Merseybus initial fleetlist October 1986

[teenagewasteland]

RE: Merseybus initial fleetlist October 1986

(03/08/2020 19:35)Gillmoss 0324 Wrote:  I wonder if these were the one's Fareway acquired as it's 101-10 in early '87? Always interesting that most of the N-reg EL/VR's apart from the Fareway one's and a odd few that went to the likes of Maun Chestfield and later our own Blue Triangle just vanished when dereg happened so were most of these scrapped? I suppose it was to stop rivals maybe getting hold of them but considering older and similar aged Atlantean's lasted in the fleet almost a decade longer they'd have still had some life in them? In fact Fareway had them until '94/95 after MTL haf taken them over too.

It's not impossible a few may have ran briefly for Merseybus from Garston after D-Day especially if they had vehicle shortages and changes with the ex-PTE garage's and allocations in South Liverpool with PAR closed, VR's and Metropolitan's withdrawn and maybe standardising requiremenrs there on Alexander Atlantean's brought in from other garage's etc.

Speaking of Metropolitan's cI remember passing Gillmoss in the Summer of' 86 and loads of the MCW/Scania Metropolitan's were parked up withdrawn at the rear of the yard. I know Kingston-upon-Hull got some RKA-N's but like the VR's you didn't really see many others on the secondhand market and they'd near enough vanished by the late '80's too.

All good stuff in this thread!

The big problem in compiling a fleetlist for this period is so much happened at the last minute that what actually happened is lost in the mists of time. Merseybus were not properly prepared for dereg (who was??), they had let too many serviceable vehicles and staff go too quickly. What Merseybus didn't take - the Metro-Scanias (both types) but the DDs were rust buckets so they couldn't stay. The Fleetlines were mechanically destroyed. The VRs didn't stay simply because they weren't Atlanteans. But then Merseybus kept 3 Swifts and 3 ex-Southport AN68s in revenue-earning service for a while, so what do I know?

Compare with North Western, who had wrapped up their preparations for dereg about six weeks before it happened - therefore compiling a fleetlist for them was relatively straight forward. The Ribble Enthusiasts Club had their spies and were very thorough in getting the correct information in what stayed with Ribble and what went to North Western.