Buses in Lancashire

By John Law

The boundaries of the current county of Lancashire were established in 1974 when the Furness district was lost to the newly formed Cumbria. Meanwhile Merseyside and Greater Manchester gobbled up much of the southern portion of the original county. However, some parts of the former West Riding of Yorkshire were gained.The major bus operator was, for many years, Ribble Motor Services. After sale it became part of the Stagecoach Group, though the East Lancashire operations were sold on to Blazefield, which later went to Transdev. Back in the 1970s many municipalities in Lancashire operated their own buses and these provided a great variety of vehicles and liveries. Most of the council-owned companies were eventually sold off leaving just one – Blackpool – with its large bus fleet and a modern tram system. Until the 1986 deregulation of the bus industry, there were very few independents running stage services in the county. There were just Fishwick’s smart green buses around Leyland, Preston and Chorley. This company ceased trading in 2015, but others have entered the market, such as Pilkington’s in the Accrington area.John Law has been photographing the county’s buses since 1974, building up a massive collection of images. He has put together the best and most interesting of these within this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Release date: Dec 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781445695525

Book preview

Introduction

Today’s Lancashire is a lot smaller than it used to be. Prior to 1974, it included Warrington (now lost to Cheshire), most of what is now known as Greater Manchester, the part of Merseyside north of the River Mersey and the Furness District. The latter was an exclave of Lancashire, since absorbed into Cumbria. A small compensation was gaining part of the Craven District (around Barnoldswick) from Yorkshire.

By coincidence, it was around 1974 that the author of this book first began visiting Lancashire on a regular basis to photograph the transport of the area.

Road transport in what is now Lancashire began in the usual way, with farmers converting horse-drawn carts into passenger carrying vehicles to get people into town on market days. In many English towns tramways began operating using horses as motive power but, with the exception of Preston, the presence of steep hills precluded this. Many of the East Lancashire towns introduced steam trams, while Lytham tried gas-powered cars, which were not successful and were replaced by horse cars.

One of the first towns to introduce electric traction to its tramways was Blackpool, with the first section opening in 1885. This seaside resort still operates electric trams today, with a coastal line running all the way from Starr Gate to Fleetwood. At the time of writing, an extension is under construction along Talbot Road to serve the town’s main railway station.

Other than Blackpool, all of Lancashire’s other municipal tram operations were electrified, but most were closed during the 1930s, with Blackburn Corporation’s trams surviving until 1949. As trolleybuses were never employed, what is now Lancashire was served only by buses.

By 1974, after all the boundary changes, Lancashire was left with eight council-owned operations. Rawtenstall and Haslingden had been combined to form Rossendale, Accrington Corporation had become Hyndburn District Council and Lytham St Annes was renamed Fylde Borough Council.

The most northerly council-owned operation, Lancaster City Transport (itself combined with neighbouring Morecambe in 1974), went out of business in 1993, with Stagecoach taking over the depot, some vehicles and the services.

Burnley & Pendle Transport (formerly Burnley, Colne & Nelson) was also purchased by Stagecoach in 1996. The same fate befell Hyndburn Transport, again in 1996. Stagecoach later sold these operations to the Blazefield Group, now part of Transdev. Transdev later took over the bus services of Blackburn Transport in 2007. Recently, in 2018, Rossendale Transport also sold out to Transdev.

Fylde Borough Council survived until summer 1994, when it was bought by Blackpool Transport.

The former municipal operator Preston Borough Transport was sold to its employees in 1993 and remained in their hands until 2009, when the business was sold to Stagecoach. However, that year it passed to the Rotala Group due to the ensuing near monopoly.

These takeovers have now left Blackpool Transport as the only council-owned bus company in Lancashire and one of less than a dozen in the United Kingdom.

The whole of present-day Lancashire was also once the territory of Ribble Motor Services. Founded in 1919, it later became part of the British Electric Traction Group, absorbed by the National Bus Company (NBC) in 1969. The company’s dark red livery was replaced during the early 1970s when NBC poppy red paintwork was applied.

In 1988 the Lancashire operations of Ribble were sold to a management buyout but purchased the following year by Stagecoach. However, in 2001, the company’s East Lancashire operations were bought by the Blazefield Group, later passing to Transdev, making that company the largest bus company around Burnley, Accrington and Blackburn.

The independent sector was never very big in Lancashire, with one exception: J. Fishwick & Sons of Leyland, whose green buses could be seen in Preston and Chorley until the business ceased trading in 2015.

Deregulation in 1986 saw various small companies enter the stage carriage market, most having passed by the wayside.