What if GM buses had never been sold?

[Fleetmaster]

Complementing the Bee Network bus thread, let's speculate an alternate history where GM Buses was never sold....

What if it went the Lothian route, remaining an arms length council owned company? If all other things stayed the same, how would it have proceeded?

Does it stay the same size, or perhaps even expand, or does it rationalise and trim the fat? Does it stay corporate, or go local or even route brand? Does it slash costs or aggressively invest? Does it have good employee relations and the support of the community? Does it create subsidiaries or low cost units? Does it innovate or is it conservative, perhaps even hampered by its sheer size, becomes paralyzed by inertia or the need to serve too many different municipal masters, or worse, the ideology of one very outspoken metro mayor? Or does it prove to be the making of the much maligned Greater Manchester concept, a beacon of their civic pride?

Would it have even survived sustained competition at all? Or does  it do even better than Lothian, to the point that the Manchester Standard is a thing again, gleaming in orange and brown, and it does this without the added cost of tendering for routes or garages? It just owns and runs buses, integrated with other modes, consistently returning a tidy dividend to the councils, it's intensively worked route branded urban corridors with their tri-axke 100 seat monster deckers more than enough to subsidize socially necessary services.

I would be so impressed if it could do better than Lothian, but with a modern twist, focusing on route and sector branding, de-emphasising the corporate element. I fear the key factors of geography and too many masters would be the reason it doesn't match Lothian and potentially gets rolled over in short order, or dies a slow agonizing death.

 

[90sWereBetter]

IIRC when GM Buses was split in two during 1994, the company hadn't bought much in the way of new buses since the late 1980s. They would have had around 600 ageing Atlanteans and Fleetlines on all-day service, plus a further 400+ midlife Olympians and Metrobuses possibly due for refurbishment. The last sizeable batch of fullsize buses were the F-DRJ Olympians in 1988.

It would have been a struggle for the company to survive the mid-1990s intact, what with the intense competition from MTL Manchester (now there's an old name worthy of another nostalgia thread!) during those years, and Metrolink possibly abstracting customers around Bury and Trafford. I could imagine Stagecoach wading in with a standalone Magic Bus operation on the Oxford Road/Wilmslow corridor even if they hadn't bought GM Buses South.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would have been a struggle for the company to survive the mid-1990s intact, what with the intense competition from MTL Manchester (now there's an old name worthy of another nostalgia thread!) during those years, and Metrolink possibly abstracting customers around Bury and Trafford.

If it had truly gone the Lothian route, could it have ended up, as they are, operators of Metrolink?

 

[Statto]

1994 GM Buses was in the middle of a bus war with MTL, i believe MTL were doing well in the GM area, i don't know how would that have paned out had GM Buses not been split, the agreement to pull out of each others area was agreed to in summer 1995 after the split

Another thing, it was very annoying GM Buses were forced to split, yet Travel West Midlands, now NXWM, were allowed to stay as one company, given how big TWM were even back then, GM Buses had more competition than TWM did back then.

 

[Bletchleyite]

1994 GM Buses was in the middle of a bus war with MTL, i believe MTL were doing well in the GM area, i don't know how would that have paned out had GM Buses not been split, the agreement to pull out of each others area was agreed to in summer 1995 after the split

Another thing, it was very annoying GM Buses were forced to split, yet Travel West Midlands, now NXWM, were allowed to stay as one company, given how big TWM were even back then, GM Buses had more competition than TWM did back then.

I'm not sure the split made that much difference. Manchester is very north-south divided with a fair element of "never the twain shall meet" - the railway similarly so into Victoria and Piccadilly lines. There is, and always was, very little cross-city operation and very little demand for such.

 

[Leyland Bus]

IIRC when GM Buses was split in two during 1994, the company hadn't bought much in the way of new buses since the late 1980s. They would have had around 600 ageing Atlanteans and Fleetlines on all-day service, plus a further 400+ midlife Olympians and Metrobuses possibly due for refurbishment. The last sizeable batch of fullsize buses were the F-DRJ Olympians in 1988.

It would have been a struggle for the company to survive the mid-1990s intact, what with the intense competition from MTL Manchester (now there's an old name worthy of another nostalgia thread!) during those years, and Metrolink possibly abstracting customers around Bury and Trafford. I could imagine Stagecoach wading in with a standalone Magic Bus operation on the Oxford Road/Wilmslow corridor even if they hadn't bought GM Buses South.

