Ribble

[teenagewasteland]

RE: Ribble

(09/04/2016 16:36)Barney Wrote:  And the Waterloo interchange is now used as an unofficial car park. The successor of the L3 (53) is now a QBP operating between Crosby and Queen Square.

The Waterloo Interchange was, ironically enough, a way for the PTE to save money. The idea was to withdraw many through services between Crosby and the city centre, and divert the remaining services to connect with the trains to and from Liverpool. It's claimed, in Maund's book anyway, that the financial situation was so serious (probably concerning the PTE's payments to Ribble - were the PTE skint????) that the new scheme began in January 1977, instead of four months later when the Link line was completed on Merseyrail to Liverpool Central. There must have been many irate passengers who, so used to Ribble buses terminating in the centre of town on Skelhorne Street, found themselves with a fair walk from their destination while the trains still ended at Exchange!

A link bridge between the Interchange and the station platform was installed many months later after a number of near misses on busy South Road with passengers transferring between the buses and the frontage of Waterloo station. The bridge is still there, doing a job, but it's a little dark and murky.

The PTE gradually ran down Ribble's services in Crosby to what they deemed an acceptable level by about 1980, and the network ran fairly smoothly up to dereg. A similar bus-rail interchange scheme was put into place at Kirkby.

At dereg, all the co-ordination was abandoned, even though various services still used South Road. The PTE, through the tendering process, tried to keep up a small bus-rail presence with the 103 Waterloo - Dingle connecting with the trains arriving to / from Southport but this wasn't successful.

The PTE still own and operate Waterloo Interchange, and as you say, it's used more as a taxi car park than anything else now. The 103 and 133 still terminate there though.

The L3 / 53 connection goes back to the early 1930s - and the general route between Crosby and city centre has been much unchanged despite the enormous upheaval over the years.