Route History

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
Before d-reg the routes were 125 Wigan-Preston, 126 Bolton Preston, [GMPTE operated the short sections of the 125/126 Wigan/Bolton-Chorley], & 352/362/372 St Helens-Wigan, at d-reg Ribble diverted the 125 to Bolton, North Western extended the 352/362/372 to become St Helens-Chorley via Wigan.

I don't know when Merseybus started the 62 St Helens-Wigan, but Merseybus then, also started the 510 Liverpool-Bolton which went via the 62 St Helens-Wigan, before the 510 got cut to Wigan after the bus wars, think the 62 & 510 interworked at the Wigan end.

Not sure when the 352/362/372 were split at Wigan became 2 different sections rather than a through route, but after Arriva brought MTL the routes were rationalised to today's 352 & 362.

Main difference of the 352/362/372 was in the upper Billinge & Orrell area, 352 went as present day 362 via Orrell station, 362 stayed on the main St Jame's Road, 372 went via Tontine

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
The de-reg 510 was originally the 10X which Merseybus extended to Wigan when they did the route/garage changes in July 1991. The original 10/10A/10C which were shared between Green Lane and St Helens got revised in 1991 with St Helens operating the 10's which still went to St Helens only and the hourly 10C's to Prescot getting withdrawn. The 10A's went to Green Lane and this arrangement stayed until Arriva took over MTL in 2000.

The 10X was the new service which was limited stop and similar to the 320 although didn't it do a different route from St Helens to Wigan than the 320? In 1992 it got extended to Bolton and fairly soon after that got renumbered 510 with the 10 service being extended to Bolton also around the end of 1992.

GM Buses (GMN) upped the frequency of the 320's to 20 minutes daytime and not 100% about this but didn't they run additional 34's between St Helens and Manchester too?

When the St Helens operations became Lancashire Travel the 10's got extended into Manchester, again unsure of the route the took but I know it wasn't the same GM Buses 8's did from Bolton and Salford into Manchester and these arrangements stayed until MTL agreed that deal with GMN and GMS in 1995.

Lancashire Travel for approximately a year or two ran the 10's to Ashton in Makerfield a hourly 34 between Liverpool and Leigh and the 510's to Wigan before the 10's got scaled back to St Helens the 34's from St Helens to Leigh and the 510's got withdrawn.

Interesting times but traffic and other operational considerations will never see routes like these again.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
The North Western 342/352/362/372 at one point in the early to mid 90s ran St Helens - Wigan - Chorley - Preston - think this was an upping of competition against Stagecoach although it was quite short lived.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
As stated in post 139, the Merseybus 42/52/62 started in December 89 (interestingly they also started a 20 between Bold and Prescot to compete with Shearings at the same time). Not sure what date they whittled it down to the 62 though.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
Don't think the 10X went further than St Helens. It became the 510 upon extension to Wigan (I think via the 352 route).

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
GM Buses increased the 34 to half hourly I think at the same time as the 320 frequency increase. Also Lancashire Travel ran half hourly 34 between St Helens and Manchester at one point. The 10 extension to Manchester went via 320 as far as Platt Bridge, then was similar to the 620 (minus Hag Fold) to Bolton, then via the 12 route to Manchester.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
The MTL 34 ran half hourly Liverpool - Leigh after the split. Eventually the Liverpool extension was peak hours only before withdrawal.

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
The 10C was Pier Head-Prescot Thomas Drive, 10C normally interworked with the 10, the 10/10C was St Helens depot, 10A Green Lane

I don't remember frequencies much mid 90s, but i remember GM Buses increasing the 34 frequency to 30 minutes around 1991/92, this was before the bus wars with Merseybus, 320 was every 30 minutes, hourly evening & Sundays, again not sure when the frequencies changed

At D-reg the PTE/GMPTE 1 St Helens-Atherton was cut to St Helens-Ashton & renumbered 2 operated by Merseybus with a Merseytravel 102, not sure when the 2 got withdrawn, & replaced by the 10, but i think the 10 Ashton-Liverpool ran until after the Arriva takeover of MTL, then the 320 took over, when 10/320 got cut to St Helens

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History
Going back to the 79, Crosville had a route H20 Pier Head Mann Island-Runcorn via the current Halton 14 & 79C, not sure when the H30 appeared may have been at D-reg, late 80s became H30/H31, when Skelhorne Street bus & coach station closed this merged with a North Western route[not sure what number], & extended to Thornton via Bootle-Waterloo-Crosby [come back to this later] again may have been early 90s but H30/H31 got cut Hough Green Farm-Runcorn renumbered to 30, that's the way it stayed until the 30 was extended back to Liverpool being merged with the 79C

Skelhorne Street bus & coach station closure a few Crosville/North Western routes were merged, it helped at the time the owners of North Western had brought some Crosville depots including Runcorn, some of the routes merged were

300/302 Southport-Warrington merged with H5
351 Ormskirk-Runcorn merged with H25
H30/H31 Runcorn-Thornton not sure what route they merged with
X5 Runcorn-Skelmersdale, merged with the X6
X8/X9 Chester-Banks merged with Crosville X7 & North Western X37 this was a joint Crosville/North Western service, X9 was a summer Sunday service divereting via Chester Zoo

Apart from X9, the Sunday services didn't operate as a through service, terminated in Liverpool City Centre

The rest of the North Western services were extended to either Penny Lane or Aigburth Vale, including the North Western 761 Blackpool-Liverpool which was extended to Aigburth Vale, Stagecoach Ribble who operated jointly with North Western diverted this to Central Bus Station instead

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
Yes it was interesting how North Western merged their routes with some of the former Crosville ones in 1989-90 although some of these routes must've been absolute monsters with their lenghth and driver requirements etc.

I know they altered their former minibus 401/402 routes around the end of 1988/early 1989 too. Part of them became a new 402 which got extended from Huyton to St Helens and not 100% but wasn't another one of their 'cross city' services that went along one of the South Liverpool bus corridors, Allerton Road rings a bell there. Didn't last long as North Western changed it into a competing 10A by early 1990. The other change was to create the 54/54A which ran from Huyton to Kirkby Admin via Swanside, Broadgreen, Wavertree/Edge Hill, City Centre, Kirkdale/Bootle (perhaps not the direct Stanley Road route?), Litherland, Netherton, Fazakerley, Westvale/Southdene etc. Did it a couple of times and it was a monster think it took nearly 3 hours end to end and not even sure they did a driver change at Bootle either.

Again hard to imagine these routes today.