Diamond Bus North West

[gilesbus1]

RE: Diamond Bus North West
Timeline came off Shearings Bus Operations and operated there former services at Wigan, Bolton, Altrincham, Manchester, St Helens and Telford, it was later divided up and the Shifnal Depot (Telford Opps) went to Arriva Midlands, the Altrincham, Manchester and St Helens opp's to Arriva North West, and the Wigan and Bolton Opps to First Manchester.

One of the routes Timeline did was a set of Bolton local routes for which they had low floor single-deckers from a much earlier generation of Volvo B10L's/Alexander Ultra and Optare Excels, they also operated a number of tenders using Mercedes-Benz Minibuses and 1 batch of ex Shearings Leyland Tiger's largely operated other commercial stuff, and also services between Newton-le-Willows and Wigan and St Helens and Bolton via Leigh - service 51. The 51 never really carried many passengers in its central section between Atherton and Newton-le-Willows and was really a loss leader and was partially because it ran indirectly replacing a former GM Buses Service in operating via the large Hag Fold Council Estate at Atherton and also by-passed Atherton Town Centre to the South by going via Hamilton Street (Now none Bus) , therefore not an attractive option between Leigh and Bolton.

The 456 spoken about before was an off peak operation as Rochdale based Coachmasters had won all the Wigan school contracts from FirstGroup at that time so it was a way of positioning buses in Wigan for the school contracts avoiding dead mileage. Of Course First Manchester bought out that operation and subsequently opened its school unit at the Former Joy Mining Works at Seaman Way in Ince in order to take on all the school work, former Coachmasters staff were Shipped to Ince from Rochdale on a daily basis in a Coachmaster's vehicle outstationed from Ince at the former Pioneer Depot on Miall Street in Rochdale which simultaneously was brought into usage as a Bus Depot to service Rochdale Local Services once operated by Pioneer plus additional town services registered, in what was a Former Bee Line Buzz Company Depot that GM North had bought but mothballed.