Largest range of route numbers (late NBC / early privatisation)

[Statto]

Actually i'm not sure if Cumberland were part of Ribble or a separate company, but Ribble did operate to the Solway Firth, which makes me assume Cumberland were a Ribble company.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Didn't realise Cumberland were part of Ribble - though I don't remember the pre-Stagecoach days, if I remember correctly Cumberland were already a Stagecoach subsidiary in the early 90s, though still used the Cumberland name.

To this day, the services in the South Lakes still use 5xx numbering (can think of the 505, 516, 555 and 599, not sure if there are others), so this part of the scheme has been at least partly preserved.

I know by the early 90s the West Cumbria area had low numbers <100, but maybe they were originally in the 6xx series.

Actually i'm not sure if Cumberland were part of Ribble or a separate company, but Ribble did operate to the Solway Firth, which makes me assume Cumberland were a Ribble company.

Cumberland was NOT part of Ribble

Historically, Cumberland was mainly based in West Cumbria (Whitehaven, Workington, Millom, Maryport) with depots also at Keswick and a small one in Carlisle that closed many years ago. They were a Tilling/BTC/THC firm.

Ribble was a BET firm and as well as Lancashire, they had depots in other bits of Cumbria in the North (Carlisle with Bowness outstation, and Penrith plus Appleby outstation) and in the Lakes (Ambleside, Kendal) and into South Cumbria at Ulverston. Carlisle was the biggest depot having absorbed United's Carlisle depot in 1969 (which is where the Stagecoach workings on the 685 originally come from).

Then in 1986, Ribble was split up in readiness for de-reg/privatisation and the Carlisle and Penrith depots passed to form an enlarged Cumberland (and Murkeyside/Wigan becoming North Western). In 1987, Stagecoach purchased Cumberland.

In 1988, the reduced Ribble in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South/Mid Cumbria was privatised by sale to its management. They sold it to Stagecoach only just over a year later., having bought some of Barrow Borough Transport's fleet and assets when they went pop in the meantime. Having sold Ribble to Stagecoach, they then set out to carve it up, selling the Manchester depot operations to Drawlane. More pertinently, they split the business up further so all the Cumbrian operations were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland (with Lancaster/Morecambe following on a few years later).

 

[Typhoon]

M and D did operate a number of services jointly with Southdown (including the Brighton - Gravesend 122) - it's possible that some buses stayed overnight at the other operator's depot, but I've no evidence of this.

There was a scheme called 'The Heathfield Pool' which involved joint working of routes 18, 152, 180, 190, 191, 192. This involved Southdown's Brighton, Eastbourne, Hailsham, Heathfield and Uckfield garages, and M&Ds Hastings, Hawkhurst and Tunbridge Wells garages. The scheme spread across the week so examples are a Heathfield bus overnighting at Hastings on Monday and Hawkhurst on Wednesday, and a Tunbridge Wells spending time at Eastbourne, Uckfield and Heathfield garages not returning 'home' until Saturday.

There is a comprehensive book on the subject, published by The Southdown Enthusiasts' Club ('Working Together - A detailed look at the Heathfield Pool Services, 1957 - 1971)')

Although 122 was not part of this scheme, I think you are right about buses overnighting away from home. I seem to remember a picture in a pre-NBC book of two buses meeting up in the middle of nowhere pretty late at night with the drivers and conductors changing over. If its anywhere, it is in the loft and I'm not certain now's the time to find whether I can still get up there.

I realise that this is at some distance from the OPs theme, so will not pursue this line further but hope it is, nevertheless, of interest.

 

[Statto]

Cumberland was NOT part of Ribble

Historically, Cumberland was mainly based in West Cumbria (Whitehaven, Workington, Millom, Maryport) with depots also at Keswick and a small one in Carlisle that closed many years ago. They were a Tilling/BTC/THC firm.

Ribble was a BET firm and as well as Lancashire, they had depots in other bits of Cumbria in the North (Carlisle with Bowness outstation, and Penrith plus Appleby outstation) and in the Lakes (Ambleside, Kendal) and into South Cumbria at Ulverston. Carlisle was the biggest depot having absorbed United's Carlisle depot in 1969 (which is where the Stagecoach workings on the 685 originally come from).

Then in 1986, Ribble was split up in readiness for de-reg/privatisation and the Carlisle and Penrith depots passed to form an enlarged Cumberland (and Murkeyside/Wigan becoming North Western). In 1987, Stagecoach purchased Cumberland.

In 1988, the reduced Ribble in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South/Mid Cumbria was privatised by sale to its management. They sold it to Stagecoach only just over a year later., having bought some of Barrow Borough Transport's fleet and assets when they went pop in the meantime. Having sold Ribble to Stagecoach, they then set out to carve it up, selling the Manchester depot operations to Drawlane. More pertinently, they split the business up further so all the Cumbrian operations were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland (with Lancaster/Morecambe following on a few years later).

