'The lonely loaner seems to free his mind'

Due to Malta loaning several Pulsar 2's from Merseyside (and Optare Solo's from the Midlands which have allready been fitted with A/C), Arriva North West have brought in several loans from Dawson's Rentals/Ventura Bus and Coach Sales to cover for the absent vehciles.

The first loan is Scania L94UB Wright Solar X471 AHE (7901). The bus originated as a Dual Door, Luggage racked, car park shuttle for Gatwick Airport and was operated by APCOA. The bus has scince been converted by Ventura/Dawson's to single door and now contains 43 Dual Purpose seats.

Arriva North West 7901

The second loan to St Helen's Depot is Dennis Dart SLF Caetano Nimbus KM51 BFY (7902). This bus originated in London and before later passing to Scarlet Band with it's sister KM51 BEO where it was converted from dual door (B31D) to Single door (B33F). The bus was later sold to Ventura/Dawson's where it has been loaned to a few companies such as Go North East.

Arriva North West 7903

The Third being Dennis Dart SLF Alexander Pointer 2 KU52 RXV (7903). A bus new to Pete's Travel, before being sold to Ventura/Dawsons the bus has operated for companied such as Velvet and Burtons on loan and can be seen here on service 20.

Arriva North West 7903

Arriva North West 7903 (rear)

Lastly the remaining loan currently in service here again from Dawson's rentals is Dennis Dart SLF Alexander Pointer 2 KU52 RGY (7904). This is the only loan in the fleet currently to have roller blinds and is at Green Lane with the perminant destionation of "Sheil Road Circular" cut off another bus. and thus is perminatly based on the 26/27.

2 other loans have been reported and they are as follows:

• 7905 - A 51 reg Plaxton MPD (SH)
• 7906 - A Man Plaxton Centro new to JPT of Middleton(SH)

Loans from other Merseyside Depot's include:

• 2286 from Bootle (which has been seen on service 15)
• 2641 from Laird St (which spent 1 day on the 18A)
• 2718 from Speke (which has been sighted on the 10B and 26/27)

Both 2286 and 2641 have returned to their depot's, the status of 2718 is unknown.

Arriva North West 2286

Arriva North West 2718

Liverpool - Netherley Services

One of South Liverpool's busiest service in the network is the Liverpool - Netherley 79 service. One which used to run Between Croxteth and Netherley in it's finer Merseybus Edge Lane depot days with red ex-london Leyland Titans. Now the service is currently run by Arriva (Speke depot) using basically any bus that is spare, though is mainly Plaxton Prestige, Alexander Alx300,Wright Renwon and Wright Commander due to the service not having a complete set of allocated buses scince arriva's ownership!  Scince 2001 the 79 route has had two forms of investment, the first being 6 Wright Renowns #2716-2721, (initially used on the 86), a handful of Alexander Alx300's (initially allocated to Manchester) and the second investment in 2006, where 28 Wright Commanders where purchsed for the 7* routes (This was later followed by 2 GL examples in 2010). The next investement for the end of the year however are 44x VDL DB300's with Wrightbus Gemini 2 bodywork (B43/28F) for the 79 and 82, these will be the first allocated deckers to the route scince the withdrawl of the F' reg Leyland olympians in 2006.

Arriva North West 2593

Halton have also had a long standing route Between Runcorn/Widnes - Liverpool scince 1991, shortly after Northwestern withdrew their service Between Widnes and Liverpool via Bellevale. In 1997 Halton Transport bought a batch of Dennis Dart SLF's with Marshall Capital Bodywork to be used on the service (14). This was a great success, as at the time MTL North Speke depot were currently using High floor single and double deckers, To combat this problem MTL were facing, they too also bought a batch of Marshal Capital Dennis Darts branded for the 79 service (Netherley-Liverpool) but later found that these 38 seater buses with space for only one wheelchair and later discovered that they were just not big enough for the route! High floor buses were contiuned to be used along with some early low floors until Arriva took over the former MTL operations in the early 2000's. A few years later Speke depot made their 79/79D services half low floor in competition with both CMT and Halton as a way to encourage passengers back on to Arriva's more frequent service. At the time CMT Buses were also running a service using high floor and low floor high capacity single deckers. Whilst Halton continued to use their newer buses on the 14 service, and remain to do so till this date; using MCV Evolutions; Alexander Dennis Enviro 200's and ELC Myllenium sprytes; with the odd appearance of a Marshall Capital or Marshall Capital 2.

Halton Transport 32

In the early 2000's Arriva decided to compete against Halton transport further with their newly introduced service the 79C following the same route as the 14; Operating Monday to Saturday every 30 minutes at the time. On this service Arriva used their Dennis Dart East Lancs EL2000's, though at the time their service was slightly cheaper for those wanting to cross the Merseyside/Halton borderline. Another intersting note about this service was the last 79C from liverpool Paradise St Bus Station was around 5pm and was a shorter service to Widnes Green Oaks. In 2005 Arriva Runcorn got their grant for investment and a large batch of Wright Cadet bodied VDL SB120's (which where originally intended for wales) were purchased, and Service 79C was increased to every 15 minutes daytime with the last bus leaving liverpool after 11pm. Cadets intended for the 79C can be identified by their onboard Ferrographs displaying real-time information such as 'next stop' and current time.

Arriva North West 2547

Shortly after the Stagecoach take over of the former GTL/CMT operations, Stagecoach withdrew their 79 services due to too much dead milage from their Aintree Depot aswel as the competiton being to fierce between themselves, Halton and Arriva. Intersetingly Stagecoach may have operated the 14 if Halton council hadn't regected Stagecoach's offer to purchase the municiple operator, who wanted to continue to deliver their local standard of services rather then Stagecoach effectively doing what they did to GTL and cutting half of the services operated at the time.

Arriva North West 2717

Currently with the 14/78/79/79C combined their are:

• 12 buses an hour between Netherley Wood Lane and Liverpool.
• 20 buses an hour between Netherley Caldway Dr and Liverpool.
• 23 buses an hour between Picton Clock and Liverpool.

Arriva North West 2426

A few services I haven't talked about but are still worth a little side note are:

• 78B - A service between Liverpool City Centre and Childwall (Hope Uni) operated shortly by Stagecoach in 2005.
• 79A - A CMT service operating via Caldway Drive, replaced by CMT 79
• 79D - A service ran until 2006 operating via London Road instead of Brownlow Hill
• 79E - A shorter service between Netherley and Liverpool Queen Sq to be run if driver is late
• 79E - A shorter service between Liverpool and Picton Clock (Note: service only found on buses with LED's and has never been used to date for late running)