Route History

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
Some interesting past history of the 79’s there lads.

In MPTE days they also had the peak’s Rapidride 479, did this run to Netherley or somewhere else? It disappeared long before I ever got a chance to use it. In MPTE days Prince Alfred Road’s MCW Scania Metropolitian’s were quite a common sight on the 79’s until they started to bio-degrade from 1983 onwards. Not sure about this but did the MPTE 79's have route variations in Netherley serving Naylorsfield Road/Caldway Drive?

The 79/Picton Road corridor has had some interesting history since de-reg too.

Halton Transport were first to compete on there by extending their 61 from Huyton to Liverpool City Centre in November 88 which was initially hourly then gradually went 30, 20 then 15 minutes over the years – although the current 61’s to Liverpool are 30 minutes generally now. The 61’s were only partly on this corridor and Halton 14’s began in 1990 (I think) which loosely ran the 79’s corridor to the Netherley/Cronton boundary and they went on to Widnes/Runcorn with again gradual increases in the Monday-Saturday daytime frequency. Halton and both services are still around today and have seen off much of the established and competing services on the 79 corridors over the years.

Maybe someone can confirm this for me but didn’t Crosville after de-reg continue with their 76 to St Helens and also ran a short lived Merseytravel 173 service (this may have operated Smithdown Road?) along the 79/Picton Road corridor until their Liverpool depot industrial dispute saw them close the depot at Love Lane? I know Merseybus ran the 76’s from St Helens in the late 80’s but I don’t know if they took this on after de-reg or when Crosville near enough pulled out of Liverpool. Crosville’s Runcorn operations on the H20/H21/H29/H30/H31 etc. lingered on until becoming absorbed by North Western in 1990 and fairly shortly North Western scaled these back to Widnes – Runcorn before Arriva’s 38/79C re-appeared in 2000/01.

Liverline came on it in 1989 with their 38/39 circulars which were a mixture of the 78 and 79 to Lee Park if IIRC originally. This was when Liverline started acquiring the mainly Blackpool and Hyndburn East Lancs Atlantean’s to see off their ex-Stratclyde Alexander’s they began their operations with along with the first of their Northern Counties Scania’s. Merseybus responded with a limited stop 439 although this didn’t last too long and I think was gone before the summer in 1990. Liverline soon revised the service into the more well known 38 which passed over to Mersey Rider in 1993 and lasted all the way to the Arriva acquisition before becoming Arriva’s 79C in 2001. When North Western acquired Liveline in 1993 they merged the Amberline operation into it and their 79’s too, initially they got operated out of Speke with Amberline’s ex-West Mid’s Fleetline’s getting North Western liverly but fairly quickly Bootle soon took these journey’s over and Liverline settled on these in 1995 until Arriva probably due to the arrival/establishing of CMT came off the 79’s in the late 90’s.

CMT Buses came on the 79’s around 1993 with Monday-Saturday high frequency 79B to Belle Vale only. Again not entirely sure when but in the late 90’s they extended the service to Netherley and had a 79A variant – not to be confused with the MPTE/Merseybus service, which they generally developed into a substantial competitor for MTL/Arriva with all day operations on the 79’s all the way to CMT’s acquisition by GTL in 2003. GTL pretty much kept things as CMT had until their acquisition by Stagecoach who pulled off the 79’s in 2006 and introduced a short-lived 78B service to Hope Uni, which has now become the 86C. Maybe for a reason Stagecoach have pulled off the 79/Picton corridor although if (big if) they eventually do acquire some or all of Halton Transport they could be back?

Express Travel also had a brief time on this corridor in 2000 with the X38 service which (I think) was limited stop and went to Halewood before it disappeared later that year. Not sure about it’s route from Belle Vale to Halewood but I think it ran Lee Park Avenue then Halewood Road on from there. Again not sure but this running down Gatacre Park Drive seems to ring a bell too.

Merseybus/MTL kept the 79A’s on until at least the mid/late 90’s and when the competition intensified in the mid-90’s they used both their Mersey Rider division’s 38 service and short 79E journey’s to Belle Vale to attack/defend from this. The Monday-Saturday London Road 79D variant appeared around this time too The 79E’s disappeared around 1995 when they had their gentlemen’s agreement with CMT, Halton and North Western etc. From de-reg onward Merseybus’s operation of the 79’s has also been interesting as since MPTE’s Prince Alfred Road depot closed it’s been operated by Garston, Edge Lane, Gillmoss and Speke depot’s and from 1991 to 94 it was merged with the 14C’s to run from Croxteth to Netherley via the City Centre as a cross-city 79 service along with many other routes when Merseybus did their service and garage review back then. No way they could do this in Liverpool now considering the traffic issues and delays we now get! Merseybus/MTL also used the 79's to trial the ex-London Leyland Titan's in late 92 before acquiring over 250 of these from London Buses from 1992-94. Also didn’t MTL also introduce a nightbus 79 (79N) in the late 90’s too? Also notable was the batch of Marshall Capital Dart SLF’s MTL introduced on the 79’s in autumn 1999 when MTL was winding down which were meant to have been Wright Renown Volvo B10BLE’s which ironically were taken on by Arriva (2701-30) when they acquired MTL in 2000.

Arriva since taking over MTL in 2000 quickly moved the Marshall Dart’s on and replaced them with ironically some of the Renown’s originally intended for the route along with fairly newish Alexander ALX300/Plaxton Prestige Daf SB220’s transferred from Arriva Manchester. In the mid-2000’s these got the ‘Le Bus’ branding too and in 2000/01 Runcorn depot joined the Speke operations on the 79’s with the 79C service which competed with Halton’s 14’s to Runcorn. In 2005 the ‘Strider’ batch of Wright Cadet/VDL SB120’s were bought for Runcorn and were mainly deployed on the 79C’s too. Generally things stayed this way until the autumn of 2011 when Arriva revised the 79's into the current 79/79D extending the 79's to Halewood and not serving Queen Square but Hanover/Paradise Street on journey's into Liverpool city centre and the 79D's no longer operating on London Road. Speke also got 44 Wright Gemini 2/VDL DB300’s for the 79’s and 82’s which generally operate on this service today along with some of Speke’s Wright Eclipse Gemini/Gemini 3 Volvo B5HL’s too. Last year Runcorn after winding down the 79C’s passed these over to Speke who now run this to Widnes only.

Hope I’ve got this history right as the 79’s like most corridors since de-reg have had some interesting history, routes and operators over the years and hope I’ve not missed anything/got anything wrong! I’m sure the 79 and many other route corridors in Liverpool will have plenty interesting things to come in the near future too.