An Autumn Bus Ride from Runcorn to Manchester
- and Beyond
28 April 2025
ABOVE: Arriva North West 3039 (MX10 CZC), a VDL SB200 Wright Pulsar 2, enters Runcorn Bus Station on a route 110 working from Warrington to Murdishaw. All photos in this article were taken on Tuesday 12 November 2024, unless otherwise stated. This vehicle has since transferred to Arriva North East.
I'm not sure that Runcorn in Cheshire gets a great press. This industrial town and cargo port, on the south bank of the River Mersey, was reportedly on the verge of being voted "the worst place to live in England" a couple of years ago. And even that feels tame compared to another site, which I won't identify, that describes the town as "a big blister just outside Liverpool", where "the only good thing about this place: M56 eastbound, M62 westbound, M6 north/southbound".
OK, so not everybody is a fan. But, to use estate agent speak (Zoopla), Runcorn is a "picturesque town boasting a rich industrial heritage and a range of amenities".
I have made a late autumn trip here in search of local bus route 200, for a separate article. Arriving by train, I immediately get this lovely view across the town...
ABOVE: West Midlands Trains 350 241 has just brought me on the last leg of my journey from London, from Stafford into Runcorn, and will shortly be departing as the 1022 service to Liverpool Lime Street. In the background is the stunning Silver Jubilee Bridge
And the short walk from the station to the Town Centre brings me to the Bridgewater Canal, a 39-mile route linking Runcorn with Leigh in Greater Manchester. Constructed over 250 years ago by the Duke of Bridgewater, it is considered to be the first true canal in England, and was constructed to transport the Duke of Bridgewater’s coal from his mine at Worsley in Greater Manchester to the rapidly expanding towns and cities nearby.
ABOVE: The Bridgewater Canal, Runcorn. I'm proud of this picture because of the good, clear reflections of the buildings in the calm waters of the canal. The building on the left is now a Buddhist Temple, but used to be a public house. In its former capacity, it was used for exterior shots of "The Archer" pub in the BBC sitcom "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps".
So it's not all bad by any means! The scenery around here is stunning. And there is the Runcorn Busway of course, an almost-unique piece of bus infrastructure in this country.
The High Street Bus Station isn't spectacular, with two stops on each side of a road that isn't even restricted to buses, albeit "access only" for other traffic into a couple of the Town Centre cul-de-sacs.
ABOVE: Arriva North West 3045 (MX10 CZJ), a VDL SB200 Wright Pulsar 2, calls into Runcorn "Bus Station" on route 82A, which follows a "river-hugging" route all the way into Liverpool, via John Lennon Airport.
Having found route 200, which has taken longer than expected, I am now heading off to Manchester and beyond, and my first bus is the 110 service to Warrington. Most journeys start at Murdishaw, on the Runcorn Busway, and the route map shows how the bus undertakes the best part of a semi-circle before escaping into Runcorn itself. It's a half-hourly service on weekdays and I have already had to let one go whilst waiting for the 200, which is 26 minutes late and counting! Am I going to have to let another one go as well?
While I wait, it's good to be reminded that there is another service to Warrington:
ABOVE: Ashcroft Travel HIG 1251, a Wright Streetlite DF, in seen in Runcorn Bus Station working route 62, which follows a completely different route to Warrington compared to the 110. This bus started life with Hartwool Ltd of Bicester where, as MX13 BCO, it worked the Bicester Village Shuttle services.
Unfortunately the 62 has already gone by the time my route 200 bus comes in and 'releases' me, so the 110 it is. Having worked its way around the Busway and the Halton Lea area, the journey from Runcorn town is much more straight-forward, with the bus crossing the river into WIdnes and then homing straight in on Warrington.
It's a busy run, passing through Great Sankey, one of the more affluent suburbs of Warrington. St Mary's Church here is a Grade-II listed building that houses a sundial from 1721, which is also a Grade-II listed structure in its own right.
The journey to Warrington takes only 36 minutes; despite having left a couple of minutes late, at 1141, we have arrived exactly on time at 1217.
Warrington Bus Station is a proper, enclosed space at least, but there are some dodgy youngsters around who don't seem to have enough to do (on a school day?).
I'm planning to head to Manchester on hourly route 100, due at 1252. It departs from stand 13, which is also used by Warrington's Own Buses route 28 to Leigh, but, although there is a timetable for route 100, the real-time information does not acknowledge its existence.
