Relief as Over Sixty Important Bus Routes are Spared Service Cuts

Funding found for socially necessary Greater Manchester bus routes

With the perfect storm of skyrocketing energy prices and swingeing bus service cuts, Greater Manchester’s bus users could have been in for a much bleaker winter. The loss of Department of Transport funding on the 4th October from COVID Recovery grants would have seen cuts to 33 bus routes and the loss of 31 bus routes.

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.

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.

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.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 11 April 2021

As one hospital link closes, another one opens

• Renumbered 397 extended to North Manchester General Hospital;
• Little Gem (Mark II) increases Tameside presence on TfGM tendered routes;
• 217 reverts to being Ashton-under-Lyne to Manchester route;
• Timetable changes for Stagecoach routes with cuts to 336, 337 and 389 services.

The Spring 2021 changes are a bit of a mixed bag for Tameside’s bus passengers. A day before non-essential retail reopens, there has been some tinkering around the edges of Stagecoach’s routes, particularly with subtle changes to trunk routes. For some not-so-trunk routes, some not-so-subtle changes, like operator revisions and service cuts.

Oldham, Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 31 January 2021

Welcome upgrade for local Ashton and Hyde routes

For regular readers used to seeing a separate Oldham and Saddleworth bulletin, this edition covers the Oldham, Tameside and Glossop areas due to fewer service changes in Oldham.

• Sunday journeys added to 335, 342 and 387 routes;
• 41As partially replaced by Sunday and Bank Holiday 335s;
• 394 route suspended, cutting Chisworth off bus network;
• 182 curtailed to terminate at Shaw with Rochdale section served by 408.

As we have mentioned in previous bulletins on Tameside service changes, plans to bolster some local routes have come to fruition. Some might think this is foolish in the middle of a lockdown. That is due in part to the recent extension of the Notice Period that English bus operators have to give to the DVLA if they need to vary, improve or withdraw a bus route.

Book Review: British Football’s Greatest Grounds

Not only a coffee table book for groundhoppers; a must for any football fan

• Title: British Football’s Greatest Grounds: One Hundred Must-See Football Venues;
• Author: Mike Bayly;
• Photography: various contributors including David Bauckman, Paul Paxford, Colin McPherson, Andy Nunn, Stuart Tree, Ben Webster,
• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Limited (2020);
• Recommended Selling Price: £30.00 (hardback).

At this moment in time, you may be missing your football fix if you often go out to see your favourite team. Due to the lockdown, only Elite League football teams (National Leagues North and South upwards) can continue their season. In what is now known as The Trident Leagues (Northern Premier, Southern and Isthmian leagues), league football has been suspended till further notice. Likewise with its regional feeder leagues.

Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes Extra (29 November 2020)

Significant changes to two key routes and early introduction of School Holiday Timetable

On Sunday, Stagecoach Greater Manchester’s latest timetable updates will see the retiming of many of its trunk routes to School Holiday schedules, and changes to two trunk routes in the Tameside and Glossop area. To a point, these routes will see their daytime frequencies reverting to pre-bus deregulation levels.

Oldham, Tameside and Glossop Bus Service Changes, 25 October 2020

Welcome restoration of Stalybridge to Hyde route

For regular readers used to seeing a separate Oldham and Saddleworth bulletin, this edition covers the Oldham, Tameside and Glossop areas due to the lack of changes in Oldham. Apart from one route that covers the Oldham and Tameside areas.

• New 387 route bridges Stalyhill gap;
• Daytime 41As replaced by rerouted 335 route;
• 389s to serve Tennyson Avenue;
• 419 withdrawn and replaced by rerouted 396;
• New Manchester to Sheffield service launched.

Though most of this October’s round of service changes will affect passengers in the Wigan and Bolton area, there are some significant changes for Tameside and Oldham passengers. All of which affect tendered services operated by Stott’s Tours. Those hitherto operated by MCT Travel, prior to HCT Group’s departure from Greater Manchester.