Lower Mosley Street Manchester - Part 3

To read Part 1 click here or Part 2 click here

The South Side

To the south of Great Bridgewater Street things were less precise. The central “island” shelter carried signs indicating stands 18-21, but as far as I can remember there were no destination signs. Generally speaking the area to the west of the “island” was North Western territory while that to the east was a Ribble zone, but this applied only to departures and vehicles merely using the south side as an arrival point or for temporary parking fitted in wherever there was space available. Entry to this part of the bus station was via Trumpet Street with vehicles parking “nose-on” to Great Bridgewater Street.

The North Western side was used by departures on the X5 London services (although technically a joint service the only regular Midland Red working on this operation was a lunchtime rotation from and to Birmingham). By 1965 the variations on this service had expanded to include the X5B (via Buxton and the M1), and the X5Z (via Altrincham, the newly opened M6 and the M1), with the X5Z establishing a new fastest journey of just over five hours – half the time taken by the original London service back in 1929. The London route was always operated by North Western’s newest coaches, which from 1963 meant Leopards with Alexander Y-type bodywork.

Other North Western schedules on the south side included those to Rhyl and Llandudno (X24/34/44, operated with slightly older front-line coaches), to Chesterfield (X67, operated by a wide variety of North Western single-deckers plus miscellaneous East Midland vehicles of more recent vintage – they seemed to think the route more prestigious than did North Western), and to Nottingham (the X2 which went from “Black Top” dual-purpose vehicles to coach-liveried Alexander bodied Reliances in the mid-1960s, counterpointed by similar semi-coach types from joint operator Trent. As noted earlier the X2 was something of a nomad and at weekends could frequently be found operating from the Barnsley stand on the original site. Its place was taken at weekends (until 1968) by the X39 and X72 summer-only services to Sheffield, joint with Sheffield JOC which used early production 30-foot Leopards with bodywork by Burlingham, ECW, and Weymann. Another service which allegedly operated from this area (stand 21) was the 12A works service to Carrington and Partington, but in reality the double-deckers operating these infrequent journeys would usually pull up briefly on Great Bridgewater Street itself to collect the few (if any) passengers involved.

This North Western area was also used by Bristol/ECW coaches of Crosville on the X75 from Llanidloes in mid-Wales, basically a shopping excursion converted into an express service, and by vehicles of PMT on the three times daily run from Hanley. This was (confusingly) another X2 which may account for North Western/Trent’s X2 migrating to the north side. PMT’s version was operated by a diverse mixture ranging from brand-new coaches to equally recent double-decker buses at times of peak demand.

Services using the Ribble side included the various Scottish services, operated by the newest coaches of Ribble and Western SMT – in theory Scottish Omnibuses were also a joint operator on the Edinburgh run but in more than a decade I only saw one non-Ribble vehicle on this variation and that was a Reliance of SOL subsidiary Starks of Dunbar. Other schedules from this area included the X40 to Keswick (a variety of coaches including “White Lady” double-deckers) and the X66 to Darwen and Blackburn. The latter service was joint with Lancashire United and – in theory – Bolton Corporation, although I never saw any of their vehicles at Lower Mosley Street and believe that their participation was limited to duplicates between Bolton and Blackburn. Ribble used a variety of coaches on the route while Lancashire United usually fielded dual-purpose vehicles or single-deck buses.

Mention should be made at this point of the Golden Horse Cafe, the former Finglands coach station. Crews tended to prefer this establishment to either the staff canteen or the Bus Station Cafe in the warehouse at the other side of the southern area, and I can personally vouch for the food in here being of a better quality (by greasy spoon standards). One day I witnessed a near catastrophe here when a North Western Loline, left unattended on the Macclesfield stand with its engine running, lurched inexplicably across Great Bridgewater Street towards the Golden Horse. Miraculously the kerb on the south side of the road managed to bring it to a halt before it demolished the cafe, and even more miraculously there were no vehicles passing by on Great Bridgewater Street at the time. The name of Jesus Christ was invoked by many of the bus crews in the cafe!

