Route 99 | A ice cream that has melted and just the chocolate flake left now |Manchester to Sale Moor/Sale

Welcome on board everyone to TFGM service 99, not a 99 ice cream unfortunately before you get all excited about it but all jokes aside this service would have some special introductory offers a little more about that later on but not to late otherwise the ice cream will have melted by then and you will only have the flake left.

Image result for 99 ice cream — Anyone for 99, sourced from Google Images

This route last operated back in late 2017 or 2018, when Go Goodwins withdrawn the service to loss of revenue but the route itself was quirky route with potential for success but it was melted by the time of Metrolink Arrival into Withington, this route can be chased right back to Manchester Corporation Days and lasted ever since until it recent withdrawal.

I will be proposing some changes to it routing around Sale Moor to provide some extra service coverage in the area and bring the service back with every 15 Minutes service daily during the daytime and try and schedule it to work with both Metrolink and National Rail as this service connects a quite few National Rail and Metrolink Stations along the route which will be vital this service success.

How Manchester Coping without a 99 ice cream sorry 99 Bus Route

Since the demise of this route, the through connections from Manchester to Sale Moor as long since gone and requires 11 changes, 5 Different Operators 7 service routes and a little bit of walking is involved to finally reach Sale Moor and Sale. In general Sale to Manchester bus network as dwindle in the last few years to only 2 services connecting Sale to Manchester in a circular kind of formation.

Stagecoach Manchester Service 103 towards Manchester Airport and change at Dental Hospital
Manchester Community Transport Service 44 towards Stockport and change at Princess Road/Mauldeth Road West
Stagecoach Manchester Service 101 towards Wythenshawe and change at Princess Parkway Stop B
Diamond North West Service 272 towards Eccles and change at Altrincham Road/Ferndown Road
D&G Buses Service 288 towards Manchester Airport and change at Stockport Road/Stelfox Avenue cross over to catch the connecting service on opposite side
Stagecoach Manchester Service 108 towards Manchester and change at Brooklands Road/ Maple Road
Diamond North West Service 272 towards Eccles and change at Brooklands Road/ Norris Road
Diamond North West Service 281 towards Sale and change at The Moorfield
Diamond North West Service 272 towards Eccles and change at Dane Road/Temple Road
Walk Dane Road – Arnesby Avenue – Dane Road – Winstanley Road – Broad Road to catch a Go North West Service
Go North West Service 41 towards Sale Metrolink Station and you have now finally reached your destination congratulations

If you do decide to do this route by the method listed above good luck doing so as it probably will roughly take around 5 hours now

The 99s are being served again

I’m proposing that this service is reinstated along it original routing out of Manchester all the way through to Sale Moor Village where it would follow abit of revised routing to serve Arnesby Avenue for the first time to my knowledge that a bus service has operated along here, the road wideth seems wide enough to get a normal service bus down and up again and the final change in Sale Moor would be routing the service down Winstanley Road to Board Road where the service would follow Sale One Way system to terminate near Sale Metrolink Station.

The whole idea of reinstating the route is to give Sale and Sale Moor alternative route into the heart of Manchester and student distract, also providing onward connection to the National Rail and Metrolink systems

The service will connect the following stations listed below

Piccadilly Gardens Metrolink
Oxford Road National Rail Station
Withington Metrolink [East Didsbury Line]
Moor Road Metrolink [Airport Line] – Within short walking distance
Brooklands Metrolink [Altrincham Line]
Dane Road Metrolink [Altrincham Line] – Within a short walking distance
Sale Metrolink [Altrincham Line]

99 | Manchester – Dental Hospital – Fallowfield – Northenden – Brooklands – Sale Moor – Arnesby Avenue – Sale Metrolink Station

Manchester Piccadilly Gardens | Parker Street – Portland Street – Princess Street – Whitworth Street – Whitworth Street West – Gloucester Street – Cambridge Street – Higher Cambridge Street – Lloyd Street North – Lloyd Street – Lloyd Street South – Wilbraham Road – Princess Road – Princess Parkway – Altrincham Road – Brooklands Road – Marsland Road – Northenden Road – Old Hall Road – Dane Road – Arnesby Avenue – Dane Road – Winstanley Road – Broad Road – Woodlands Road – Northenden Road – Broad Road

The Fair Fare System

Because this route serves quite seven stations, 1 Network Rail[National Rail], 6 Metrolink Station, I would like the fare system to be avaiable to the passengers for all 3 transport methods when they board the service.

