Liverline

[gilesbus1]

RE: Liverline
You did see an operator potentially like that again later, what about CMT it might not have operated deckers like the other three but developed from Leyland Nationals eventually on to brand new saloons from Volvo and Dennis and seemed to carve out quite an area of operation and bought out ABC in Southport and added a much smaller firm to the portfolio owned by the owners separately.

Although I accept your point no further new medium sized independents building up from scratch are likely. Large Groups have taken up much territory in large towns and cities in the UK were such an operation could be viable, also getting finance for new vehicles is also much harder, let alone the insurance. I can image a Bank Manager telling some one to get lost who asked for a loan now to start a bus company like these, using significant financial resources.

Any new operator is likely to be small and concentrate on small local authority tenders, school contracts and rail replacement work, not commercial operations as the risk is just too great to take.

Liverbus, Fareway, Liverline and CMT though all had interesting fleets, although many vehicles in them were elderly. The fact that Fareway couldn't afford fleet replacement in the 1990's was the reason they gave up as the operation was financially break even as I understand it. Much of their fleet by then heading towards 20 years old needed replacement and the bill was just too great, plus the market had begun to move onto newer vehicles.