect

[foxydebs]

It was jowitt travel that barnsley and district were involved with, when i get the information together about it i will post it.

[manclad]

Shearings, to my knowledge, weren't bought by Tracky, it was Tom Jowetts. They then became Barnsley & Districts. Shearings operations were around 1990-1991 and prompted Yorkshire Tractions "Economy Link" low fares experiment.

[foxydebs]

Manclad that is the info i have too. My grandma remembers shearings operating a few routes but cant remember any b&d involvement. Although she remembers jowitt travel and a lot of their vehicles disappearing when b&d came on the scene and she has lived in barnsley most her life. Anyway off to barnsley library in a bit for her, so will see if I can find any info to back this up.

[steve2006]

Just did a quick search on fotopic and I found 3 pictures to back up that Shearings did indeed run in Barnsley.

community.fotopic.net/search/simple.php?txt=shearings+Barnsley&action.x=0&action.y=0&action=Go&tab=P

[manclad]

Nice to see those photo's Steve. I was only about 7 at the time but remember these buses and the Nationals they used aswell. Believe it or not, some of the vehicles had "rotating" flip dot displays giving a via point. The technology was pretty slow at the time though.

I knew they operated Kendray and Athersley services (amongst others) but looking at the route numbers on those vehicles (first pic) it looks like these were cross town routes.

[foxydebs]

Shearings did operate services in barnsley, i was not disputing that, what i was disputing their involvement with barnsley and district buses, which were originally jowitt travel before ytc took them over. Shearings did have a depot on huddersfield rd and so did jowitts, so this may be where the confusion occurs.

[busman3]

Apears to be a bit of confusion Iam not saying that shearings were involved with B&D I bleieve that after shearings were taken over the the workings were done by B&D when I have the time ha ha ha ha ha I will try and look them up

[mick]

Thanks for publishing that foxy, that will come in great handy, I don't suppose you could compile a similar list for Rawmarsh depot could you if it's not too much trouble?

[foxydebs]

Pm me what you want to know about rawmarsh and when i speak to my dad i will see what info i can get off him about rawmarsh depot.

[busman3]

I was trying this afternoon to find out some of the shearings information unfortunatley some of the m&t news in the library have been bound out of order so therefore I couldnt work it through , however one bit of info i did pick up which could be of use was that the PTE took control of Barnsley bus station from 6th December 1998