Cheers, wasn't sure

& what do you mean Murkeyside, cheeky **** my part of Merseyside is otherwise known as gods own country.

 

[Ken H]

Cumberland was NOT part of Ribble

Historically, Cumberland was mainly based in West Cumbria (Whitehaven, Workington, Millom, Maryport) with depots also at Keswick and a small one in Carlisle that closed many years ago. They were a Tilling/BTC/THC firm.

Ribble was a BET firm and as well as Lancashire, they had depots in other bits of Cumbria in the North (Carlisle with Bowness outstation, and Penrith plus Appleby outstation) and in the Lakes (Ambleside, Kendal) and into South Cumbria at Ulverston. Carlisle was the biggest depot having absorbed United's Carlisle depot in 1969 (which is where the Stagecoach workings on the 685 originally come from).

Then in 1986, Ribble was split up in readiness for de-reg/privatisation and the Carlisle and Penrith depots passed to form an enlarged Cumberland (and Murkeyside/Wigan becoming North Western). In 1987, Stagecoach purchased Cumberland.

In 1988, the reduced Ribble in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South/Mid Cumbria was privatised by sale to its management. They sold it to Stagecoach only just over a year later., having bought some of Barrow Borough Transport's fleet and assets when they went pop in the meantime. Having sold Ribble to Stagecoach, they then set out to carve it up, selling the Manchester depot operations to Drawlane. More pertinently, they split the business up further so all the Cumbrian operations were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland (with Lancaster/Morecambe following on a few years later).

I was going to suggest Ribble as a contender for the big bus number range, but they only seemed to get into the 500's. SO a fail there...

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I was going to suggest Ribble as a contender for the big bus number range, but they only seemed to get into the 500's. SO a fail there...

The Carlisle and Penrith area services were in the 600s (and they did have the 685 to Newcastle) as shown here (credit to photographer)

Ribble AN68 1475

Mallyclose Drive Harraby Carlisle - 9/1/1982

www.flickr.com

Ribble Bristol RE 309

Penrith Mill Street - 12/8/1977

www.flickr.com

However, and I did remember this one from my youth (but then checked in Timetable World), there was a fast Carlisle to Newcastle service 799 that Ribble and United each did one round trip on. Basically, a faster version of the 685 and then non stop from Haltwhistle to Newcastle!

 

[Roilshead]

Ironically 685 Newcastle-Carlisle worked well into both systems, as North Cumbria numbers were 600+ too, Ribble had a wide range of numbers too
Some services, mostly joint services 1 to 99
100+ Central Lancashire
200+ East Lancashire, 200+ was also used for some West Lancashire & Merseyside routes
300+ West Lancashire & Merseyside
Not sure if Ribble had any 400+ numbers but;
500+ South Cumbria
600+ North Cumbria, a lot of North Cumbria services were branded as Cumberland,
700+ Timesaver, express routes, introduced in the early 80s replacing the X series numbers

Ribble also had some prefix letter series, don't know all of them but ones i know are
C, Crosby, Chorley, think Carlisle had some C prefix numbers too
L, Liverpool
P, Preston

Ribble only used from about 470 upwards: 470-489 for services to to the north/south/east of Kendal (including those in the northern Dales); and 490-499 for the haldful of services running up the west shore of Lake Windermere. (The 500-up range was used for services serving the Furness peninsula and running north-west from Kendal towards Lake Windermere, until 1969 when a handful of Carlisle rural services were numbered into the 59X range - well above the rest of the 5XX numbers - to allow for the renumbering of some ex-United Carlise-area routes into the 6XX series, which had become a bit crowded after the Carlisle locals were renumbered from their C-prefixed series.)

 

[BVW]

Eastern Counties recast their entire network during the early 1970s with service numbers going from 103 (Cambridge - Pampisford) to 998 (Thetford town service). The zones were essentially as follows:

100s South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City and Newmarket
200s East Suffolk
300s North Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
400s West Norfolk
500s Norwich City Services
600s Yarmouth and Lowestoft
700s North and East Norfolk
800s South Norfolk
900s West Suffolk and Thetford

 

[Busaholic]

Eastern Counties recast their entire network during the early 1970s with service numbers going from 103 (Cambridge - Pampisford) to 998 (Thetford town service). The zones were essentially as follows:

100s South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City and Newmarket
200s East Suffolk
300s North Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
400s West Norfolk
500s Norwich City Services
600s Yarmouth and Lowestoft
700s North and East Norfolk
800s South Norfolk
900s West Suffolk and Thetford

That looks like a good contender to me, certainly on three figure numbers, but there must have been huge banks of unused nos.