Isherwoods Garage

To the east of the Blackpool platform lay Calder Street, and between that and the canal a fairly extensive car park. During the week this was used by commuting office-workers on monthly parking contracts, but on summer weekends it became an extension to the bus station and offered accommodation to various summer-only North Western express services. These included the X3 to Barmouth, the X4 to Aberystwyth, the X7 to Southport, X13 to Cleethorpes, X15 to Whitby, X23/33 to Skegness, X25 to Scarborough, and X74 to Pwllheli. As well as a cross-section of North Western’s own coaches vehicles were hired in from many other coach operators to help cover the seasonal demand. Vehicles of Altrincham Coachways (a North Western subsidiary), Pride of Sale, and other Manchester area independents were the most common offerings, but more unusual hirings made a visit to this area essential. My personal favourite was WWV 564, a Harrington Cavalier bodied Leopard which was fleet number 39 of Silver Star Motor Services, the famous Salisbury Plain independent. In August 1962 this turned up behind Isherwoods with windscreen stickers proclaiming “On hire to North Western” and “Scarborough”. Confusingly the vehicle’s own destination blind read “Salisbury Plain” and at the time I couldn’t understand why the driver hadn’t rolled the blind around until it displayed a “blank”. Since then I’ve seen almost a dozen photographs of this vehicle in various locations, both in its original livery and later Wilts & Dorset colour scheme, and in every one the blind reads “Salisbury Plain”. Was it stuck? I presume that there was some connection with Pride of Sale here (as an intermediary) as Silver Star coaches bound for Manchester on “Forces Leave” express workings were garaged with that operator during their layover and Tiger Cubs MMR 552/553 (and possibly others) had “On hire to Pride of Sale” on their destination blinds.

Another gem to be found in this area on a more regular basis was the pre-war TD5/ECW double-decker DDK 117 which North Western had acquired from Rochdale Corporation in 1956. Equipped as a staff canteen in a pleasing green and cream livery, it commuted in every morning from North Western’s Hulme Hall Road garage and was the only double-decker of conventional highbridge layout (as opposed to low-height) ever owned by the company.

The Final Years

I could go on at greater length about this superb bus station, but my computer tells me that I have already exceeded my original word-count target so rather than digress with mention of the nearby East Street Coach Station used by independents such as Abbotts and Yelloway (and confusingly owned by a company called LMS Coachways), I’d better bring the Lower Mosley Street story to its unhappy ending.

The decline began with the formation of the National Bus Company in 1968, the poorly run state-owned monopoly which absorbed B.E.T. and its subsidiaries including North Western and Ribble. Service cuts and “rationalisation” were the order of the day. First to go were the X39 and X72 to Sheffield. As a pathetic attempt at compensation for these losses the surviving Manchester to Sheffield service, the daily year-round X48 which used Exchange Station as its Manchester terminus and operated via Woodhead, was diverted into Lower Mosley Street. Originally a railway operated service (thus the use of Exchange Station) the route had passed to Sheffield JOC upon its formation and was the odd man out in having no North Western involvement. It could never hope to replace the X39 or X72 as it offered no facilities to Sheffield for the inhabitants of Denton, Hyde, and Glossop (X39) or Stockport, New Mills, and Chapel-en-le-Frith (X72) nor any opportunities to hikers and other leisure passengers bound for the picturesque Snake Pass and Ladybower reservoir (X39) or Mam Tor and Castleton (X72). The withdrawal of these two services was the coaching equivalent of British Rail’s (mercifully unsuccessful) attempt to close the Settle-Carlisle line. A disgrace. The excuse was that they were “less profitable” than the X48.

Further meddling with the scenic trans-Pennine routes soon followed. In 1971 the X67 to Chesterfield was extended to Mansfield at the eastern end (it would later become Liverpool-Manchester-Chesterfield-Mansfield-Lincoln). These extensions might sound like a positive development but they destroyed the service’s punctuality and made it much less attractive to its original coterie of fiercely loyal users. In the same year the popular X19/X20 to Barnsley were combined into a single service (X19) which omitted much of the mileage of the earlier versions and yet took a far more convolute route in an attempt to replace the remainder.

Much worse vandalism was already on the horizon. NBC’s Stalinist managers had decided that the creation of the SELNEC PTE would destroy the financial viability of North Western and voluntarily sold the company’s stage-carriage assets within the SELNEC area to the PTE on 4th March 1972. The remainder of North Western’s stage carriage services were divided between neighbouring NBC subsidiaries Crosville and Trent. The company remained in existence as an express service operator but its fate was already written down and it was soon merged into National Travel West along with Ribble subsidiary WC Standerwick.

