Once upon a time there was Blackpool Corporation Transport, Lytham St Annes ditto (later Fylde) ...
.. and the massive Ribble company.
Ribble begat Stagecoach ...
... and Blackpool Transport absorbed Lytham/Fylde.
Over the years, Stagecoach has progressively cut back its services in the greater Blackpool area; its recent curtailment being the last few local routes.
This leaves Uncle Brian Souter with just three services to Blackpool.
The 42 from Lancaster is hourly ...
... the "coastal" 68 via Lytham is every 15 minutes ...
... and the so-called direct 61 runs every 30.
And that's it.
Recent history shows two longer distance routes that no longer exist. There was the X61 all the way from Manchester ...
The X61 was part of a huge list of express services that ran to "The Seaside", many of them summer only.
Another "lost" route appears on the old xephos data as service 80 ...
... between Preson and Fleetwood via Inskip. Broadly speaking this followed the B5269 which lies in between Stagecoach's 42 and 61 services.
... seen above departing from the glorious and/or reviled Preston Bus Station.
The present 80 runs from the Preston end to Myerscough via Inskip ...
... and is operated under tender to Lancashire by Preston Bus.
The pieces of chess are nearly all in place now for the game which would appear to end in checkmate on 18th January 2017. (click on the panel below to enlarge)
The final piece on the board is a company called Classic Bus North West Limited. It provided (and still does) vintage buses for private hire, Its current web site lists a total of 9 vehicles although it is not clear how many of them are currently available.
Let the chess begin!
Next Blackpool blog : Wednesday 30th November
The former "80" service between Preston and Fleetwood is currently operated by Preston Bus under contract to LCC as service 75.
ReplyDeleteSorry, what I meant to say is that the LINK between Preston and Fleetwood is provided by the 75, which runs via Kirkham. The top end of the route is however the same as the former 80.
ReplyDelete