MTL North Fleetlist

[teenagewasteland]

RE: MTL North Fleetlist

(07/05/2020 22:38)MTL0201 Wrote:  Not sure, but MTL were on the verge of going bankrupt if they weren't brought out by someone weren't they, going into the rail business i think is what cost them big time.

It's funny the ex London Titans went to Liverpool & St Helens depots, none went to Laird Street, don't think any went to Southport, Laird Street just had Atlanteans & the batch of Cross River Express Volvo Olympians, i felt the CRE olympians were far superior than the ones later delivered to Gillmoss for the 4/5/14, not just in passenger comfort either.

I'm speculating here.

There was never really a big call for large-capacity double deck buses in Southport. They had their own PD2s, but after Southport converted to fully OMO in 1974 (the first division of the PTE to do so) they soon realised that the d/d half-cabs were quite unsuitable for this kind of operation and stuck with their own Panthers and AN68s, plus some transferred ex-Liverpool Panthers and a small batch of new East Lancs-bodied AN68s before settling down, becoming a National stronghold, coupled with a few new AL-bodied Atlanteans thrown in for good measure. And the thing is, it's never really changed. Even now, there's only about 10 deckers at Canning Road, and most of them are generally assigned to one particular route. The Titans, for Southport anyway, would have been completely non-standard for pretty much a stand-alone operation. Even when GM Buses began competing with MTL in the town, the recent revamp as "Southport and District Buses" and local support for this brand stopped the Manchester operator in their tracks.

Laird Street never took them, but I think that there wasn't the need for them on the Wirral? The fleet at LS, at the time (1992-94) was well-maintained and fairly standard. The competition on that side didn't warrant huge numbers of Titans being drafted in quickly to fend off other operators, though if the need arose I'm sure MTL would have done.

Liverpool and St.Helens were overrun with competition, and the Titans quickly filled gaps to counter these incursions and they replaced many of the clapped-out Willowbrook and East Lancs bodied AN68s. Some of the earliest AL-bodied AN68s saw well over 20 years service on Merseyside's streets - they were well-built and mechanically robust too.