With North Western’s magnificent express network already in the process of being destroyed there seemed little benefit in spending money to update Lower Mosley Street. On 13th May 1973 the bus station witnessed its final departure, a 2330 hrs run to London, and from the following day all surviving express routes were transferred to Chorlton Street. This was a thoroughly unpleasant fume-ridden site beneath a multi-storey car park which had all the charm of a lab-rat’s cage. It still does despite the “modernisation” programme of recent years (modernisation in this case meant cutting it down to half of its previous size, giving it a waiting area which resembled a very small and cheaply built airport terminal somewhere in rural America, and installing beeping “level crossing” style gates to control coach access to the few stands remaining in use). Meanwhile the old Lower Mosley Street site is now a concert hall where the middle classes can go to make themselves feel culturally superior. Personally I would prefer to see the Halle Orchestra playing beneath the car park at Chorlton Street. Complete with beeping gate accompaniment. But that might just be me!

Lower Mosley Street may have had its faults (the totally inadequate toilet facilities spring to mind) but it also had character and charm. For those of us who loved the place its closure, descent into dereliction, and eventual demolition was nothing short of barbarism. NBC’s excuse was that the bus station was too far from the city centre, an asinine statement if ever there was one. Is Victoria Coach Station in London too far from Trafalgar Square? At that time remarkably few people actually lived in the city centre so the vast majority of passengers using Lower Mosley Street were transferring between express services, arriving by bus routes which terminated there, or travelling in from the suburbs on corporation services (many of which, including two cross-city runs, passed the bus station). Chorlton Street actually had fewer local connections, not more, as all of its previous local services were evicted before it became the new coach station.

So the next time you visit Manchester by coach, presuming that you haven’t given up in disgust and bought a car instead, spare a thought for a time when things were less sterile, more chaotic, and yet somehow so much better. Lower Mosley Street, we still miss you terribly after all these years and regularly curse the mindless bureaucrats in the PTE and NBC who ordained your closure. We will never see your like again.

Neville Mercer
08/2010

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28/06/11

Neville Thank you very much for this interesting article. It brought back many happy memories for the many hours I spent at LMS in my youth and filled in lots of gaps in my knowledge.

David Roberts

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29/06/11

What an absolutely fascinating article about a most atmospheric thoroughfare and the vehicles which used it !! I promise to digress only very briefly, but the beautiful picture of Ribble 2492 (BCK 435) is of great interest to me. Samuel Ledgard had two of these vehicles, BCK 427/441 and no less than four of their contemporary all Leylands BCK 414/415/421 and 422, the latter quartet retaining in the cabs over the windscreens a notice that they were from Bootle depot. All were fine second hand purchases which benefitted from the indisputably fine maintenance of Ribble and gave faultless service and were a pleasure to work and to travel on.
A picture (source unknown) of BCK 427 ready to enter service after the usual fastidious Ledgard overhaul by dedicated craftsmen can be seen on another posting at this link.

Chris Youhill

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29/06/11

Excellent, very absorbing information, thanks for sharing it with us Neville.

Roger Broughton

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12/09/12 - 07:44

I have just been reading the history on Lower Mosley Street Bus Station by Neville Mercer.
When I came to part two the photograph of the Trent's RC 9658 caught my eye. But looking further I noticed the vehicles in the background. A Ribble bus I think on the Clitheroe route but it is the vehicle behind that that prompts my curiosity. The bus looks as though it has a Stockport Corporation livery. My problem is that to my knowledge Stockport never went into Lower Mosley Street.
Has anyone out there got any idea which operator it is.

Keith Hampton

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13/09/12 - 06:50

You are probably correct, Keith, but it is also fairly well documented that many operators - including corporation undertakings - were drafted in at busy periods to duplicate X60s and the like. I've certainly seen a nice blue and cream Ashton PD2 on such.

David Oldfield

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13/09/12 - 06:54

It's difficult to be sure, but it looks to me like one of SHMD's East Lancs-bodied Daimlers in the old dark green and cream livery with a silver roof.

