Greater Manchester’s Cut Price Fare Scheme Starts Next Month

Greater Manchester Combined Authority brings cheap fares cap a year forward

If the bus you normally board is £2.60 one way or £6.40 for a day, we have some good news for you. Especially if you live in Greater Manchester, because you’ll be in for a treat.

Why Will Greater Manchester’s Buses Be Yellow and Black?

The significance of Transport for Greater Manchester’s chosen colour scheme

Once upon a time, you could tell a city or town bus by its colour scheme. Bury’s were in a lighter green than Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Transport Board. Oldham meant maroon and cream, later Devon Cream and Pommard. As for London’s buses, you couldn’t imagine seeing them in blue instead of red.

I Went to Preston ‘Spoons at 9am and It Was Quiet As Hell

The eeriness of enjoying an egg muffin early doors at The Twelve Tellers

Over the last month, many of Reach Media’s local newspapers has given readers many Variations on an Early Morning Spoons Session articles. If you go to their Manchester Evening News website, we learned about The Water House at 9am. If you logged on to The Sheffield Star website, there’s every chance we’ll be told of how quiet that one in Hillsborough is on a school day.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 24 April 2022

Mottram roadworks and operator revisions main factor behind service changes

More than not, the biggest changes to Tameside’s bus routes occur in springtime. For the last two decades, the biggest cuts and operator changes are made at around that time of year.

Two Quid to Town! The Shape of Greater Manchester’s Bus Fares to Come in 2023

Forthcoming fare changes explained

After successfully fighting off a judicial review with Stagecoach Manchester and Diamond Bus North West, Greater Manchester’s bus fares will be cheaper in 2025 than in 2022. The court ruling, in favour of the office of The Mayor of Greater Manchester, means our City Region will be taking back control of its buses.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 31 October 2021

A pithy set of changes for Halloween

If the latest set of service changes for Tameside and Glossop bus passengers were a horror film, it gives us great pleasure to say it is Andy Pandy Takes the Ghost Train instead of Night of the Living Dead or Threads. This autumn’s set of changes are minor one – mainly the retiming of existing routes.

Greater Manchester’s Most Shocking Bus Service Changes Since 1986: The Not So Perfect Ten

A look at the service changes that have shaken our city region’s bus network forever

We are now 35 years into what Andy Burnham called The Free Market Experiment.  As with any free market experiment, there is a smaller number of winners than losers.  Before the first lockdown, having a bus company and a rail franchise was a licence to print money for some operators.  

Now You Know What We Did This Summer: Bridlington By Bus, Train and Taxi

A look at Bridlington’s public transport offer

Thanks to previous lockdowns and pandemic conditions, it has been two years since we left our last Now You Know What We Did This Summer round-up. The last entry looked at Bournemouth’s buses, which we found were dirt cheap compared with Greater Manchester’s buses.

The last time yours truly went to Bridlington was nearly 12 years ago. I had an overnight stay there and used Lord Tennyson’s favourite resort as a halfway point between Doncaster and Middlesbrough. There, I was supporting the late great Donna Williams at what became her last UK lecture tour. After seeing her Doncaster lecture, I got Northern’s service to Bridlington (via Goole and Hull), then continued to Middlesbrough by bus via Scarborough.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 05 September 2021

All the latest back to school bus times and the usual changes

• Stagecoach Manchester routes revert to winter timetable;
• New Sheffield connection for Hyde passengers;
• Late night 409 journeys to Ashton restored.

For the first time in a while, Tameside’s latest service changes make for more positive reading. Evening journeys will be boosted on one of our trunk routes and Hyde is going to get direct bus links to Manchester Airport, Sheffield and Macclesfield.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 25 July 2021

Summer times, and the changes are minimal (and somewhat predictable)

• Summer times on Stagecoach Manchester;
• Diggle link ditched from 356 route;
• Peak hour duplicates nixed after scrapping of social distancing requirement on buses.

Within a week of HM Government’s Freedom Day®, some degree of normality is restored on our bus routes. Firstly, with it being summertime (and the schools breaking up for the five-week or six-week holidays), we shall be seeing the faster summer times on many of Stagecoach’s routes. Secondly, with the requirements for social distancing scrapped, our peak hour duplicates on trunk routes have gone the same way.