Recreational Bus and Coach travel in the 1980s

The joys of summertime bus and coach travel in the North of England

For bus enthusiasts, the 1980s was a transitional period which made other transitional periods seem halcyonic. It was a decade which opened with the dawn of coach deregulation and finished with the privatisation of former National Bus Company subsidiaries. Not to mention bus deregulation, an abomination which wreaked havoc in many an urban area and cut off rural communities from affordable alternatives to private motoring.

Amid the hubris, I remember the 1980s as being a good time for coach fanatics like myself. Though NBC had exonerated North Western Road Car Company’s network of summer services, independent companies around Greater Manchester still ran excursions. For the first part of the 1980s, Yelloway continued to run long distance services to the South West of England, before it fell apart in 1985 when Hubert Allen retired. In 1981, Greater Manchester Transport introduced its Peak Wayfarer ticket and operated seasonal services to Derwent Dams, Crich Tramway Museum and Castleton. Mayne of Manchester also ran its traditional Holiday Express services.

In 2011, they reintroduced their Holiday Express services. At the time I thought, “Excellent news I say, but will they still stop at Queensferry and go the proper way to North Wales along the coastline?” Nevertheless, this article focuses on the joys of this route and a few others.

Holiday Express Coach Services

For several years, rail has often been a more expensive option than the coach for travelling to your holiday destination. Today, the average coach holiday aficionado would think nothing of going to Eastbourne or Torquay thanks to our motorways. As with present day practice, the feeder coach would take you to the coach depot from your nearest pick-up point where you would change over to join the Holiday Express coach to Blackpool, North Wales or Morecambe. Tickets would be booked through a travel agent, or a local newsagent nearest to the pick-up point (no internet or plastic money back then). Sometimes, you could bypass the feeder coach and board from the company’s coach station (as was the case with Yelloway at Weir Street, Rochdale or Mumps Bridge, Oldham).

In the 1980s, like today, there were none of the queues of the late 1940s around Lower Mosley Street or Cheltenham as private motoring became more affordable and flexible. From the 1980s onwards, coach travellers would seek longer destinations thanks to the motorway system, making travel to Eastbourne and Torquay possible in less than 10 hours. Till the early 1980s, Mayne of Manchester operated a daily journey to Blackpool from Tameside and East Manchester throughout the summer season. However, recent trends towards holidaying in the UK has seen them reintroduce its Summer Holiday Express services from this July.

My personal experience of the Holiday Express routes came in 1988, aboard Mayne of Manchester’s North Wales express service. It was also my family’s first holiday since my sister was born and a memorable one at that. Calling a short distance away from home, it was a cheaper more hassle-free alternative to the train which meant a taxi to Stalybridge and back, then the Trans-Pennine express to Bangor via Manchester Victoria to Colwyn Bay.

After leaving the depot at Ashton New Road, the Mayne’s coach would stop at Gronant (for the Presthaven Sands Haven camp), Prestatyn Bus Station, Rhyl (Ocean Beach car park) and Colwyn Bay, before terminating at Llandudno (behind the Hydro Hotel as of now). Intermediate stops were made outside the Robin Hood Camp (between Prestatyn and Rhyl) and the Winkups camp in Towyn.

Toilet Stops

One thing I miss about today’s coach trips are toilet stops at weird and wonderful pubs. With the North West’s motorway network fully developed, today’s loo stops are taken at motorway services. If you were travelling to North Wales from Manchester or Liverpool, The Queensferry Hotel on Welsh Road was a favoured spot. It had on the left hand side of the pub a school canteen style building which served as a snack bar close to the coach park. To the right was the play area and beer garden, with the pub toilets being in use both by passengers and locals. By the 1980s, this was becoming an exception rather than a rule.

The Queensferry Hotel has long since ceased to be a pub. As seen from a Yelloway coach bound for Caernarfon in August 2019, the pub had been tinned up. Over the last decade, the pub’s vast coach park has been built on. Ferry Bank stands on the site of the coach park and the school canteen style building that sold soft drinks and snacks.

Bus Excursions

Sometimes, for shorter distance journeys, a dual purpose bus or standard double decker bus would be used. For instance, it was not unknown for Mayne of Manchester to use double decker buses on Knowsley Safari Park and Blackpool trips. Some of the East Manchester company’s Bristol VRs were fitted with semi-coach style seating to allow this.

