The timetable illustrated from this Lincolnshire operator is undated, but would come from before 1962 as the town service from Grantham to Earlesfield Estate started in that year is not included. Some of the timetables shown below have a rather odd imbalance of timings, this is because of shared operations with the other operators (eg Road Car and the other operator then based in Gonerby, Pulfrey, who operated between Grantham and Newark via Gonerby). The timetable cover has a hand written note that the Road Car route 19 has co-ordinated timings with Reliance on the Barrowby route. Much housing growth occured over the years in the Dysart Road area, which was traversed by this route.
Turning to the more recent story of the town services in and around Grantham, the Reliance business was acquired by Mass Transit of Sheffield in mid-2003. They opened a new depot in Tollemache Road in spring 2004 and extended from the original Reliance routes by taking over some of the Road Car services from 31 May. The Road Car depot in Grantham closed on 31st May following a dispute with staff over union recognition, although Road Car still worked routes into Grantham from their Lincoln and Newark depots. Operations by Mass proved to be unreliable and was the cause of much public complaint; they withdrew because of their deteriorating financial situation and with hindsight may well have over-reached themselves.
From 12th January
2005
the Grantham town services passed to CentreBus,
an operator with other
networks in Leciestershire, Hertfordshire and Derbyshireand St Albans. The
Grantham services were rationalised to a core operation of viable services (some
of the areas of the town do seem to have been overprovided at
times) and continue as such at the time of writing in January 2009.