Single Fares will be no longer instead you will have a simple 2 option day and weekly tickets options available

Operator Day | £4.00 for the entire day
Connector Plus Day | £6.00 for unlimited travel across Greater Manchester on Trains, Metrolink and All Local Bus Services
Operator Weekly | £15 for the entire week
Connector Plus Weekly | £30 for the entire week

The 99′ introductory offer

To introduce this service back into the roads of Greater Manchester, I would want a special fare promation to be introduced to win back the crowds and also full fare structure as listed above

99′ Special Single| £1 for full route no ifs or buts

I hoped you enjoyed reading my proposals and ideas on reinstated route 99 between Manchester and Sale, if you got any suggestions or feedback on my suggestions made, please feel free leave them below in the comments and if you really enjoyed this post give it a share to spread the enjoyment and interest around

See you soon on the buses, Mike

Opening up Greater Manchester for wider bee population without clogging up the hives.

Greater Manchester wider bus services connecting the Greater Region to neighbouring counties like Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and West Yorkshire has slowly decaded and became stagmented due to further cuts to entire bus network since Late 1990s.

The solution to Greater Manchester crippling problems is simply lack of bus routes and destination options available to the population of the county meaning it ineradicable difficult to access work and leisure opportunity if you haven’t got a car, meaning they become heavily dependant on benefits to help them go by and also get isolated because they can not get out to socialise with there friends.

My Vision for Greater Manchester is simple | Connectivity, Frequent and Simple. I want to create the best ever network for Greater Manchester which will connect new developements around the county and create more work and social options for residents of the county and the visitors to our lovely county.

My plan for frequency of the network is simple,

The A Class | Every 15 Minutes [Daytime 8am – 7pm] / Every 20 Outside the Daytime period.
The B Class | Every 20 Minutes [Daytime 9am – 6pm] / Every 30 Minutes outside the Daytime Period
The C Class {Little Bee} | Every 30 Minutes [9:30 – 6:30] [Every 60 On quieter commuter routes}

The A Class | Will be high spec, environmentally friendly vehicles with all the mod cons and benefits of a modern car, Theses routes will be the most directest routes from Point A to Point B and some routes will have a night service too make sure our workers bees can home anytime of the day.
The B Class | Will be all singing and dancing like the A Class but will be more tailored to council estates runs and quiter back roads, Theses routes will operate a Semi indirect route from Point a to Point C via Point B.
The C Class {Little Bee} | Will bee everyone best friend as this routes will service every nook and cranny of housing estates, industrial estates and retail/leisure parks and everywhere where a normal service bus can’t serve

Everyone welcome to Greater Manchester, our grand network routes will make sure every major borough council area is served by at least one route to neighbouring towns in other boroughs and county’s. for example Rochdale would be connected up with Huddersfield via A640 and Oldham would be reconnected to Holmfirth and Halifax.

Where would everyone like to get to and from on a bus. I’m all about exploring new routes that has never be explored before, as I’m planning on correcting a whole new network with new routes numbers.

See you soon on the buses Mike

BOLTON ONCE A BOOMING LANCASHIRE TOWN BECAUSE FOLK FROM ALL OVER COULD ONCE GET IN TO VISIT THE TOWN!

Since the earlyest bus network map I can find from GMPTE was back in 2004 and it showcases how much the network have been chopped back and altered since then.

