Eastern National Omnibus Company

Eastern National Omnibus Company commenced operating in 1929 as a joint venture between the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and the National Omnibus & Transport Company. The National company had originated in 1909 as the National Steam Car Company, operating steam bus services in London. The London services ceased in 1919, when the company was renamed National Omnibus & Transport Company.

The company expanded outside London, first in Essex(1913), where the company bought the bus operations of the Great Eastern Railway around Chelmsford; it later expanded into Bedfordshire (1919), Gloucestershire (1919), Somerset (1920), Dorset (1921), and Devon and Cornwall (1927). The National continued to expand in Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

The railways developed networks of feeder bus services in the 1920s, but the legal powers of the railway companies to run bus services were unclear and each promoted private legislation to obtain clarity. One result was that the railways were in future to refrain from taking a controlling interest in bus undertakings. This led the railway companies to enter into partnerships with bus operators, including the National. The LNER, the LMS and the National formed the Eastern National Omnibus Company on 28 February 1929, to which all three shareholders transferred their bus operations in Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.

In 1931, a controlling interest in the National Omnibus was acquired by the Tilling Group. From then on, Eastern National was run as a Tilling company, although the railways retained their shares until 1948.