The timetable suggest that the 100 should have come in at about 1217, but there's no sign of it. It arrives onto the stand at just about departure time. No idea where it has been parked up!
There's a surprise for me as I have been expecting a Go North West vehicle. But this one is branded for the Bee Network, and is operated by Stagecoach Manchester. I hadn't expected the route, which stretches a long way out of Greater Manchester, to have been included in the Bee Network, but it is part of Tranche Two and passed from Go North Westto Stagecoach Manchester as part of the contract award.
The bus is an ADL Enviro400 MMC, and we pull out of Warrington Bus Station one minute late, at 1253. This gives me a view of two of the new electric buses that are transforming the Warrington's Own Buses network:
ABOVE: Two of the new electric vehicles that are transforming the Warrington's Own Buses fleet can be seen here. Volvo BZL 1011 (BV24 LRN, centre), is on local circular route 1 to Westy, whilst fellow Volvo BZL 1007 (BU74 YSN, right) is working route "Cat5" to Sale. Note the Warrington Borough Council and HM Government branding.
The 100 actually runs every 15 minutes at the Manchester end, but half of the serivce terminates at the Trafford Centre, whilst one of the two buses per hour that does progress further west terminates at Hollins Green, leaving just the hourly service at this end. It seems to be more than sufficient, though, for the number of people around.
Hollins Green itself is a village in the suburbs of Warrington. Buses take a deviation off the Manchester Road dual-carriageway - presumably a recent development as the village road also appears to be called the Manchster Road. The "Black Swan" public house marks the terminus of the Hollins Green shorts.
We continue into Cadishead and pass under two bridges in quick succession. What isn't obvious from this angle is that neither of these are actually carrying anything across the road...
The crossings are the remnants of the Glazebrook East Junction to Skelton Junction / Stockport Tiviot Dale railway route, a branch line off the Cheshire Lines Committee's Liverpool to Manchester Railway, that closed in 1964. A former station at Cadishead is reportedly still in existence, but "heavily overgrown and in a sorry state of repair".
If you're in a hurry to reach the City Centre, it's worth jumping here to route 67, which skips the Trafford Centre and gets into Manchester 12 minutes faster. It runs quarter-hourly too so should be a good bet. Not as little as two-thirds of the journey time, but the number still feels like a good choice as a companion to the 100.
The realisation comes that, with Cadishead, we have already entered Greater Manchester, so the journey to Warrington is not as far beyond the boundary as I had thought.
Then it's into Irlam. Irlam's geography is varied: the northern half is still moss land, with a large farming community; the southern half is predominantly residential. The M62 motorway neatly divides the two.
ABOVE: How route 100 was before the Bee Network - almost! A Volvo Wright Eclipse Gemini, in Go North West colours, is on the Liverpool Road near Irlam Station on a short-working of route 100 to Hollins Green. Only the Bee Network sticker (and possibly the fleet number if it was legible) give away that this bus is now working for Stagecoach Manchester under the auspices of the Bee Network.
ABOVE: Bee Network - Stagecoach Manchester 10853 (SN17 MJX), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, is seen on the Liverpool Road near the Princes Avenue stop in Irlam
As I said earlier, the 100 calls into the Trafford Centre, the region's largest shopping complex. We're one hour into the journey and, although we have covered two thirds of the distance from Warrington, we have another 50 minutes to go.
ABOVE: The customary view of the Trafford Centre Bus Station, with a (very long) ADL Enviro200 MMC in the far left space and a Diamond Bus - possibly a Streetlite - flanked by two Stagecoach Manchester ADL Enviro400s, one of which (the one on the left) is working route 250 from the City Centre, via a much quicker route than the 100. The one nearer the camera is 10857 (SN17 MKD), an MMC. Route 250 was, at this time, not yet part of the Bee Network (Tranche Three followed in January 2025), and it's a reasonable assumption that 10857 has not joined the network either, as there are no stickers attached.
We pass through Eccles, from where the famous Eccles Cake gets its name. It's not known who came up with the recipe for these small, round pies, filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter (that noise was my stomach rumbling). However, James Birch is credited with being the first person to sell Eccles cakes commercially; in 1793, he sold the cakes from his shop, at the corner of Vicarage Road and St Mary's Road, now Church Street, in the town centre.
ABOVE: St James Church (Hope) dominates the skyline just east of Salford Royal Hospital, as Bee Network - Stagecoach Manchester 11798 (YX24 OWF) passes on route 67 towards the City Centre.
