Bus route to Dounreay altered due to potholed road
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Complaints from bus passengers about a parlous, pothole-stricken stretch of road west of Thurso has led to Stagecoach altering the route.
Dounreay worker Robbie Falconer led the protests about the "boneshaking" return journey from his home village in Halkirk to the former nuclear plant.
The concern was relayed by Dounreay public transport managers to the bus company which has now changed the Route 275 from Latheron to Dounreay to miss out the troublesome section.
It used to go from Halkirk to Glengolly on the B874 and then followed road via Shebster to Dounreay.
From last week, the route was altered to instead run from Glengolly through Thurso and out via the coastal A836.
"It had been absolutely horrendous", said Mr Falconer, who works as a supervisor at the plant.
"It was so bad in some stretches that you could almost feel your internal organs shaking.
"There were times the bus was shaking so much that dust was coming out of the vents and I thought the windows were going to come in."
The worst blackspots were from Glengolly to Janetstown and around Bardaclavan and Shebster.
He said: "You couldn't think about reading or watching a video – at times you felt you were on a funfair ride."
Mr Falconer started taking the bus to work last year, along with his 18-year-old son Lee, an apprentice mechanic at Dounreay.
He said: "The road wasn't great when we started getting the bus but it got worse and worse and reached the point three weeks ago that it was really becoming intolerable."
The 57-year-old, of Camilla Street, added: "It was not good for the driver, for the passengers or the bus and a few of us decided to try and do something about it."
Within a week, he was told that Stagecoach had agreed to alter the route.
Mr Falconer said that about the time, roadworks were carried out on the road between Thurso and Janetstown.
"Whether that is coincidence or not, it's good to see the work done," he said.
"The alteration to the route has added a couple of minutes to the journey but it's so much better."
A Magnox Ltd spokesman at Dounreay confirmed that the route has changed after its representation to Stagecoach. The bus firm confirmed the changes had been made after a request from Dounreay.
Last month, Aaron's of Wick withdrew some scheduled bus services in north-east Caithness because of the potholed state of the roads and damage being caused to its buses.
