A Tricentrol tribute

With my interest in the present-day bus and coach scene on the wane, I've started researching some of the many firms who used to ply their trade in my area but are sadly no longer with us. Very little evidence of the group's existence now remains and younger readers may never have heard of them as they went out of business about 30 years ago, but throughout the 1970s Tricentrol was one of the biggest and most familiar names in Bedfordshire and beyond. The Tricentrol empire was a substantial business, comprising not just a large fleet of coaches but also many other ventures in the car sales and truck industries managed from the head office in Dunstable, but has now vanished almost without trace.

I'm too young to have ever actually seen any Tricentrol vehicles in the flesh and not much has been written about the coaching side of the business, so this article has been compiled from PSV Circle records and contemporary news reports and there may be some inaccuracies as a result. Special thanks go to Frans Angevaare from the Netherlands for allowing use of photos from his extensive collection.  Read on for more on the rise and fall of Tricentrol...

A typical Tricentrol Bedford in London on one of the express services
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

The name Tricentrol is an acronym for Trinidad Central Oil, and the expansion into other ventures was apparently a means of offsetting the massive tax bills incurred by the oil division, as well as proving a useful diversification during the fuel crisis. They moved into the vehicle industry in the early seventies with the purchase of Luton Commercial Motors, a large Ford car, truck and bus dealership well known throughout Bedfordshire. Although primarily a dealer, LCM also held an operator's licence and were running a pair of Transit minibuses, a small low-key start to what would become a dominant name in the Midlands truck and bus industry. The bus and coach sales division was renamed Tricentrol PSV Sales while the engineering side became Tricentrol Chassis Developments, and from these humble beginnings an unprecedented large modern coach fleet would rapidly emerge and dramatically shake up the local scene.

From humble beginnings - a Tricentrol Transit conversion supplied to another operator
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

The first step into full-size coach operation appears to have come from the takeover of the long-established Leighton Buzzard-based Buckmaster Garages, but unfortunately I can't find the date when this happened. Buckmaster had a sister company, formed in 1968 and oddly named Milton Keynes Coaches despite never actually being based in the New City or even in the same county! I don't know when Buckmaster closed but Milton Keynes Coaches would become the last surviving part of the Tricentrol coach empire. In addition to these fleets, Tricentrol Truck Hire operated a small number of Transit minibuses alongside their trucks until 1975, and Tricentrol PSV Sales also had an operator's licence as the successor to Luton Commercial Motors.

Travel House was just one of many established operators swallowed up by Tricentrol
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

The coach division quickly expanded by taking over the Bedfordshire operations of the Coventry-based Bunty group, comprising Travel House (Luton) Ltd, formerly known as Dunstable Coaches and H&H Motorways, and G.E. Costin Ltd. These were immediately rebranded as Tricentrol with a new tan and white livery, and the Costin company was formally renamed Tricentrol Coaches Ltd in 1975. Tricentrol owned numerous properties throughout Bedfordshire and the coach companies were registered at various different addresses, but the main depot was a large site in Tavistock Street, Dunstable, with Harold Baggott as Managing Director.

Cosmos are still with us but Tricentrol disappeared over 35 years ago
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

Expanding the empire

Further expansion outside of the Luton and Dunstable area saw the purchase in the early seventies of North Star Travel of Stevenage, Halls Silverline of Hounslow, and two Leicestershire fleets, Housden-Caldwell Coaches of Loughborough (with a second depot in Coalville) and G. Howlett & Son of Quorn, with all of these receiving the tan livery and Tricentrol fleet names. Adding to the bewildering number of Tricentrol subsidiaries operating PSVs, a new company called Tourmaster Coaches Ltd appeared in 1978 and Tricentrol Chassis Developments also briefly held a licence to operate a couple of their self-built Ford A-series minibuses.

