Route History

[L80]

RE: Route History

(18/06/2018 10:49)MTL0201 Wrote:  Been looking at the 1, St Helens-Atherton, on the face of it that was a bizarre pointlless route, much of the route covered by other routes mainly 32 Hindley-Atherton & 320 Platt Bridge-St Helens, also interesting the LUT Atherton depot was the Southside of Atherton towards Leigh, the GM Buses depot i'm familiar with was near the rail station on the Northside of Atherton.

Come to think about it, in 70s & 80s St Helens had a few companies operating in the area, you had MPTE, GMPTE, LUT, Crosville & Ribble.

The 1 was originally a trolley bus route. LUT operated trams (as South Lancs) from Atherton and the whole thing was highly regulated. Also LUT operated across the South Lancs coalfield and this was reflected in in their routes. Many routes became less significant as collieries closed down. There most westerly services interchanged/transferred at Newton Station and transfer tickets could be used on 60 61 62 63 64 50 51 52 53 44 . Couldn't be used on the 39 as that was joint operation although it was only ever operated by LUT.