Route History

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
Continued

82, withdrawn, replaced by 20/21

86, extended to Thornton via Bootle-Waterloo & Crosby, replaces the 93, combines with the 55 to maintain frequency between Garston & City Centre

87, service rerouted from Speke to Garston, no longer operated via Naylorsfield

91, service extended to Huyton to replace 75, rerouted in Bootle & Crosby, some journeys 91A City Centre-Huyton

92/92B, rerouted in Crosby, evening & Sunday service renumbered 92C & extended to Netherton

93, service withdrawn, replaced by 86

99, most journeys are withdrawn

109, evening & Sunday service withdrawn

111, withdrawn, replaced by 11

125, rerouted via Brownlow Hill, Lime Street & London Road

154, evening & Sunday service cut to Fazakerley & Old Roan

193, withdrawn, replaced by 86

217, evening & Sunday service interduced City Centre-Kirkby, all journeys operate to/from Central Bus Station

220, times revised

321/322, withdrawn, replaced by 80A

412/413, retimed & all journeys operate to/from Central Bus Station

475, all journeys operate to/from Central Bus Station

482, withdrawn

H21/H31 route & times revised

X4, times revised, extra stop introduced at Royal Liverpool Hospital

X5/X5A off peak frequency reduced.

[L544]

RE: Route History
Disastrous and very confusing, was an attempt to join pairs of routes into single routes running across the city. To pair up the common factor had to be service frequency.
I think the intention was to eliminate terminating at city centre bus stations with possibly a service charge saving? .
But it introduced chaos to timekeeping.
Hard to imagine now with no cross city services at all through the city centre. But long standing through routes in the 1960's such as 3 20 25 and 46 from Dingle/ Penny Lane to Walton had provided the convenience of through journeys to football grounds, and hospitals.
Nowadays any such journeys involve a trek for the able bodied from Renshaw Street or Liverpool One to Queen Square with a city effectively cut into two halves. For the less agile/ disabled nothing as convenient exists.

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
It was simply because Merseybus abandoned the Pier Head bus station, & there was no suitable City Centre terminus to accommodate all the routes not until Central Bus Station was redeveloped to Paradise Street Bus Station with a proper layover area, so some of the routes merged, & it was easier to merge those with similar frequencies like 14C & 79, the oddity was on high frequency routes like 79, it was often easier to get off at the Gyrotory, cross over & board another 79 on an earlier service, as all the merged routes circumnavigated the City Centre via Castle Street or The Strand then back out.

It was weird seeing a 55 in Garston, 79 in North Liverpool, 19 in South Liverpool.

GTL re extended the 20 to Speke didn't they, with the 1 & 2 replacing 21, before Stagecoach cut the 20 to City Centre?

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
Remember when the Skelhorne Street Bus Station closed & North Western merged some of there routes with Crosville routes that North Western now owned after Drawline group brought some Crosville depots, some of the North Western routes went to/from Penny Lane then did a loop via Menlove Avenue, Green Lane & Allerton Road, some went to/from Aigburth Vale, but some routes merged with Crosville, they were.

300/302 & H5 to become 300/302 Southport-Warrington via Liverpool
351 with H25 to become 351 Ormskirk Runcorn via Liverpool
H30/H31 with L81 i think to become H30/H31 Thornton-Runcorn via Liverpool

Sunday services terminated in Liverpool City Centre, as some like H5 had a different Sunday operator under tender, H5 in Warrington Borough Transport

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
The 761 was a strange one - North Western extended to Aigburth Vale and Ribble to Central Bus Station.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
WBT had the Sunday contract on the H5 for years. I then this only ceased when Arriva introduced the 6 on a Sunday in the mid 2000's.

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History

(30/07/2020 17:25)St Helens Rider Wrote:  WBT had the Sunday contract on the H5 for years. I then this only ceased when Arriva introduced the 6 on a Sunday in the mid 2000's.

I remember catching the Sunday H5 a few times on the Cheshire Bus Sunday Adventure Ticket[remember that ticket] frequency was every 2 hours, with journey time of 55 minutes so WBT only needed one vehicle, normally a Dominator was allocated.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History

(30/07/2020 20:02)MTL0201 Wrote:  I remember catching the Sunday H5 a few times on the Cheshire Bus Sunday Adventure Ticket[remember that ticket] frequency was every 2 hours, with journey time of 55 minutes so WBT only needed one vehicle, normally a Dominator was allocated.

Happy days indeed!

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
I've found an X2 Liverpool-Preston timetable from June 06, when the X2 was introduced, the X2 replaced the X59 west of Preston & most of the withdrawn Stagecoach 284[Stagecoach 284 had it's origins in the ABC Travel 284], the X2 originally went direct via Formby By Pass, & was jointly operated by Gillmoss & Preston depots, X2 was hourly Monday to Saturday, 2 hourly Sunday, & had coaches allocated. I think it was when the Scania deckers were brought, Stagecoach moved the whole operation to Preston depot, & frequency increased, not sure when the X2 was rerouted to serve Formby.

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
Some of those cross city services could have worked if the traffic flows (even back then) were a bit better and priority given to buses. They seem too in Edinburgh, Glasgow etc. and maybe the 14/79 merger was the best of these experiments. Definitely wouldn't work now, 'The Big Dig', removing the bus lanes and the current proposals are unfriendly to the routes we have now and the delays pre Covid are crazy compared to how buses got in/out say 25 odd years ago!