A need for tagging luggage?
Posted on November 17, 2008
Reading time: 2 minutes.
I was in Scotland over the weekend and made use Scottish Citylink’s coach services like I have done on a lot of previous trips up there. I can report pleasant experiences from using them on this time around but noticed something new: being asked to tag the rucksack that I had with me with name and address so that it could be identified later. This was a new one on me and the tag that I was given had both Scottish Citylink and Megabus branding so my guess is that it applies to both companies. In an age where a lot of luggage can look alike, any time spent at an airport carousel awaiting your bag or case will confirm this, you can see their point. Even so, National Express don’t seem to be bothering with such requirements for now anyway and I have never carried luggage on coaches, buses or trains that I couldn’t easily pick out afterwards. The pretty anonymous looking cases that I tend to use for airline travel are another matter entirely.
As it happened, I made two different journeys with Citylink and was only asked to tag luggage for one of them. The first journey made was from Glasgow to Ardlui and the second from Butterbridge (between Cairndow and Rest and Be Thankful) to Glasgow with a walk through hill country sandwiched between both of these. The outbound trip from Glasgow was operated for Citylink by Stagecoach and the return one used West Coast Motors as the contractor (hurrah for the sensible resolution to the summertime bus war). That luggage tagging was only mentioned for the outbound service might be because I was getting on the coach at Buchanan Bus Station and I was hailing the other coach from the side of the road in damper weather, hardly the sort of circumstances for ensuring compliance with the rigours of due process and procedure. Even so, the need to have you luggage tagged for Citylink and Megabus is still something to keep in mind, even if it isn’t applied consistently or other operators such as National Express don’t bother with the requirement.