First Scotrail improvements

Effective with the new winter timetables on December 9th, First Scotrail are improving Sunday services between Stirling and Glasgow Queen Street. The new service will depart Stirling hourly from 1025 til 2125, returning at 1015 through to 2215.
In addition, Dunblane-Edinburgh services will resume through service to Newcraighall from the same date.

First Rail to Manchester

First's TransPennine Express will be crossing the border, from 9th December, when they start new services from both Glasgow Central & Edinburgh to Manchester and Manchester Airport.
Services will leave Glasgow at 0640, 0840 & 1340 weekdays, and from Edinburgh at 0821, 1152, 1552 & 1752. Journey times are just under 3 1/2 hrs. There are also 3 return journeys from Edinburgh & 1 from Glasgow on Sundays.
Fares start at £15 each way.

Late 78 changes

From October 29th Stagecoach service 78 journeys between Stirling- Dunfermline will be rerouted in Valleyfield. at the same time, the last two journeys from Dunfermline will leave later than at present, ie: 2220 to Clackmannan & 2320 to Kincardine.

Stagecoach express improvements

Stagecoach have announced increased capacity on it's express services from Fife to Edinbugh & Glasgow. Existing services X24 & X26 will be retimed, and together with new X27 will provide a bus every 20 minutes weekdays, and half hourly on Sundays from Dunfermline & Kincardine to Glasgow. First service will now arrive in Glasgow at 7.45am, and late buses depart Glasgow at 2255 and 0030 hrs. A combination of services will result in at least 8 buses an hour from Ferrytoll to Edinburgh. The new services commence on October 29th

Denny service cut

Following Goosecroft's departure from the route, First are abandoning their Service 139: Denny - Stirling ,with effect from Saturday 18th August 2007. They had operated a daytime hourly service on the route.

Open Day at Bus Museum

This weekend, The Scottish Vintage Bus Museum at Lathalmond, north of Dunfermline, are having their annual Open Weekend. Open 10am-5pm each day.

Gartarry diversions

Roadworks near the Gartarry roadworks on the A907 this weekend is expected to cause severe disruption to travwl in the area. As a result bus services between Alloa and Kincardine are affected.
From a very complicated report on the Traveline website, it would appear that on Saturday & Sunday, 18th & 19th August, Stagecoach service 78 Dunfermline-Stirling will operate direct from Kincardine-Stirling via the Kincardine Bridge.
First Service 15 (Falkirk-Alloa Bowhouse/Stirling) will operate on Friday and Saturday night, and all day Sunday, but wont serve Clackmannan on journeys beginning in Alloa. A seperate bus will operate Alloa-Kennett. During the day on Saturday, Service 15 will only operate between Stirling - Kennett, and between Kincardine- Falkirk, at scheduled times.

First (or not at all)

First Edinburgh have offered sincere apologies to customers for the recent disruption to some bus journeys in the Forth Valley. A number of services in Falkirk, Stirling, West Lothian and Midlothian areas have been affected.The company claim that this has been due to an engineering review of the fleet to improve services in the longer term.
Passengers have waged a letter campaign in the local press, and the Dept of Transport are considering what action can be taken against the company.

Alva diversion

Shavelhaugh Loan, between Fishcross & Alva, has been closed from until mid November to facilitate repair works to the Shavelhaugh Bridge.
This will result in Wee County Boarder Services 65/65A between Glenochil and Alva being diverted during the period via Brook Street. This means that stops on East Stirling Street wont be observed

Coles change direction

Falkirk based Coles Coaches are to terminate their recently introduced CC1 Service.Falkirk-Stirling via Grangemouth Road, M9 and St Ninians on 12 June.From the same date, they will introduced a new X81 service from Falkirk Tech to Banknock Coneypark.

Goosecroft changes direction

Goosecroft Coaches have registered a new route from Dunipace to Cumbernauld via Denny,Bonnybridge & Allandale, which will operate as Service 124. The service begins on May 7th. Meanwhile, their GC1 service between Falkirk and Denny will be cancelled from May 25th andf their GM3 service from Grangemouth-Dennywill end 25th June

Kinross service to end ?

First are to stop their Sunday only route 69 service between Stirling & Kinross market, with the last journey being on 27th May.As the journeys are supported by Clackmannanshire Council, another operator may carry on theservice.

Blue Bus To Oban

Blue Bus, based in Shotts, Lanarkshire will begin a new limited stop service 700 on 28th May, operating between Edinburgh (Waterloo Place) and Oban, via Livingston, Stirling, Callander & Crianlarich. The service will operate Monday-Friday only.

