Route History

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
A few bits of clarity.

The H30/31 merged with the L81.

The 54 ran on/near to the Dock Road as I recall driver change overs at the Depot they had at that time at Love Lane I think.

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History

(15/05/2019 12:52)Gillmoss 0324 Wrote:  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.

54/54A was operated by minibuses as well because of a weight restriction on one of the bridges on Wango Lane, he 54 after d-reg was Bootle-Kirkby before it got extended to the monster circular route.

My 1990 Liverpool bus map has the 54 Page Moss-Kirkby via City Centre, from Page Moss the 54 went via Woolfall Heath-Huyton-Rupert Road-Pilch Lane-Thingwall Hall Drive then via 61 to City Centre, out of the City Centre via Vauxhall Road & Love Lane, then Sandhills Station-Stanley Road-Linacre Road-Church Road-Old Roan-Aintree Village-Fazakerley Hospital-Kirkby, did a circle route in Kirkby from Civic Centre via Brewley Drive-Bracknell Avenue-Broad Lane-Wellfield Avenue

402 was Aigburth Vale-St Helens via City Centre, 402 went via 10B to Huyton, then Huyton Lane, & via the 10 to St Helens

North Western at this time had a depot at Love Lane, this was the old Crosville depot, which Crosville closed after the strike winter 87, north Western moved in shortly afterwards.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
The 402 was a bit of a mish-mash between City Centre and Huyton via West Derby Road, Green Lane, Derby Lane, then as the 75 (now 15) route.

[L544]

RE: Route History

(15/05/2019 15:03)MTL0201 Wrote:  54/54A was operated by minibuses as well because of a weight restriction on one of the bridges on Wango Lane, he 54 after d-reg was Bootle-Kirkby before it got extended to the monster circular route.

My 1990 Liverpool bus map has the 54 Page Moss-Kirkby via City Centre, from Page Moss the 54 went via Woolfall Heath-Huyton-Rupert Road-Pilch Lane-Thingwall Hall Drive then via 61 to City Centre, out of the City Centre via Vauxhall Road & Love Lane, then Sandhills Station-Stanley Road-Linacre Road-Church Road-Old Roan-Aintree Village-Fazakerley Hospital-Kirkby, did a circle route in Kirkby from Civic Centre via Brewley Drive-Bracknell Avenue-Broad Lane-Wellfield Avenue

The origins of the route number 54 was in a Ribble service from Seaforth Sands Overhead railway terminus (which was a big bus hub - terminus of 1 16 23 24 33 39 61 68) the staff building still there inside the dock estate wall. The service ran to Netherton Green via Dunnings Bridge Road and Copy Lane. It first changed to going through Aintree and the canal bridge before growing even larger and hence numbering of 17.
54 had a sister route number 53 from Black Bull via Park Lane to Netherton Marian Square which is now part of the 63.

Both these short routes existed becasue they served Litherland which was outside of LCPT's area and Ribble got exclusive rights to operate on these roads until Netherton was developed and something better had to be provided by way of bus services.

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
Interesting L544. Might be answering my own question but I take it there were other examples of LCPT/MPTE, Crosville and Ribble having exclusive rights to operate on certain roads/area's. Suppose Arriva not operating into Kirkby and Stagecoach into Speke is a unofficial modern day version of that.

Is this one of the reasons many of Crosville's 'H' routes in Liverpool were limited stop on the main corridors like Prescot Road etc.

Also interesting that the original 53 service is not really like the current one either but was more like the 92/62/63 services that emerged after de-regulation.

Speaking of extremely long-Ribble routes from years ago I remember riding one their ECW Atlantean's on what I think was the 203 route from Kirkby Admin to Skelhorne Street one Sunday in 1986 just before de-reg which turned up before a 19 or whatever MPTE bus we needed did. I'm this sure went via Melling, Maghull, Lunt, Ince Blundell Great Crosby/Crosby, (maybe Blundellsands), Waterloo, Seaforth, Bootle and Kirkdale. At the time thought it even went into Ormskirk/Skem etc. but can't see no route on the 1980's maps that ever did that. End to End started the route around 5pm/6pm and got off at least after 9pm absolute monster of a route that one and something which would quickly disappear a few weeks later.

If it was that 203 did it run hourly or something and was it a all week service or something abit more obscure?

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History

(16/05/2019 06:49)L544 Wrote:  The origins of the route number 54 was in a Ribble service from Seaforth Sands Overhead railway terminus (which was a big bus hub - terminus of 1 16 23 24 33 39 61 68) the staff building still there inside the dock estate wall. The service ran to Netherton Green via Dunnings Bridge Road and Copy Lane. It first changed to going through Aintree and the canal bridge before growing even larger and hence numbering of 17.
54 had a sister route number 53 from Black Bull via Park Lane to Netherton Marian Square which is now part of the 63.

Both these short routes existed becasue they served Litherland which was outside of LCPT's area and Ribble got exclusive rights to operate on these roads until Netherton was developed and something better had to be provided by way of bus services.

Interesting, my 1977 Liverpool PTE area timetable, has the 54 Bootle New Strand-Aintree, Wango Lane, with a 54A Bootle New Strand-Netherton Village, 54/54A was an all day route but no Sunday service.

