Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

[stait.john@hotmail.co.uk]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
Manchester depots (ex-GM) still have what's known as common Rotas in place, this is where drivers will be trained on all routes and will drive all buses at that depot. All ST drivers will have been type trained in the Hybrids.

There may be a few drivers who are on particular service Rotas or fixed line Rotas and as such tend to stick to a couple of routes but these are unusual.

You have Core Rotas and New Starter Rotas. Core drivers are basically PRE-1992 starters before the low cost units came in and have slightly shorter duties and different conditions. Not many of these left now though after 21 years of NewStarters!

Again Manchester duties would work more than one route in a duty, for example a Hyde Road driver might be on the 50 first half then the 76 second half, Bolton driver would do a 68 first half then a 582 second part. In other parts of the country you'd have route rotas, where you would just drive 1 or maybe 2 routes, only doing others as overtime, this happens for example in Birmingham and London.

Hope this has answered a few points?

John

(23/06/2013 21:46)ace Wrote:  I think with most drivers it's a case of, they learn all routes as part of their training so that if they get called upon to do a route, they can just get on and do it, but a lot of them do tend to do a certain few routes, for example, I get the 192 to work most mornings, and I've seen quite a few drivers on the same route several times, the same for other routes such as 11/11A, 369, etc.

I think part of it might be to do with the type of bus driven as well. Probably not all drivers are trained to drive hybrids, so the ones that are will do the 192's, others will do routes that use buses within each individual capability or requirement.

[ace]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
All sorts going on today with the Rail and Metrolink Replacements.
17038 from Wigan was on the 76, the 168 and 169 were operated almost exclusively by Magic Buses, and the 85 seemed to be run with a mixture of Hybrids and Magics.
I saw a lot of Enviro400's on Rail/Metrolink duty in Manchester City Centre this afternoon.
There seemed to be a few unfamiliar drivers as well, not that I know them all personally, but I could sense one or two of them were a little less than familiar with the routes they were on.

[M60lad]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
Regarding drivers on Metrolink Replacement, some of the drivers you didn't recognise would either have been management or even Inspectors, I had to do a double take myself in Altrincham when I saw one of the city center inspectors actually driving a Enviro400, from what I got told the other day from a contact of mine Stagecoach have got over 100 duties on Metrolink this weekend

[SF07]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
Some service are being diverted with termini being moved due to closure of Oldham Street and Church Street because of the fire yesterday:

*Services 72 and 77 will depart from stop EM on Lever Street
*Services 74, 76, 78, 216 and 231 will depart from stop TE at Stevenson Square
*Services 80 and 112 will depart from stop NM on Shudehill.

Only unknown is service 217/218. I would imagine buses will run to/from Shudehill Interchange via Great Ancoats Street and Swan Street/Addington Street. I believe the Metrolink replacement services have been running via Newton Street and Great Ancoats Street in between Piccadilly and Victoria.

https://twitter.com/OfficialTfGM/status/...8061953025
https://twitter.com/OfficialTfGM/status/...4201489408
https://twitter.com/OfficialTfGM/status/...7929909248
https://twitter.com/OfficialTfGM/status/...0945847298

[SF07]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
Magic Bus back on the 86 this afternoon, as 18287 was running one of the peak-time journeys to Southern Cemetery.

[ace]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
I didn't know the 86 ran to Southern Cemetery?
Do you mean the 84?

[mic]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(13/07/2013 20:14)ace Wrote:  All sorts going on today with the Rail and Metrolink Replacements.
17038 from Wigan was on the 76, the 168 and 169 were operated almost exclusively by Magic Buses, and the 85 seemed to be run with a mixture of Hybrids and Magics.
I saw a lot of Enviro400's on Rail/Metrolink duty in Manchester City Centre this afternoon.
There seemed to be a few unfamiliar drivers as well, not that I know them all personally, but I could sense one or two of them were a little less than familiar with the routes they were on.

17038 is based at Hyde Rd the last 4 of the batch should be there

[SF07]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(15/07/2013 20:56)ace Wrote:  I didn't know the 86 ran to Southern Cemetery?
Do you mean the 84?

No, it was the 86, spotted on Stretford Road, turning onto Royce Road. A couple of peak-time journeys extend from Chorlton bus station to Southern Cemetery (displayed as Christie Fields on destinations displays).

[SF07]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
19487 broken down on Stretford Road this afternoon on the 250 to Manchester at around 5.30pm.

[SF07]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester
Documents for TfGM's Bus Commitee meeting next Friday now online and a few significant changes mentioned for early September involving Stagecoach with re-routing of the 80 and extra weekday journeys on the 32 and X34.

*32 - The 1805 weekday journey from Wigan to Tyldesley is to be extended to Manchester with an additional weekday journey from Manchester at 1945 to Wigan.
*50 - The Mon-Sat journeys at 2239 and 2309 from East Didsbury to Salford Central are extended to Salford Quays. The 2358 Mon-Sat journey from Salford Central to East Didsbury is extended to start from Salford Quays at 2341. The 2250 Sunday journey from East Didsbury to Salford Central is extended to Salford Quays.
*80 - Re-routed from Moston Ben Brierley via White Moss, Victoria Avenue East and Manchester New Road instead of Lightbourne Road, Moston Gardeners Arms and Middleton Junction.
*151 - Proposed: To improve reliability, service to get new timetable with additional running time, while the short journeys between Mandley Park and Newton Heath will be curtailed to run between Monsall Metrolink stop and Newton Heath only.
*256 - Evening journeys to be operated by Stagecoach instead of JPT with Sunday evening journeys proposed to be operated hourly.
*X34 - Additional weekday journeys at 1855 from Leigh to Manchester and 2002 from Manchester to Lowton. Also, all weekday morning journeys to Manchester will start from Lowton, in addition to current 0727 journey plus First journeys.
*X57 - Sunday evening service introduced, replacing Finglands's service 157.

http://www.transportforgreatermanchester...us_network

Also been reported that the following changes will also take place from September:
*112 - Increased from every 20 mins to every 10 mins.
*171 - Transferred from Hyde Road to Middleton depot
*192 - Additional journeys at 0020 and 0035 from Manchester to Stockport on Mondays-Wednesdays nights.
*291 - Transferred from Middleton to Hyde Road depot
*X5 - Transferred from Middleton to Stockport depot
*X50 - Additional stop on Chester Road at Hulme Hall Road
*X57 - Sunday evening journeys to be operated by Stockport depot

The 80 and 112 changes will be interesting as it will give First and JPT more competition between Moston/White Moss and Manchster against the 81/81A, 88/89, 118 plus JPT's 112 service.