Route History

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History

(18/06/2019 07:54)Gillmoss 0324 Wrote:  Interesting would explain why some Go North East's Durham/Middlesbrough services like the 21, 22, X10's etc. were still up to 7XX when I first used them about 14-15 years ago.

I suppose if MPTE had have looked at doing they could've had separate number scheme's for various area's of the four Merseyside council area's. Something like Southport, Formby and Maghull/Literland/Bootle in Sefton, Halewood, Huyton and Kirkby in Knowsley and Birkenhead, Wallasey and other parts of the Wirral. Not intended this way but perhaps Fareway and Liverbus's services could have been a indication of doing this as neither operator ran the same routes and numbers as the competing Merseybus services around that time.

Any MPTE renumbering would have been trickier, as you had Ribble & Crosville with there own numbers, as well as rapidride 4xx & limited stop routes 5xx, Ribble routes were either 3xx, or Lxx, 2xx numbers were introduced in the MPTE area in the 70s, although Ribble 2xx was traditionally East Lancashire. Crosville renumbered there entire system in the late 50s routes with prefix letters, Liverpool was H, Wirral F, some routes from Chester being C, then late 70s Crosville routes solely in the Wirral MPTE were renumbered again 72 to 89.

Kirkby had the infamous renumbering scheme in 1980, Kirkby routes renumbered 150 to 159, buses with 4 track number blinds were introduced[look at East Lancs & Willowbrook Atlanteans from 1821 upwards, & some experimental buses], incase PTE introduced something like 157A & so on, but they were rarely used to the full, some short journeys became 14x instead, like 144 Pier Head-Gillmoss

I suppose any scheme could well have been
Liverpool 1 to 99
Wirral 1xx
Southport 2xx
St Helens 6xx

I say St Helens 6xx keeping in with some routes already in 6xx series, mostly operating from GMPTE area under Lancashire United

Come to think of it Wirral didn't have many routes that ended with suffix letters, in the PRE era, i recall 51 group later became 51C/51D/51E,then 70A/71A/72A/80A later when Arrowe Park Hospital was opened you had 71C/72C/72D, there was also 73A/73C, short mostly garage journeys were often numbered E