Today will be looking at the size of the Bolton network has shrunk due to greedy private operator with no customer compassion and lack lust TFGM with there nonsense and poorly thought tendered services through out the region.

Hold on to the seats and grab rails this going to be a bumpy ride.

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Unpatching the patchwork quilt of Greater Manchester Bus Network

Ever since 26th of October 1986 the bus network around Greater Manchester and across the country became a free for all when the buses was deregulated from public bus company’s to private bus company’s., the operator would no longer need to have road service licensing to run bus service they would just need to apply to the traffic commissioner to register any changes to a bus service and give 56 days notice before changes can take place.

Which led to influx of new operators to bus scene and all fighting for the bus passengers and this was typically bad in Manchester during the periods of 1986 and 1999 when the bus war was rift with competition services being created left right and centre. there where three bus corridors that competition was rift was Oxford Road, Cheetham Hill Road and Rochdale Road all leading out of Manchester.

Along one corridor in particular was Oxford Road which served the University District of Manchester and you had GM Buses Providing the main services and the comptetors was mainly over time was Mersey Bus, UK North, MLT Manchester and Finglands.

This sense of disorganisation and competition led to decline in Passengers numbers and eventually loss of services. was all caused by the private operators chasing profit not passengers.

Passengers there self was feeling over whelmed and confused at the same time with up 2 plus operators operating the same route but with varying quality of service and vehicles standards, also the terminus could be different depending on the operator, operating that particular journey.

Over the last 33 years the network of services around Greater Manchester have been messed around with that much it like patch quilt of services now and the most of original 1986 routes have since disappeared along with all the post deregulation routes and connections. making the current network seem more confusing and not making any sense and the lack of connections is rift too which is leading to more passengers lost and services disappearing to because other modes of transport are far better than the Greater Manchester Bus Network

I believe that ever local area should have a town to town service, a connection to other transportion modes and connections retail, leisure and healthcare without having to do marathon for a stroll.

TFGM, Andy Burnham the mayor of Manchester and the current operators are blinded by the pound sterling symbol flashing in there eyes and there nice cosy state of the art cars with heated seats and convenience but while they are enjoying the high life of luxury and convenience, the general public across Greater Manchester dred service change day as they take more and more freedom away from the people who need the services but don’t need to pay for the services because they are holders of a bus pass which the operators don’t like because in there luxury life they are providing a expensive service for free.

When they try a new service or a new routing for existing service they only think 56 days of operating the service until the next window opens to submit a change to the traffic commissioner is acceptable period of time for the service bed in and passengers to get used to change. or they create a ridiculous route which doesn’t make for any kind of common sense or withdraw a prefectaly good service and replacing in whole with a similar new service or make another good service worst by rerouting it cover the withdrawn route.

While the Mayor of Manchester has the breath to speak about Greater Manchester Crippling congestion problem is answer that problem is right underneath noise or right in front of him when he driving his luxury car to get to a meeting somewhere in Manchester. It called a Bus which is under funded and broken mayor and we need you to fix it or resign for you post and elect me as a Mayor of Manchester and I will have the network working for folk of Manchester once again.

If you are annoyed with you bus service or the approach that TFGM, Local Operator and Mayor are taking with the services and you would love to vent your frustration out, this post is for you.

If could kindly share this post with fellow annoyed folk out there, it be kindly appreciated.

Thanks for riding with Mike on the Buses.

Happy New Year and The Plans for 2019

Hello and Welcome back on board Mike On The Buses, Firstly I would like to apologise for the silence on here recently that is due to it being the busiest time of the year for everyone and struggling with the format of posts so over the next few weeks in the new year please expect some more silence will I work on bring you articles which are fun and interesting and looking at the full journey of the route from Corporation days to the present day.