From the second half of the 1980s right up to the mid-1990s, GM Buses operated day trips from GMPTE’s bus stations to places like Blackpool, Southport and Knowsley Safari Park. Instead of calling at a travel agent or newsagent, passengers would pay the driver. These took place over Bank Holidays, making use of spare buses which would otherwise be made idle by reduced service frequencies.

In 1996, during the Spring Bank Holiday, I boarded one of these trips from Ashton-under-Lyne bus station (Knowsley Safari Park and Southport). GMS Buses operated the journey using a H-reg Scania N113 with standard bus seats, as opposed to the Northern Counties bodied MCW Metrobuses, used on the 400 Trans-Lancs Express.

“Mother Nature’s playground is yours to enjoy” – Long-Distance Summer Sunday Buses

Somewhere between bookable in advance day excursions and service buses were seasonal bus services. Operating from Easter up to the end of October, they became an affordable way of exploring the North’s National Parks. In cooperation with the Countryside Commission and Greater Manchester Transport was the ‘Wayfarer Project’, a plan to encourage public transport usage for exploring the countryside. Spinning off from that was the Wayfarer day ticket, which is still available today for exploring the Peak District, parts of Lancashire, Cheshire and Greater Manchester.

In Greater Manchester, this included the 395, a limited stop service from Manchester to Castleton (via the Derwent Dams). This was augmented by the 396 from Glossop to Hayfield. By the end of the 1980s, Mayne of Manchester operated the 395 and 396 services, plus a further one, the 460. Billed ‘The Pennine Rambler’, this was introduced to link Rochdale, Oldham and Ashton-under-Lyne with Derbyshire. Stopping places included Glossop, the Derwent Dams and Matlock Bath.

Closer to home, the 180 route from Manchester to Greenfield had Summer Sunday extensions to Holmfirth and Huddersfield. Under GM Buses’ tenure, Northern Counties bodied MCW Metrobuses with coach seats were the norm as the service had Limited Stop status. In April 1986, connections were also available from Manchester to Greenfield on the 180 (Clarence Hotel) with service 430 from Bury to Holmfirth. Known as Pennine Edge, it offered an hourly service from Rochdale to Greenfield (via Peppermint Bridge, Hollingworth Lake, Newhey, Denshaw, Delph and Uppermill) between 1000 – 1700 hours. Two return journeys were available from Bury to Holmfirth; a further two were available from Rochdale to Holmfirth.

When I made my one and only journey in 2002, it was renumbered 473 and operated by Rossendale Borough Transport. The 4.5 hour journey from Ashton-under-Lyne took in the same route as its predecessor, also calling at Chatsworth House, Tideswell, Bakewell and Matlock, before terminating at Crich Tramway Village.

Sadly, there are no seasonal services of that ilk scheduled for operation from Greater Manchester this year. Much of the evaporation has been caused by wider car ownership, increased popularity of rail transport and front-loaded cuts forced onto local government spending.

Seafront/Open-top Buses

A staple of seaside resorts and city centres over summertime is the open-top bus. In the 1980s, most open-top services were provided by local bus companies rather than dedicated operators like Ensign Bus’ City Sightseeing brand today. The norm then was to charge local fares or a cheap flat fare. As of now, an older than average bus would skirt the coastline and be branded in a more gaudy version of the standard livery.

During the 1980s, an open-top bus was a rare sight in Manchester, unless it was Manchester United parading their FA Cup team in 1983 and 1985. Attempts, albeit unsuccessful, were made by Greater Manchester Transport and GM Buses operating open-top bus tours around the city centre from Cannon Street or Arndale Bus Station. Ashalls of Clayton tried in 1999 with an open-top coach, taking a circuitous route around Town, again unsuccessfully. By 2002, it was Ensign Bus’ City Sightseeing brand which succeeded, using Blackpool Transport’s open-top buses.

My only personal experience of open-top buses throughout the 1980s came in 1989, in static form at Mossley Carnival. I sat in the driver’s cab as GM Buses allowed visitors to have their picture taken from there.

