Dumfries and Galloway Independents

Dumfries and Galloway, the historic counties of Dumfriesshire, the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Wigtownshire, is a largely rural area of south west Scotland. The main operator in the area since the 1950s was the nationalised Western SMT company but a few independents held out and continued to run stage services alongside their coaches. Independent operations, however, were on a small scale. Deregulation in October 1986 allowed many more independent operators to register routes in the area, and local authority tenders are often worked by these companies as well. Famous names such as Gibson's, Carruthers, Blue Band and Leith were later joined by newcomers such as MacEwan's, Dickson's, Houston's and McCall's in services to towns such as Dumfries, Stranraer, Moffat and Lockerbie as well as to places outside Dumfries and Galloway like Glasgow and Ayr.