I will see you all in 2019

Route X99 | A fleeting visit to Blackpool for classic fish and chips

Route X99 |Ashton-Under-Lyne – Blackpool & Fleetwood

Today we will explore the heyday of Greater Manchester when buses ran seasonally to places like Blackpool and Fleetwood or to places of Leisure like themes parks and Granada Studios.

Today we will board the service X99 to Fleetwood via Houses from Ashton Under Lyne, please come on board for a trip down the historical bus lane to 1992.

Introduction

During the early 80’s and late 90’s the bus network in Manchester was very vast after the deregulation of the bus services and this gave the operator more freedom to explore new routes and run seasonal long distance services to the seaside and theme parks. This period of time was the heyday of Leisure buses which ran as expresses collecting Holiday markers and day trippers from Local Towns and Cities mainly using coaches to operate these services.

Hello I’m the X99 it’s nice to meet you!

the 78 Miles 2 hours 50 Minutes Journey was introduced on 17th April 1992 to transport folk from Ashton-under-Lyne to Fleetwood via Oldham, Shaw, Newhey, Wardleworth, Rochdale, Heywood, Bury, M66[M62], M61, M55, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Talbot Square, Bispham, Cleveleys.

This route provided a daily seaside service for people to get there daily fix of fresh fish and chips with add hint of sea-breeze served in a newspaper. This route also served another purpose for the Folk of Ashton, Oldham and Shaw and Crompton vital connection to the famous Bury Market for Burys Blackpudding.

Would this route work in the 21st Century?

The simple answer is no unfortunately due to vast train network and amount of motorway time this service uses and would have to have standard service buses on this route which wouldn’t work but saying that a Bury – Ashton-Under-Lyne Market Day my work on a revised routing but other than that this service as done it time

Can you help to provide any missing Information or have Stories of this service that you would to share with the blog?

Thats all for now, Thank you travelling down the historical bus lane today and we would welcome you back on board on day of the week.

Mike the Bus Inspector from On The Buses

Greater Manchester D-Day 26/10/86 | Routes 50 – 99 – We started to go in circles and playing tennis with our buses

All rights to Mike Rhodes | GM Buses Olympian 3279 – 29/10/1988

On the eve of 25th October 1986 end of era was fast approaching where the bus network was in public ownership either by the state owned National Bus Company or by Municipal owned bus operator. On 26th October 1986 was deregulation day, where the Act abolished road service licensing and allowed for the introduction of competition on local bus services for the first time since the 1930s. To operate a service all an accredited operator was required to do was provide 56 days’ notice to the Traffic Commissioner of their intention to commence, cease or alter operation on a route. Continue reading →

Greater Manchester D-Day 26/10/86 | Routes 1 – 49 32 Years on from Deregulation, what could be left

Today we look at 50 routes from routes 1 – 49, come on-board. Continue reading →

The 601 Wigan to Warrington is now boarding for Coal Mining, Factory, Railways, Industrial Revolution

Ashton in Makerfield

The new 601 would restore connections to towns and villages with a rich history in coal mining, railways, factories and the industrial revolution with many of workers living locally and some villages was specifically built for factory workers. The 601 would transport them from Wigan via Warrington Road, Bryn – Wigan Rd – Ashton in Makerfield – Liverpool Road – Haydock – Earlestown – Newton Le Willows – Winwick Road – Warrington. Continue reading “The 601 Wigan to Warrington is now boarding for Coal Mining, Factory, Railways, Industrial Revolution” →

The 600 Wigan to Leigh is now boarding Pie Eaters, Miners, Farmers and Cotton Spinners

Source Wigan World

The 600 provides convenient connections to towns and village with a rich history in coal mining, agriculture and cotton with many of workers living locally and the 600 transports them from Wigan via Bryn – Old Road – Ashton in Makerfield – Golborne – Lowton to Leigh. But this route has served elsewhere since introduction in 1986.

Continue reading “The 600 Wigan to Leigh is now boarding Pie Eaters, Miners, Farmers and Cotton Spinners” →