Manchester Magic - Wilmslow Road

But First, An Omission

Those of our readers who were enjoying a good hearty bowl of Scouse whilst reading yesterday's blog may well have choked on their carrots due to an inexcusable oversight from fbb.

Magic Bus did operate for a while in Liverpool.

The service 14 group of routes served Kirkby and its outlying estate, Tower Hill, and still does.

Including buses to Knowsley Industrial Park, the network was complicated ...

... and still is. But before Steve Rotheram got his mayoral mitts on the system, there was vicious competition on the 14 group. Encouragingly, and again before Rotheram, peace was brokered by the Councils and the 14 group became officially joint between Arriva and Stagecoach.

During the most heated of competitive battles, Stagecoach ran cheaper Magic Bus services to snaffle as much of the cash as possible.

Clapped-out single decks ("life expired"?) did the job and, as they were fully depreciated, a fare of £1 could be offered all the way into the city centre.

Under today's chummy regime the fares are a lot higher!

Wonderful Receipts on Wilmslow Road

It starts in the centre of Manchester as Oxford Road because it was once the A34 which runs to Oxford and beyond to Southampton.

Highlights visible on the map are Piccadilly railway station (map, top) and, to its left, Piccadilly Gardens bus station. The round blob near "Univ" is Oxford Road station and Oxford Road itself is the ORANGE thoroughfare disappearing off the map, bottom right. The present A34 is the GREEN road to its right and parallel.

Oxford Road becomes Wilmslow Road ,,,

... and post Withington becomes a RED "A" Road which curves from running south to an easterly trajectory to reach Stockport. Assorted blobs towards the bottom right of the map above are at East Didsbury.

In the complex mass of tangled knitting wool that was railways in Manchester, fbb can identify the two blobs shown above.

The RED blob is East Didsbury station on the so-called Styal loop served from Piccadilly. The YELLOW blob is a Metrolink tram stop on a route that uses the former Midland Railway line from the now closed Manchester Central. It is to the west of the Midland's Didsbury station.

The historic network is shown on the extract from an LMS map below.

There is a sort of bus station at East Didsbury, but not all routes use it and it warrants further explanation.

While we are at East Didsbury, we can enjoy the current railway station ...

Access is from Winslow Road, but you would never know it. The southbound platform (as illustrated above) is at the end of a narrow lane leading to a small car park.

There is no indication of its ferroequinological secret existence at the end. There is no footbridge, so the northbound platform is achieved by a footpath ...

... which has lots of notices but no actual station sign visible. Actually there is a sign, but it is hidden in the trees to the right of the gateway.

The tram stop is, not surprisingly, situated at the old railway over bridge ...

... better viewed from the steps and/or lift access.

There is an extensive car park ...

... Which ought to have included a relocated East Didsbury bus station.

Using his search via Google Maps, fbb could not spy any signage guiding passengers between the two stations and the bus terminus. 

The latter is at the Parrs Wood entertainment centre.

Open Street Map below shows the juxtaposition of all three.

Each little blue square is a bus stop.

Some of our Magic Buses terminate at Parrs Wood.

More from Oxford Road and Wilmslow Road in  Monday's   blog.

 Next Variety blog : Saturday  25th Jan