I'm not overly sure about the competition element, apparently Merseybus were bleeding as much as GM were (hence the agreement to stop) and don't forget aswell, GMBuses had shares in Metrolink (through the Council) so had it not split and been sold off, we'd likely have had integrated transport alot sooner!

 

[ian1944]

I can make no estimate of the effect of no-split, but certainly struggle to think of much cross-city. The long-established Salford 57/77 Swinton/Pendlebury to Reddish, Manchester 80/88 (?) Chorlton to Middleton (?), 95/96 East Didsbury to Whitefield and 112/113 Sale Moor to Moston come to mind but no more. Another north/south, including east and some west but not the centre, was the Manchester 53 Old Trafford to Cheetham.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not seeing anything on a map that suggests there is much physically preventing north-south cross city bus routes, although I have heard it said before that this limited overlap was a factor in the split.

It seems perfectly normal that there would only be a handful of routes making such connections without travelling via the centre. One of London's many advantages being it is big enough to sustain routes that go against the typical centre to periphery alignment.

 

[Whisky Papa]

I can make no estimate of the effect of no-split, but certainly struggle to think of much cross-city. The long-established Salford 57/77 Swinton/Pendlebury to Reddish, Manchester 80/88 (?) Chorlton to Middleton (?), 95/96 East Didsbury to Whitefield and 112/113 Sale Moor to Moston come to mind but no more. Another north/south, including east and some west but not the centre, was the Manchester 53 Old Trafford to Cheetham.

There are a few that I could add to your recollections.

By my time with Greater Manchester Transport (1980-85), the cross-city services to Reddish you mention had gone, with the 56/7 operating Piccadilly to Pendlebury. The 64/6 Eccles - Ashton routes had also gone, although obviously east-west rather than north-south.

However, the 82 from Waterhead to Chorlton (Bus Stn) was in full swing, alongside the 81 from Bank House to Chorlton (Arrowfield Road) and 88 White Moss to Chorlton (Hardy Lane). In addition, the 134 ran from Alkrington (and possibly Middleton?) to Chorlton Green and was later extended Stretford Arndale, but was worked entirely by Queens Road depot rather than being jointly operated with Princess Road.

In addition there was the 76/7 group from Fallowfield (Platt Lane) to Failsworth and Moston, and (at a push) the 123 from the same terminus which looped through Ancoats to Victoria Railway Station.

 

[madannie77]

Another cross-city route from my time in the area (1980s) was the 94, which was a rather curious route from Levenshulme to Southern Cemetery. What I can't remember is what route it took through the city centre it took.

 

[Whisky Papa]

Another cross-city route from my time in the area (1980s) was the 94, which was a rather curious route from Levenshulme to Southern Cemetery. What I can't remember is what route it took through the city centre it took.

I will have the timetable leaflet from 1985 upstairs, but from memory it certainly ran via the full length of Deansgate. How that was linked to its approach from London Road I would have to check - at one time it would simply have used Market Street but that option would have gone by the mid-80s. EDIT - The map in the timetable is pretty vague, but it looks like it used Cannon Street by 1985 (a road since buried under the enlarged Arndale Centre of course). There is however a very detailed map of Withington Hospital - also now long gone!

I deliberately hadn't included the 94 in my first post, as you say it was cross-city but not in a conventional radial pattern. I used the western leg quite a bit at one time - my wife-to-be and I had a flat at the bottom of Seymour Grove for a year or so.

Another cross-city route I neglected to mention for the same reason was the 166 from Brookhouse Estate in Patricroft to Brookdale Park / Failsworth. EDIT - Sorry, the eastern terminus was actually Moston (Gardeners Arms), I was getting mixed up with the 71, which did link south and north sides as it ran from Old Trafford to Failsworth but not via the city centre. There was also the 72 from Stretford Arndale to Swinton via Pendleton Precinct.

EDIT - a further, slightly later example. Just before I left Bee Line Buzz Co in July 1988, they had started running a cross-city service from Stockport (and possibly Hazel Grove?) up to Langley in Middleton. I remember doing a route learning trip up to Langley, although I knew the area well enough as my PSVIII training had been done around there. This was something of a last throw of the dice, as it was becoming clear their original model of serving areas away from existing routes was never going to bring the expected financial returns. I seem to remember there were two versions of the route, and it gained a separate brand name with some of the Dodge minibuses repainted in a mostly silver livery. I don't think this lasted very long.