Route History

[teenagewasteland]

RE: Route History
The Pier Head bus station was costing the bus companies a fortune in lost mileage because fewer people were heading there. For those who remember (or don't remember!) it was a dark, forboding place at the best of times. Then there was the wind off the river. All this combined made it somewhere not particularly hospitable to visit. On saying that, I used to spend hours on the balconies jotting down bus numbers as they came in! After it was initially closed down, it was used for a John Lennon concert. The centre shelters were demolished, the subways filled in, and some buses came back for a while - mainly tendered services. One wonders if Merseybus, like North Western, were a little fed-up with the PTE terminal charges at Pier Head bus station too? Maybe that quickened its' demise.

The 1991 service changes that Merseybus made by combining various routes had to have been a cost-cutting measure. Longer bus routes tend to utilise vehicles more efficiently. I have a Merseybus fleet list from around this time, and about 200 buses are not allocated to a depot - whether they were withdrawn, pooled, broken, something else I really don't know?