Rover Tickets

Among the great joys of recreational travel in the 1980s were the cornucopia of rover tickets, offered by the National Bus Company, PTE operators and municipal concerns launched to increase bus usage for leisure purposes. The end of that decade saw even more rover ticket than was healthy, with cheaper single operator tickets undermining multi operator counterparts. After deregulation, the perfect storm has more or less calmed due to the emergence of privately owned monopolies instead of public ones.

Greater Manchester’s response was the Peak Wayfarer, launched in 1981 with group and child options also available. 30 years on, the Wayfarer remains, offering a days unlimited travel on buses and outside peak hours on trains and trams. Throughout National Bus Company subsidiaries, ‘Explorer’ tickets offered unlimited bus travel within a given area (i.e. Trent, Yorkshire Traction and United). At the time, most rover tickets were self-validating (whereby you would set your desired travel date) and available at Tourist Information Centres, staffed railway stations, Post Offices and at enquiry offices.

The second half of the 1980s saw a shift towards bought-on-the-bus rover tickets. Newly computerised ticket machines such as the Wayfarer II made this possible – much to the detriment of drivers faced with longer boarding times.

Cheaper Ways to Leave the House

In 1982, Greater Manchester Transport launched the Sunday Rover ticket. For 80p (rising to a £1.00 by 1984), this enabled travel on all buses in Greater Manchester. Today’s equivalent is the System One ‘Any Bus DaySaver’ – now priced at £4.70 off-peak, or £5.40 including peak hours. As of now, Greater Manchester included many exciting places for financially challenged types. If you couldn’t afford the holiday, GMT (and GMPTE post-deregulation) published a range of leaflets for exploring the county. These included ‘To Market To Market By Bus’ and ‘The Big Shopping Book’, which advertised the joys of Tommyfield Market and Merseyway Shopping Centre.

As a spin-off from the Peak Wayfarer ticket was a selection of ‘Wayfarer Walks’ leaflets. One example advertised the joys of the Bob’s Lane Ferry across the Manchester Ship Canal. Another one, ‘Travel for Pleasure with Greater Manchester Transport’ included a fold-out map as well as travel information – offering an exhaustive list of weird and wonderful places to travel to on your Sunday Rover/Peak Wayfarer/SaverSeven ticket. Today, Transport for Greater Manchester, GMPTE’s successors still produce leaflets for recreational travel, but neither the routes nor the places covered now seem as exhaustive.

Watching the Planes at Ringway

Prior to the expansion of Manchester Airport in the early 1990s, it was still possible to get close to the planes at Ringway. Prior to the start of the 1980s, you could walk along the Continental and Domestic Piers [A and B] and get close to the planes. Security concerns rendered that arrangement obsolete but you could still get a good view from terminal roof nonetheless.

During the summer months, the roof of the main departure lounge would be packed full of aviation enthusiasts, listening in with their airband radios. Some would be taking photographs of visiting aircraft. Children would be scoffing ice cream from the little kiosk near the Continental and the then new International pier for long-haul flights. Entry to the spectator gallery was made via a succession of stairways near the old cargo bay and the Excelsior Hotel. Which was also close to the bus station for the 400 and 500 Express services.

Shortly after you would walk under the control tower and air traffic control building. One unit was used for selling model planes and the like before leading to another set of stairs and an upper section of the spectator gallery. On that level would be the enthusiasts’ aviation shop and the ice cream kiosk. It was a most enjoyable yet relaxing experience, and a cheap way of wiling away a summer Sunday.

Today’s enthusiasts need to catch the 200 service to the Aviation Viewing Park, which nestles beside Ringway’s two runways. The aviation shop has also moved there with static displays (including Concorde) for its visitors. Parking is available, but sadly, the 400 and 500 buses are no more. Spotters yearning for a view from the same end as the old spectator gallery should consider the Airport Hotel which is an Arriva 19 bus away from the state-of-the-art bus/rail interchange.

How I wish I can still get that 400 to Manchester Airport!

Finally…

I would love to hear your comments and anecdotes on recreational travel from that period or thereabouts. Plane spotters, bus enthusiasts, fire away…

S.V., 12 April 2011.

Lovingly spruced up on the 18 April 2020, complete with background image and updated information.