Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

[gemini6491]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(30/11/2012 00:01)gilesbus1 Wrote:  Yes your quite right First did make mistakes in Wigan, just how profitable SLT is I would not like to comment on, I thing the profits are possibly no greater than what Firsts Wigan depot records its just SLT don't require the big margins FirstGroup require.

Arriva have most trunks, some as a result of deals between MTL and GMN and others from the former North Western operations, wether Stagecoach pay any attention to these might remain to be seen.

I think some growth might come from potential new routes or by extending existing ones. There is one question that I thing would make me think the growth might not be that grand and that is what is future of Chorley depot with such a large under utilised depot being really in its back yard, despite it being with another Stagecoach subsiduary.

Although I understand no existing plan is there, but it might be fairly tempting to exploit that situation in the interests of money to a major company like Stagecoach, especially as the premises in Chorley are far from ideal and also the fact that some work, eg School Contracts operate in Wigan in anycase. Then if you extend the Chorley Coppulls and Blackrods to Wigan then you've really emptied Chorley by abouut half, then if you then intertworked the 540's with the 125's and 126's you've then removed its profitability (You then get deckers on the 540 hence) and I am sure then the rest could move to Preston depot.

I think really though in terms of First the main issue was that Firsts core model of regular core routes and l;ittle else couldn't really suit Wigan, as those core routes couldn't return the same profitability levels of services like the 36, 37 at Bolton and the 135 at Bury and the 100, 67 and 17 at Manchester and the 82, 83, 59 etc at Oldham all of which have the advantage of going through significant urban areas to reach Central Manchester. Also the Wigan depot was some 20 miles away and also 15 minute train services linking it to central Manchester at a cheaper fair than FirstGroup where charging eg £3.80 as apose to £4.50 and taking a fraction of the time as well.

Hopefully the Leigh guided busway may help to readdress that, but there is local anamosity towards it so how successful it might be remains to be seen.

I think as well the fact the HQ was at Oldham didn't help as it was easy for those management staff often exiles from First West Yorkshire to ignore the Western side of Greater Manchester and not explore much beyond central Manchester but yet expect the same profit from what was a much smaller network and then question why it wasn't returning the profitability of towns like OLdham which have large numbers of core routes into Central Manchester plus the 409 to Ashton and Rochdale in addition.

Maybe a mistake was made in 1998 when FirstGroup closed Atherton in that it allowed lots of Leigh based operators to appear or expand to fill gaps left by FirstGroup, maybe a better idae would have been to close Wigan and move exverything to Atherton and then the depot would have had at least one extra profit point in the 582 and its retention might have detered SLT from entering the Market Place locally. However tahts all under the bridge now.

The Other thing I wonder is if local branding was allowed and a new fleet of Minibuses was introduced onto town routes in Wigan wether that might have changed things????

I also wonder what might have been the case if the buyer now wasn't Stagecoach and it had of been someone else without any networks anywhere near, or a smaller company???

Would that either mean no growth or beter growth as presumably much of the management team would have been at Wigan and Wigan only rather than at Manchester if you know what I mean eg outside the front door to the depot office rather than 20-30 miles away from the offices.

Well the ball is literally now in Stagecoach's park and they can make a go of it if they put the correct effort in, after all Wigan was not and never has been a loss making depot even though the profits weren't multi-millions the opportunity to grow past the turnover and profit it's seen in the past years I think is there, it just needs the right minds with the right way of thinking to make it happen.