Unit 43.2 Secondary Research History of Buses in Manchester Secondary Research

During the first world war there was no development on buses in Greater Manchester this date between 1914-1918.

The motor bus section of the Manchester Corporation undertaking grew from 16 vehicles in 1923 to 51 in 1926. To provide the accommodation needed for this expansion, a new depot was opened at Parrs Wood in 1926, the first purpose built bus garage, and an extension for buses was added to the Queens Road tram depot which was used for both Trams and Buses. Shortly after The new bus depot was built it was then demolished a few years later. 

In Manchester plans were made for the replacement of all the trams by motor buses, These were called Trolley buses. The trolleybuses were eventually introduced on a joint basis with Ashton-under-Lyne in 1938, although Ashton had had its own trolleybuses, jointly operated with Oldham, since 1925. A number of extensions to the Manchester / Ashton system were built later, some of which were occasioned by the need to conserve fuel oil during the Second World War.

Manchester and the other authorities would have completely abandoned tramways by the early 1940s. As it was, the remaining routes were to play an important part in the area’s transport system throughout the war.

After the war, delivery of new buses began again, and replacement of the remaining tramways recommenced.

the last Manchester tramcar operated on the morning of Monday 10th January 1949, leaving only Bury to close in February 1949 and Stockport in 1951. Electric traction remained, in the form of the Ashton and Manchester trolleybuses, until they too closed in December 1966.

There was now an all bus system operating over what is now the Greater Manchester area, with 11 municipally controlled operators and two major company systems, those of the North Western Road Car Company, and Lancashire United Transport.

  In 1968, a new Transport Act was introduced. As part of the new act, several bus companies run by local authorities around the Manchester area would merge to create a central organisation. They would be made up of companies operating in the following areas:

• Ashton
• Bolton
• Bury
• Leigh
• Manchester
• Oldham
• Rochdale
• Salford
• Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield 
• Stockport
• Wigan

The new central organisation was named SELNEC, which was the South East Lancashire North East Cheshire Passenger Transport Executive.

In 1974, the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive came in to being, bringing Wigan into the area, 

In 1985 the Government passed a new Transport Act, bringing about changes as great as any seen since the 1930s

At one time, around 80 operators were providing road passenger transport services.

At the insistence of Government, GM Buses was divided into two separate companies, and sold to the private sector, initially as GM Buses North and GM Buses South; subsequently the North Company became part of the FirstBus Group, and the South Company became part of the Stagecoach Group.

The Top image is an image of the bus that we are using now in Greater Manchester where as the bottom image is an image of the buses that we were using in Manchester from 1960 till 1966.