Route History

[L544]

RE: Route History

(15/05/2019 15:03)MTL0201 Wrote:  54/54A was operated by minibuses as well because of a weight restriction on one of the bridges on Wango Lane, he 54 after d-reg was Bootle-Kirkby before it got extended to the monster circular route.

My 1990 Liverpool bus map has the 54 Page Moss-Kirkby via City Centre, from Page Moss the 54 went via Woolfall Heath-Huyton-Rupert Road-Pilch Lane-Thingwall Hall Drive then via 61 to City Centre, out of the City Centre via Vauxhall Road & Love Lane, then Sandhills Station-Stanley Road-Linacre Road-Church Road-Old Roan-Aintree Village-Fazakerley Hospital-Kirkby, did a circle route in Kirkby from Civic Centre via Brewley Drive-Bracknell Avenue-Broad Lane-Wellfield Avenue

The origins of the route number 54 was in a Ribble service from Seaforth Sands Overhead railway terminus (which was a big bus hub - terminus of 1 16 23 24 33 39 61 68) the staff building still there inside the dock estate wall. The service ran to Netherton Green via Dunnings Bridge Road and Copy Lane. It first changed to going through Aintree and the canal bridge before growing even larger and hence numbering of 17.
54 had a sister route number 53 from Black Bull via Park Lane to Netherton Marian Square which is now part of the 63.

Both these short routes existed becasue they served Litherland which was outside of LCPT's area and Ribble got exclusive rights to operate on these roads until Netherton was developed and something better had to be provided by way of bus services.