All group companies used the same livery - the Stevenage blind is a clue that this one was with North Star
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

Almost all vehicles were Bedfords or Fords with Plaxton or Duple bodies, ranging from 12-seat Transits to the 57-seat Bedford YMT developed in-house, and a regular influx of brand new coaches sourced through the group dealership kept all the fleets up to date. There were very few exceptions, mostly inherited through takeovers: Silverline had a 26-seat AEC Reliance executive coach and an open-top Bristol KSW, both transferred to Dunstable, and later bought some of London Transport's ill-fated AEC Merlins. The 1980s saw a switch to DAF products, with a small batch of Caetano-bodied MB200s alongside DAF-engined Bova Europas and Futuras, and the last new purchase of all was a solitary Volvo B10M.

A rare exception in the Bedford and Ford-dominated fleet
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

 

A household name

Tricentrol became a household name in the late seventies, being a title sponsor not only of Luton Town Football Club but also the British Saloon Car Championship for several years. They certainly expanded far beyond their beginnings in the oil industry with a large car and commercial vehicle dealership - although best known for Vauxhall and Ford in Bedfordshire, they also had a Datsun franchise in Lowestoft and possibly others too. There was a truck hire operation, a 24-hour service station on the A5 at Hockliffe and a coach recovery and replacement service provided to other operators who suffered breakdowns on the local motorways. In addition, something I didn't know until recently was that outside of the vehicle industry Tricentrol also owned a chain of garden centres that are still in business under the Wyevale name.

Tricentrol PSV Sales sold surplus fleet vehicles far and wide. This one ended up in Aberdeenshire.
(Photo: Peter Findlay)

All that was on top of the engineering business and the substantial coach operation, whose fleet rapidly increased to around a hundred vehicles that became a familiar sight all over the country and in mainland Europe, often working under contract to large tour companies such as Cosmos and sometimes carrying the tour operator's name in addition to their own. The group operated a network of express services, along with private hire and tour work both in the UK and overseas, with even the old Bristol making it all the way to the Netherlands on an enthusiasts' tour in 1980.

Tricentrol did a lot of holiday work for Cosmos with dedicated vehicles
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

There was always a fierce rivalry between Tricentrol and Luton's other major coach operator Seamarks, with both no doubt benefiting not only from the huge growth in package holiday flights from the town's airport but also from the sudden collapse in 1974 of Court Line, the Luton-based airline who also ran a large coach fleet. In hindsight, perhaps they over-expanded and the group's eventual demise was inevitable given the sheer number of businesses and activities involved, particularly following deregulation of the coach industry in 1980.

The competition! Seamarks were Tricentrol's arch-rival and ran similar vehicles
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

 

Feats of engineering

Tricentrol Chassis Developments, based at Leighton Buzzard, were the engineering arm of the group. They continued the minibus conversions of Transit vans that had been started by Luton Commercial Motors and developed a smart coachbuilt body for the Ford A-series. More interesting were the chassis developments for which the company was named: they devised an inclined engine conversion for the Ford R-series that provided better access for passengers, and shortened both Bedford and Ford coaches to 8 metres for operators wanting a 35-seater, all of these finding a ready market.

A baby Bedford converted by Chassis Developments

The most innovative was their extended Bedford YMT, the first 12-metre long Bedford coach ever built, which predated the manufacturer's own Venturer by some eight years. The extra metre allowed another row of seats and a useful capacity increase to 57 passengers compared with the 53 of a standard factory YMT, and the prototype (RGS 598R) entered service with Tricentrol Coaches in 1977 and happily survives in preservation. This was always a niche product though with only a few built, mostly for the group's own fleets, and the majority of Tricentrol's many YMTs were normal 11-metre versions.

The prototype 12-metre Bedford has survived

Being the local operator and dealer, Tricentrol naturally had a close relationship with Vauxhall Motors, who would often place their demonstrators and development vehicles with Tricentrol fleets for in-service testing. These included the prototype of the underfloor-engined YRQ (YXE 844H), and the one-off Duple Goldliner-bodied YMT testbed (JKX 742N), both of which were operated for several years on extended loan from the manufacturer. Tricentrol PSV Sales supplied huge numbers of vehicles throughout the decade, not just to the group's own fleets but to countless other operators around the country, and acted as a disposal route for those same vehicles a few years later, so coaches registered by Tricentrol in Luton soon ended up spread far and wide.

