Liverline

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Liverline
Always an interesting operator Liverline along with Fareway and Liverbus too.

I may be wrong with some of this and I’m no expert as I wasn’t from South Liverpool where they mostly ran but they began operations in Spring 1988 from a depot at Naylor Street off Scotland Road. Their first route was 32’s which was a variation of the 82 which went via Hunts Cross Asda rather than Speke Road between Garston and Speke. I did use this a fair bit to Riversdale college too. Later in the early summer they added they 35 to Halewood which is today’s 75 and in 1989 they added the 36 which was a mix of the 86 and other Allerton Road services and the 38/39 to Halewood which was like the 79’s to Belle Vale then continued to Halewood. The initial fleet was ex-Strathclyde Alexander Atlantean’s both from Strathclyde and refurbished ones via London Country South East along with ex-Greater Manchester, Plymouth, Ribble and Hyndburn Atlantean’s which gradually replaced some of these in 1989 and their first new vehicles 10 Scania 113 Northern Counties Palatines. Also around this time was a City Centre circular service via the Albert Dock which used a Routemaster too.

Merseybus responded to these threats by upping services and lowering fares on competing routes in South and North Liverpool (Fareway) but generally Liverline seemed to do fairly well with them and some Merseytravel contracts they’d won. In 1990 they added the 102 Broadgreen – Walton to their service network after Merseybus didn’t renew things with Merseytravel and a few months of Halton Transport etc. Eventually extended and commercialised by Liverline It was kept on until Autumn 1992 when MTL’s MerseyRider took over the route and the Naylor Street base. The student service was the 37 essentially a copy of the Merseybus 699.

By then Liverline had moved to Bootle and had began some operations in that area like the 55’s too. They also won the contract for the 224 Broadgreen – Aigburth via Wavertree Technology park and Albert Dock as well although this passed to Merseybus in 1993 and eventually became part of the SMART network in 1994.

Drawlane/British Bus took over Liverline in 1993 and merged it into the North Western parent company. Amberline was also taken over/merged with North Western/Liverline hence the ex-West Midlands Fleetline’s on the 79 which initially North Western inherited at Speke and then passed over to Liverline at Bootle.

In 1995 North Western agreed a deal with MTL to share Liverpool’s bus market so Liverline routes were refocused. Some were passed over to the North Western parent who began CityPlus with the East Lancs Dart’s on the 82/86’s which went from Crosby/Thornton/Netherton to Speke/Garston via the city centre.

Liverline did remain fairly intact albeit a North Western subsidiary/branding until 1998 when Arriva’s identity started to be used and became the original Arriva Merseyside. By then the Atlantean’s were long gone and the Scania’s transferred to Fox County for similarly aged Alexander and Northern Counties Leyland Olympian’s. Things changed again when MTL was acquired by Arriva and became a new Arriva Merseyside and Liverline became Arriva Liverpool although by then most services were either merged or withdrawn into the Arriva network they put in place in April 2000.

Always had a soft spot for them but some of those Strathclyde Atlantean’s were literally falling apart due to the panoramic windows/design. The Scania's were IMO brilliant and essentially they were North Western by around 1992-ish. We'll never see the new breed of deregulation operators like these again.