David Beilby

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13/09/12 - 06:55

I can't be certain, Keith, but the roof appears to have a slightly more silvery hue than the other lighter areas of the vehicle's livery. I'm guessing that it's an SHMD vehicle in the 1950s colour scheme. From its position it could either be looking for somewhere to go (the stand for the Glossop service being occupied by a Ribble PD3) or is about to turn onto the Blackpool stand whilst operating "on hire to Ashton Corporation on hire to North Western". Can anybody else make an educated guess?

Neville Mercer

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14/09/12 - 15:24

An excellent article Neville. A couple of additional points.
The Co-ordinated Motor Bus Scheme was the brainchild of MCTD's General Manager, Henry Mattinson. He worked miracles by persuading various councils, companies and a very "anti" Manchester Police that cross city running and joint service operation would be beneficial.
Unfortunately, just as the system was bearing fruit Henry died of complications from the effects of his service in WW1.
Stuart Pilcher was appointed and his priorities were the removal of the tram system and a standard double decker. The Police took their opportunity and enforced a split of the cross town services on the basis that Market St was too congested. Nobody seems to have looked at alternatives to Market St and the problem persisted until it was first made one way in the 1960s and eventually closed.
The siting of Lower Mosley St Bus Station was totally inconvenient for anything other than Central Station but was the only site the Council, Police and the operating companies could agree on.
As to the query on the bus in the background with a Stockport like livery, it certainly isn't a Stockport vehicle. At that time the roof would have had a grey top which would have been visible from that angle. Also there are ribs visible on the roof section which no Stockport vehicle at that time had. I'd go with an SHMD East Lancs Daimler
I'd query the caption to the photo in Part 1. The supposed Manchester bus looks more like a Weymann bodied NWRCC PD2 to me. I can't think of a reason MCTD would park a vehicle there. Their involvement on the 6 to Glossop only allowed a turn round on the stand. The possibility of a hire to NWRCC on the X60 exists but the usual arrangement was to run the bus from the depot to the stand just in time for loading.
There is also a Weymann bodied Bristol L5G between the Royal Tiger and the Orion bodied PD2

Phil Blinkhorn

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15/10/12 - 10:47

You are right about the single-decker Phil - your eyesight is clearly sharper than mine these days! I feel that the jury is still out on the 'decker after magnifying it as much as possible, but you might well be right. In the mid-60s I did sometimes see MCTD vehicles on the car park, usually X60 (or "60x") duplicates which arrived at LMS to be directed there by North Western's inspectors when everywhere else was full (the Blackpool stands and Calder Street) or too congested to allow free movement when they were required (the southern half of the bus station). Having said that, I could be wrong on this occasion!

Neville Mercer

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16/10/12 - 05:08

I agree with Phil about the supposed Manchester bus - it is an NWRCC Weymann PD2. The destination layout is not Manchester, and the cab and lower deck window surrounds are painted cream - Manchester never had a livery that did that.

Peter Williamson

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23/09/13 - 15:03

Although I don't remember Lower Mosley Street (and only worked in Manchester from 2003), I found this article fascinating. My particular interest is in the Sheffield services as I was a student in the city back in the 1960s and recall the 39 and 48.
The 48 via Woodhead departed from Exchange station and it seems the passenger facilities there were basic, to say the least. Was there a seat? There may have been, but it would have been hidden behind the waiting bus in the photographs I've seen.
However the comments about the Bridgewater Hall and being "culturally superior" are out of place in an article about buses. I've been a classical musician all my life and do not feel superior to those who are not. I was just lucky that my parents gave me access to great music.

Geoff Kerr

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28/09/13 - 16:16

I think that the silence to your post, Geoff, tends to show that you are in a minority of one, perhaps because you did not seem to pick up the fact that the remainder of the paragraph after the sentence you comment on indicates that Neville wrote it in humour. However, your comment about being a classical musician and being exposed to 'great music' would seem to imply that classical music IS superior to other forms, even if you, yourself, are not a classical "snob"! We all know that there is a cross-cultural fertilisation nowadays, with classical musicians doing studio session work in the pop scene, necessary for many musicians to make a decent living, plus composers writing in a variety of genres.
As for me, I would never put into writing something that might reveal something of my character or judgement and later regret, much as I might be tempted! This forum is not for personal criticism, but, as you rightly say, for buses.

