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History of route 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford

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pemma

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I remember this route running as a Starline Travel operation, which then became North Western straight after the takeover of Starline, unlike other routes which remained branded as Starline for a while. It later went to Stevensons, before a revised timetable was introduced under Bakerbus, which later went to Bowers.

However, my question is did the route get transferred from Stevensons directly to Bakerbus or did Arriva have it for a short while first after the take over of Stevensons?
 
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Xenophon PCDGS

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Back in the dim and distant past that was 1924, The North Western Road Car Company took over the Northwich and Flixton depots and fleets of the Mid-Cheshire Motor Bus Company. In 1926, they then took over the operations of Altrincham & District Motor Services Ltd.

However, I am unsure that the service that you so describe was part of the operations of the company in the aftermath of this two year period.

Crosville Motor Services did run "Cheshire" services, but they were usually in the western part of Cheshire.
 

johnnychips

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In 1970 it was service 26, operated by North Western, and ran through to Northwich. In 1978 it was E26/E27 and operated by Crosville.
 

pemma

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Back in the dim and distant past that was 1924, The North Western Road Car Company took over the Northwich and Flixton depots and fleets of the Mid-Cheshire Motor Bus Company. In 1926, they then took over the operations of Altrincham & District Motor Services Ltd.

However, I am unsure that the service that you so describe was part of the operations of the company in the aftermath of this two year period.

Crosville Motor Services did run "Cheshire" services, but they were usually in the western part of Cheshire.

There were actually two different North Western Road Car Co. You seem to be referring to the original one based at Stockport set up in 1923. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Western_Road_Car_Company_(1923)

There was a second one set up in 1986, which took over the English part of the Crossville operations and were based at Aintree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Western_Road_Car_Company_(1986)

However, some of the routes around the Knutsford, Altrincham and Macclesfield area finished up as Starline Travel operations (which later got taken over by the 1986 North Western Road Car Co.) Here's a picture of a Starline Travel bus in Macclesfield: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7185/6796277700_17df20999b_z.jpg
 
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Xenophon PCDGS

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However, some of the routes around the Knutsford, Altrincham and Macclesfield area finished up as Starline Travel operations (which later got taken over by the 1986 North Western Road Car Co.) Here's a picture of a Starline Travel bus in Macclesfield: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7185/6796277700_17df20999b_z.jpg

It does indeed become confusing when the company name in question was used by differing companies with a very large period of time in between.

Incidentally, was there ever a Star Line involvement with the 289 Altrincham to Northwich service ? (This, as you know, is not my area).
 

323235

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However, my question is did the route get transferred from Stevensons directly to Bakerbus or did Arriva have it for a short while first after the take over of Stevensons?

I'm pretty sure Arriva ran it for a time and I also remember being on one of the blue liveried buses with Cheshire County Council livery which I'm pretty sure transferred from Arriva to Bakerbus after the contract re-award which had a plate below the front window with an Arriva logo on it.
 

pemma

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I'm pretty sure Arriva ran it for a time and I also remember being on one of the blue liveried buses with Cheshire County Council livery which I'm pretty sure transferred from Arriva to Bakerbus after the contract re-award which had a plate below the front window with an Arriva logo on it.

The Arriva plates didn't even get removed when the buses were repainted in Cheshire Connect colours.

Bakerbus only used one of the Blue 'Cheshire Bus' Darts on the Macclesfield-Knutsford route. The other bus on the 27 route was usually a yellow Volvo B6, which sometimes got swapped for a smaller unit for the off-peak services and back again to the V6 in time for the evening peak.

Bakerbus also continued to run the Sunday only 27 Macclesfield-Tatton Park service until the end of last Summer, the route has now been withdrawn.
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I still would be pleased to receive an answer to this query that I raised, even if that service did run under a different service number in past days.

I'm not 100% certain on that one.

Starline definitely had 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford, 288 Knutsford-Wilmslow-Altrincham and 300 Knutsford Circular. They also had some village routes, which North Western were quick to dispose of, the village routes varied between days. One route was Sandbach-Holmes Chapel-Knutsford-Rostherne-Altrincham that ran two days a week, another was something like Northwich-Lach Dennis-Lower Peover-Knutsford and there would have been another one for High Legh which didn't use to be served by the 289 route.

The Sandbach-Altrincham route was subsequently operated by a few different operators: Bakerbus, Whitegate Travel and Roadliner. The latter used oversized vehicles for a twice a week village route and pulled out citing that there's hardly any passengers. Rostherne certainly lost it's bus service altogether. I'm not sure if the E69 route came as a result of that service being revised or whether it was a service that existed alongside it.

Warrington Borough Transport took over the Lower Peover and High Legh connections and ran it as a through service (number 47) to Warrington at well above the minimum level. When they asked for an increased subsidy for the Lower Peover and High Legh village connections, Cheshire CC refused the request and the route finished up with Tomlinson Travel and cut back to the minimum service level.
 
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