Route History

[Phil]

RE: Route History
Interesting to read the posts on the 79 corridor. In particular the Lee Park variations, both in the PTE and MTL era. The 79A (City Centre - Lee Park) managed to survive the initial Arriva changes in April 2000, however not for a great deal longer.

The 174 (Penny Lane - Belle Vale) has a bit of a chequered history which stretches back to 1987. The current route was combined with the withdrawn route 173 not so long ago to operate via Woolton Village.
Before that, the route the daytime 174 took stemmed from Merseybus routes 47/47A and Merseytravel route 147.
Initially, the 147 was ran by Merseybus as a Merseytravel contract between Lee Park and the Pier Head and operated via Gateacre, Childwall Fiveways, Penny Lane, Ullet Road, Lodge Lane and Catherine Street
Merseybus then introduced a commercial route 47 which followed pretty much the same route as the 147, but extended to Netherley.
In 1991, Merseybus extended, rerouted and renumbered this service to the 47A City - Belle Vale - Garston.
From what I can remember, this did the usual route from the Gyratory to Belle Vale Centre, then from what I can remember, it would turn back on itself through Gateacre Village and then via Halewood Road, Kings Drive, Springwood Ave, Heath Road, Long Lane and then terminate at Garston Garage.

This route was withdrawn in November 1993, to be partly replaced with tendered route 174 between Belle Vale and Penny Lane, operated by Wingates. However, there were still a couple of early morning 147 journeys between Lee Park and City Centre that lasted until the mid to late 90’s.

On a personal note, route 47A was what got me interested in buses when I was a wee lad living on the Belle Vale estate as we had family who lived in both Lodge Lane and Allerton.

I can only go by memory on most of this information, so any corrections on this information is very welcome!