Chris Hebbron

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29/09/13 - 07:47

And let us not forget the third type of music, to be found on the Old Bus Sounds page of this site. My Sundays are split between playing a church organ and riding on classic buses - both equally musical in their own way.

Peter Williamson

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29/09/13 - 09:41

You're lucky, Peter. As a professional, I have very little opportunity to indulge in diesel music since most running days are on a Sunday. Occasionally I manage to break free, though. Next week, after my morning duties, I will dash off to Amersham to drive an RML on the afternoon of Amersham & District's Running day.

David Oldfield

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29/09/13 - 15:35

Straying slightly off the subject, David, one thing that infuriates me is when we get to see the Lancaster accompanied by a Spit and a Hurricane, the commentator waxes lyrical about the magic of six Rolls Royce Merlin's in perfect tune with each other, but it's impossible for us to hear them because they're drowned out with inane chatter or an infernal din that some idiot on the production staff seems to think is music.

Ronnie Hoye

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30/09/13 - 07:14

It's certainly true that all background music is now foreground music, especially in pubs, where there are speakers throughout the building. Why can't they leave some area without them or put switches on them? After all, if I wanted loud music, I'd go to a disco (No, I wouldn't really!).

Chris Hebbron

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05/12/13 - 16:59

Just picked up the later comments. Yes, maybe I didn't read Neville's comment in the right spirit! There is certainly a link between musicians and railways, and maybe with buses. Which reminds me that one of the best places to listen to, say, Mozart is Huddersfield bus station, where it is used to discourage the local youths from congregating. Mozart's comments can only be imagined.

Geoff Kerr

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10/01/14 - 16:20

I enjoyed reading the article by Neville Mercer on the Lower Moseley Street bus station in Manchester. I was a regular user in the period that he describes, in my case 1963-1969.
My recollection of vehicles used around 1965 is a little different from his, though. I think this might be because my experience was mostly limited to Mon-Fri commuting times, whereas Neville's recollection appears to be drawn from Saturdays. I'll only comment on the services that I am familiar with: the Ribble routes to North East Lancashire.
From the early 1960s introduction of the type, the "White Lady" Atlanteans were the mainstay on the X23 (Clitheroe depot) and X43 (Burnley and Skipton depots); if they were substituted it was usually because something had gone wrong. The full-front Titans, along with Atlantean buses (generally the newest buses that Burnley depot had) tended to be used before that time on these routes. Having said that, almost anything could appear on the 16:52 X43 Burnley only duplicate! The X3 and X13 were provided by Blackburn depot and bus Atlanteans would appear as often as White Ladies, sometimes lowbridge examples. Neville's remarks about the X4 and X14 are accurate from my memory, though around that time a very nice Harrington bodied Leopard was the regular performer on the 16:22 X14. A great disappointment when it came to be replaced by a BET style Marshall Leopard bus. The X53, which parallelled the X43 as far as Rawtenstall then travelled via the Irwell Valley to its Burnley terminus, was not mentioned (perhaps it no longer ran on Saturdays at the time when Neville was around?); this route usually featured rather older coaches. Until cutbacks started in the mid 60s there was a 30 minute frequency between Manchester and Burnley: X43 to Skipton every hour at xx:52, then X4, X14 and X53 each every 4 hours at xx:22, with a short X43 working to Burnley filling the 4th xx:22.
As an aside, I am always amused by enthusiasts becoming lyrical about the Atlantean White Ladies. As a passenger, I have to say that they were the most awful coaches (or even buses) that I ever had the misfortune to travel on. In fairness, perhaps the relatively short East Lancs routes were not the place for them to shine as they were used for a lot of commuter-type journeys (including an officially stage carriage section between Colne and Skipton) therefore received a lot of hard treatment compared with say the X40 or even X60/X70 routes. The roads in that area were also quite hilly compared with North and West Lancashire, also the diagramming was pretty intense. The enduring recollection from my final journeys around 1975-6 was of the internally thoroughly shabby Skipton examples 1276 and 1278 crawling up the (then) A56 out of Burnley at little more than walking speed. Burnley's 1270, 1272, 1280, 1281 and 1286 (I think!) were little better, but Manchester often came up with a much less jaded example for the 15:52 duplicate to Burnley (may have been 1266?).

KRP

 

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