Rerouted in Raploch

As fromMonday 16 April Drip Road,Raploch has been closed, and buses are following diversions as follows:
All bus services except First 57 and Scottish Citylink will operate the normal route to Drip Road at its junction with Glendevon Drive then via Glendevon Drive, Huntly Crescent and Raploch Road to Drip Road, then as per normal route.
First Service 57 will operate the normal route via Ferguson Street and Woodside Road but instead of turning into Drip Road, will continue via Glendevon Drive, Huntly Crescent and Raploch Road to the Fire Station then vice versa.
Scottish Citylink will continue to serve the coach stops at and opposite 184 Drip Road, Raploch.

Stirling Station car park closure

On Tuesday 17 April 2007, the south station (public) car park at Stirling railway station will close and a temporary replacement car park will be available at Forthside.The closure of the south car park is necessary to allow access for the construction of a new pedestrian bridge linking the Forthside development, to the rear of the railway station, with the City Centre. Construction work is expected to last around 40 weeks.
Stirling Council will operate the temporary car park at Forthside, whichwill open on Monday 16 April 2007 with 24 hour access everyday. Access to the Forthside car park will be sign posted.
There will be a daily charge of £3.50 per day and Pay and Display machines will be located in the car park. Rail users will be able to access the station direct from Forthside.
The Forthside entrance will be open everyday for train services arriving and departing the station.
Between 0630-2330 (Monday to Saturday) and 0700-2315 (Sunday) rail staff will be on duty at the Forthside entrance to sell daily rail tickets. Weekly tickets can also be renewed. Other tickets can be obtained at the station Travel Centre.
Monthly or longer Season Tickets, together with reservations, can only be obtained at the Travel Centre. Season Ticket HoldersThe north car park at Stirling station, used by rail Season Ticket holders in possession of a car park Season Ticket, is unaffected and will remain open.

Last Alloa-Glasgow link lost

M-Line's CX1 express service from Alloa to Glasgow runs for the last time this Friday, April 6th. The service, the last direct bus service from Clackmannanshire to Glasgow, has run for the past 16 years, mainly carrying Weir Group employees from Alloa, Stirling and Castlecary to the Cathcart works. Once operated by 74 seater Skyliners, the service has been reduced to a transit minibus in recent times, and the number of passengers left just doesn't justify the service continuing.

First 57 diversion in St Ninians

Until 0800 hours on the 30th of May 2007 there will be a temporary closure of Cultenhove Road,St.Ninians from its junction with Cultenhove Crescent to its junction with Campbell Court in order to facilitate drainage works. During the closure First service 57 will operate as follows: Normal route to Cultenhove Road (at its junction with Wallstale Road) then via Wallstale Road, William Booth Place, MacDonald Drive, Cultenhove Road then via normal route.

Kinross Park & Ride

Kinross has a new Park & Ride system, and will be served by all routes, including Citylink express services and Stagecoach 23 service. As a result, there will be slight changes to the Stirling-St.Andrews timteable from April 16th.

Train links for Kincardine

Stagecoach are making a few changes on April 16th, which will improve rail links for Kincardine and West Fife.
The 0653 Service 71 journey from Kincardine- Inverkeithing is being retimed by 5 minutes to allow interchange with 0743 Virgin Express journey to Edinburgh.
Meanwhile, on Service 74 (Dunfermline- Falkirk) the 0718, 1723 & 1843 Kincardine – Falkirk journeys are extended to Falkirk High Station to allow for onward travel to Edinburgh. Return journeys at 0742,1750 & 1907will begin from Falkirk High Station.
Other journeys on Service 74 now extend to the Falkirk Wheel via Newmarket Street, and will only serve Falkirk Bus Station on return (Fife bound) journeys.

First changes in April Services X19,X37,X39,190

First have a few small timetable changes effective in early April.
Service X19 (Falkirk-Grangemouth-Edinburgh) sees the 0915 ex Grangemouth and 1105 and 1305 journeys from Falkirk retimed to opearate 5 minutes earlier Monday-Friday. The 1015 departure from Edinburgh (Mon-Fri) and all journeys on Saturdays will leave 10 minutes later than previous. Full details in the new Central Scotland-Edinburgh booklet.
Due to extentions in journey times between Cumbernauld & Glasgow, First services X37 from Falkirk & X39 from Stirling have revised timetables, as does SErvice 190 (Camelon-Falkirk)

Stirling-Alloa-Falkirk Evening & Weekend connections

Although their timetables dont advertise the fact, you can still travel from Stirling to destinations beyond Alloa in the evenings and on Sundays, despite First's Service 15 only operating Falkirk- Bowhouse (during the day, the service extends to Stirling via Cambus).
The off peak journeys connect with First's 62/63 services to/from Stirling, with only a few minutes connection in Alloa. Evening journeys leave Stirling at 5 miutes past the hour, and on Sundays at 20 minutes to the hour (remember Service 15 leaves Alloa at 4 minutes past the ODD hour from 1104 to 2104.

Travelling in the Forth Valley

Welcome to the Travel Forth blog !

Here, we'll keep you up to date with changes to public transport services in the Forth Valley.