GM Buses North

[gilesbus1]

RE: GM Buses North

(09/12/2012 23:26)St Helens Rider Wrote:  I think now is the first time that some kind of competition has happened between First and Stagecoach since the split with the cross city route 50 from Stagecoach and 18 from First along with the Stagecoach takeover of First Wigan.

I think there has been one or two minor scurmishes before, lets not forget Stagecoach had adepot in Chadderton for a while from when it bought out Universal which is in First Manchester's area plus it also got routes from Hyde Road Depot to Oldham and Rochdale which although not identical to First routes would have had duplicating sections of road. Similarly First moved into Tameside with the take-over of PMT and enlarged to some degree operations there. Also lets not forget Stagecoach Ribble once had a depot in Bolton and competed head on with GMN/First on some routes in the Bolton area prior to 2000, the 582 rings a bell as one route they competed on for a time.

What will be interesting to see will be when Stagecoach's nerwly acquired Wigan depot changes services later on wether they will register anything in the Leigh/Horwich Area's which will either directly or indirectly compete with First Manchester, or wether Bluebird's acquisition MMC/OFT dependent allows an escalation of competition between First and Stagecoach to the North East of Manchester as well potentially.