The 53/53A/53B was an industrial/school service, couple of 53s ran to Netherton Village, others was mostly was Magdelene Square, 53B was to English Electric Factory, some 53/53A started Dunnings Bridge Road/Park Lane, 53 group was withdrawn mid 80s, maybe summer 86

53 reappeared at d-reg at first was a circular with the 55 via the withdrawn 28, then Fleetwoods Lane & via the 55 before getting rerouted via Thornton & Crosby, with a 53A City Centre-Thornton via Crosby, 55A City Centre-Old Roan.

The current 53 has its origins in the Ribble L3, Merseybus introduced a 93 Crosby-City Centre covering the L3, this was at the time North Western refused saveaways, not sure when the 93/53/L3 came as we know it today, but may have been the summer 91 changes which saw the Pier Head bus station abandoned permanently, & a few route mergers creating monster routes vis City Centre.

52 replaced the 55 Netherton Village to Old Roan, this was the old PTE 46, this was extended from Walton to Old Roan via Netherton & there was a 52A to Maghull, this didn't last long though

[MTL0201]

RE: Route History

(16/05/2019 10:39)Gillmoss 0324 Wrote:  Interesting L544. Might be answering my own question but I take it there were other examples of LCPT/MPTE, Crosville and Ribble having exclusive rights to operate on certain roads/area's. Suppose Arriva not operating into Kirkby and Stagecoach into Speke is a unofficial modern day version of that.

Is this one of the reasons many of Crosville's 'H' routes in Liverpool were limited stop on the main corridors like Prescot Road etc.

Also interesting that the original 53 service is not really like the current one either but was more like the 92/62/63 services that emerged after de-regulation.

Speaking of extremely long-Ribble routes from years ago I remember riding one their ECW Atlantean's on what I think was the 203 route from Kirkby Admin to Skelhorne Street one Sunday in 1986 just before de-reg which turned up before a 19 or whatever MPTE bus we needed did. I'm this sure went via Melling, Maghull, Lunt, Ince Blundell Great Crosby/Crosby, (maybe Blundellsands), Waterloo, Seaforth, Bootle and Kirkdale. At the time thought it even went into Ormskirk/Skem etc. but can't see no route on the 1980's maps that ever did that. End to End started the route around 5pm/6pm and got off at least after 9pm absolute monster of a route that one and something which would quickly disappear a few weeks later.

If it was that 203 did it run hourly or something and was it a all week service or something abit more obscure?

There was such an agreement, it's in my Liverpool Transport vol 5 book, the Liverpool area was drawn into zones, zone A, exclusive to Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport, zone B, joint operation LCPT with company buses, zone C exclusive to company buses, Crosby was zone C, so exclusive to Ribble, Netherton zone B so that's why there was joint Ribble/LCPT services, Ribble & Crosville came to agreement, they shouldn't operate in each others territory the boundary was Prescot Road, although Ribble & Crosville had joint services such as 301/319/319 Southport-Warrington

[St Helens Rider]

RE: Route History
The Crosby - Liverpool corridor also saw competition from City Fleet with the C93.

In 91 when routes were extended across the City, the 53 & 55 were merged with the 86 to form the 55/86 which North Western later competed with the City Plus brand.

[Phil]

RE: Route History
Interesting to read the posts on the 79 corridor. In particular the Lee Park variations, both in the PTE and MTL era. The 79A (City Centre - Lee Park) managed to survive the initial Arriva changes in April 2000, however not for a great deal longer.

The 174 (Penny Lane - Belle Vale) has a bit of a chequered history which stretches back to 1987. The current route was combined with the withdrawn route 173 not so long ago to operate via Woolton Village.
Before that, the route the daytime 174 took stemmed from Merseybus routes 47/47A and Merseytravel route 147.
Initially, the 147 was ran by Merseybus as a Merseytravel contract between Lee Park and the Pier Head and operated via Gateacre, Childwall Fiveways, Penny Lane, Ullet Road, Lodge Lane and Catherine Street
Merseybus then introduced a commercial route 47 which followed pretty much the same route as the 147, but extended to Netherley.
In 1991, Merseybus extended, rerouted and renumbered this service to the 47A City - Belle Vale - Garston.
From what I can remember, this did the usual route from the Gyratory to Belle Vale Centre, then from what I can remember, it would turn back on itself through Gateacre Village and then via Halewood Road, Kings Drive, Springwood Ave, Heath Road, Long Lane and then terminate at Garston Garage.

This route was withdrawn in November 1993, to be partly replaced with tendered route 174 between Belle Vale and Penny Lane, operated by Wingates. However, there were still a couple of early morning 147 journeys between Lee Park and City Centre that lasted until the mid to late 90’s.

On a personal note, route 47A was what got me interested in buses when I was a wee lad living on the Belle Vale estate as we had family who lived in both Lodge Lane and Allerton.

I can only go by memory on most of this information, so any corrections on this information is very welcome!

[buses7675 (Website Founder)]

RE: Route History
That sounds roughly right to me Phil, again from memory as I was in Gateacre Comp (started September 1993) when the 47A was running but soon after it became the 174.

First day I ever drove the 174 at HTL was fantastic, however by that point the original Gateacre Comp that I went to had since closed but still, I got to drive the bus I used to get to school!