Route History

[Gillmoss 0324]

RE: Route History
I think the Kirkby 15* routes were a sort of attempt at having separate route numbers for the MPTE area's but yes unlike Greater Manchester or West Midlands you didn't really get say routes in the four Mersey area's numbered like 1**, 2**, 3** etc. Saying that you could say some of the Ribble routes in the 3** series were similar to this and separate from the general municipal/MPTE series. It's interesting though that the 19's weren't incorporated into that 15* series when the old 15 route did and became the 155 etc.

Don't know much about the other PTE's but didn't West Yorkshire do something similar with routes in the Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield area's too?

MTL/Arriva's renumbering's have seen a fair few Wirral services become 4** routes since the 1990's and Arriva's Southport and St Helens changes have seen pretty much no duplication with the Liverpool route numbers which have been in use for many years.

It's interesting that over the last decade or so both Nat Ex West Midlands and mainly Stagecoach Manchester (Wigan) have abandoned legacy route numbers from the PTE era and now have different routes with duplicate numbers in different parts of their operating territories.