The unique Bedford Goldliner running for Tricentrol in 1981
(Photo: Nick Doolan collection)

Exit Tricentrol, enter Tourmaster

I don't know if it was a result of a buyout or simply a rebranding exercise but the Tricentrol name disappeared in 1982, when the vehicle dealerships became Trimoco (Tricentrol Motor Company) and Chassis Developments dropped the Tricentrol part of its name. Travel House and Tricentrol Coaches closed down and all the remaining coach operations were rebranded as Tourmaster, still using the same livery and fleet name font. At this time these comprised Tourmaster Coaches, Milton Keynes Coaches, North Star, Howletts and Housden-Caldwell, but the Stevenage operation would close shortly afterwards.

A new livery for the eighties. The Tricentrol name would soon be replaced by Tourmaster.
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

By 1987, what was left of the much-reduced coach business had been consolidated at Tavistock Street on the Milton Keynes Coaches licence, with the Leicestershire operations closing and the Tourmaster licence surrendered. Just over a year later this was bought out by Luton & District, putting an end to coach operation by the Tricentrol Group. Many of the newer vehicles had been disposed of before this happened, with only the two Bova Europas absorbed into the L&D fleet and half a dozen surviving Bedfords being sold off without use. The core oil business was taken over by Arco in 1988 and that was the end of Tricentrol, who in the space of less than two decades had grown into a major force in the coach industry and then withered down to nothing.

A 1982 advert featuring a Bova and the new Tourmaster name
(via Kevin Lane on Flickr)

The Tricentrol legacy

Tricentrol may have disappeared three decades ago, but evidence of their legacy can still be found in the area if you know where to look. Chassis Developments are still in business at Leighton Buzzard; they continued to build minibus bodies until recently, mostly on Ford Transits for the welfare sector, and many of these can still be seen on the road. I don't know what happened to the Trimoco dealership operation, but there was a disused railway bridge in Luton town centre still proudly advertising Fords from Trimoco until it was finally demolished when the Luton and Dunstable Busway was built quite recently.

Chassis Developments carried on building bus bodies for Ford Transits into the 2000s

The Tavistock Street depot was taken over by Luton & District and after a short period as an outstation of Luton garage was given full depot status in 1989. It remained in use into the Arriva era, finally closed when the new head office at Dunstable Road, Luton, opened in the early 2000s and is now used by the council to house its dustcarts. The former Buckmaster premises in North Street, Leighton Buzzard, were later occupied by Marshalls Coaches before they moved to their current site on an out-of-town industrial estate, and the most obvious of Tricentrol's properties still in use are of course the Wyevale garden centres.

Keith Costin ran this Duple Laser for many years

Keith Costin left the family business after it became Tricentrol Coaches and set up as an owner-driver trading as Keith Costin Travel, continuing as such with a couple of vehicles until the early 2000s. Meanwhile, Tricentrol's depot manager had been a chap called Dave Dinsey, who briefly operated in Luton on his own account as Dinsey Car Hire in the mid eighties. After a period in the fire service he then moved to Crowland in the Lincolnshire Fens and started a new fleet there under the familiar name of Tourmaster Coaches. With a distinctive white, turquoise and red livery and fleet names in the same font used by Tricentrol, this company is still alive and well to this day as the most obvious successor to the Tricentrol empire.

Tourmaster of Crowland, today's spiritual successor to Tricentrol Coaches

Although Tricentrol disappeared in 1988 and are now largely forgotten, in their relatively brief existence they certainly had a dramatic effect on the coaching landscape of the Midlands, not only by swallowing up so many established companies but also through their dealership arm supplying countless vehicles to operators large and small. As far as I know, only one vehicle operated by Tricentrol (the prototype 12m Bedford) survives in preservation, and it's a great shame that so little remains of this once familiar and innovative empire. The coach scene in Bedfordshire would certainly have been very different indeed had Tricentrol not existed and I hope I have gone some way to explaining their significance here.

The only ex-Tricentrol vehicle I've ever seen in service, this Bova had served with Milton Keynes Coaches and found its way back to Bedfordshire with A to B Travel around 2001