Slowly but surely we are getting into the City Centre. Salford Shopping Centre comes and goes, as does Salford Crescent railway station.
The folk song "Dirty Old Town", written in 1949 by native Ewan MacColl, is the origin of Salford's nickname. Meanwhile, artist Laurence Stephen (L.S.) Lowry (1887-1976) depicted industrial Salford in some of his paintings, although, with the demise of many factories and manufacturing companies, it's debatable whether he would find much today to remind him of those times. (Fun fact: The uncredited backing vocalists on Brian and Michael's tribute song "Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs" - which reached number one in 1978 - were the St Winifred's School Choir, who scored success less than three years later with "There's No-one Quite Like Grandma"...)
ABOVE: Bee Network - Stagecoach Manchester 15382 (YT09 ZCA) is a Scania N230UD OmniCity which started its life with London Sovereign and reached Stagecoach via Go North West - one of the many vehicles to change hands as routes, garages and staff were transferred into the operations of the successful bidders for each Tranche of the Bee Network. It is seen here turning into Blackfriars Road in Salford, near the Sacred Trinity Church, on route 93 (Manchester to Carr Clough). The vehicle has since been withdrawn.
The 100 arrives at Manchester's Shudehill Interchange on time at 1445 - a total journey time of over an hour and 50 minutes.
That's where the detail of my journey today comes to an end, but it isn't the end of the journey by any means! From here I catch the Bee Network route 83 through to Oldham - a slow journey due to very heavy traffic that takes 55 minutes to cover eight miles. It is also an extremely busy journey, and the crowded bus, coupled with the fading light (remember this is November) makes it difficult to get meaningful photographs. Here's one of the better attempts:
ABOVE: A Bee Network - Stagecoach Manchester BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV on route 83.
I have my feet on the ground in Oldham Bus Station for all of 15 seconds as I make a mad dash (fortunately to a bus stand directly opposite) for the 184 bus to Huddersfield - the second route of the day that I haven't expected to be part of the Bee Network that is.
I have written about the 184 before. It's a lovely drive across Saddleworth Moor - but not so much fun when it's dark! It's a long ride anyway at a scheduled 77 minutes, but this one loses 15 minutes somewhere and I reach Huddersfield Bus Station at 1735, with one run still to do.
But I am amused / puzzled by a timetable in one of the stops near where my next bus will depart from. Can you spot anything...?
Well, route 308 is advertised as running to "Holmfirth via Honley", but the only journey listed here, at 1515, ends at Honley, so doesn't go through to Holmfirth - so why mention Holmfirth at all? (There are other departures on route 308 to Holmfirth from different stands that do go to Holmfirth. Perhaps that point should be mentioned here?)
I end up on an evening journey on route 203 into Leeds. This service runs via Dewsbury, where the entire bus load other than me alights (or so it seems). Ancient legend records that in 627 AD, Paulinus, the Bishop of York, preached here on the banks of the River Calder. Dewsbury Minster lies near the River Calder, on the site where Paulinus preached. The tower houses "Black Tom", a bell which is rung each Christmas Eve, one toll for each year since Christ's birth (that's a lot of ringing). This tradition dates back to the 15th Century, and is known as the "Devil's Knell".
I try to take pictures on this journey, but they all come out looking like those fuzzy pictures that people present when they want to claim that they've seen a flying saucer (all those indeterminate bright lights)!
Although the bus has left 13 minutes late from Huddersfield, all of the lost time has been made up, and it's an on-time arrival in Leeds at 1925. There's no picture of the bus from that night, so this one from a couple of days later will have to do. It's not even a 203...
ABOVE: Arriva Yorkshire 1925 (SN15 LLT), an ADL Enviro400, turns from Bishopsgate Street into Boar Lane, in Leeds City Centre, on Thursday 14 November 2024. It is working route 202, which follows broadly the same routing as the 203, with just local variations along the way.
And so I have reached my destination, after a journey of a quarter-hour shy of eight hours, and of an estimated 75 miles. I like to challenge myself to these long runs and this one has been quite tiring, especially early on in the journey from Oldham, where it was already dark and I have realised I still have three hours to do. But it's what I do, and I've looked back on the trip with good memories, and I've happily shared it with you. Just a shame I couldn't offer pictures of the second half!
BELOW: An approximation of the journey described in this article
