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