Manchester from Dukinfield by Bus
A history of 21/21A and its successors (Page 2)
Contents:
Doomed from the start?
The latter part of the 1920s saw competition between public and private omnibus undertakings akin to the early years of bus deregulation in the late 1980s. As well as local independents, the area which we later knew as Greater Manchester had a fair number of municipal operators, offering motor bus and tram services. Besides the local independents, the Stagecoach and FirstGroup of that era was British Electric Traction, a national concern whose interests included the Oldham, Ashton and Hyde Tramway and the North Western Road Car Company.
Around that time, Manchester was being criss-crossed by express bus routes. For example, the early 1930s saw direct services from Hyde to Bolton via the city centre. Likewise Chorlton with its direct link to Carrbrook and Audenshaw's direct route to Worsley. The latter was partly revived in 1970 by SELNEC as the 64/66 Ashton - Peel Green route.
The 21 it seemed was going to another flop adding to an already overcrowded marketplace. There was already an express route from Glossop to Manchester in the form of the 6, jointly operated by SHMD and North Western. Manchester Corporation thought there was no way that the 21 would succeed. SHMD were left on their own.
In the early 1930s, the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Board decided to run the 21 route anyway, and were able to keep all takings - inside and outside the Manchester Corporation boundaries. Therefore, Dukinfield's first direct bus link to Manchester was born. Its original terminus was the Albion Hotel, a short distance from the Park Road tramway depot.
In the mid 1950s, its Manchester terminus was moved from Piccadilly Gardens to the then new Chorlton Street Bus Station. The first version was a windswept affair remote from the city centre. This remained so till the service terminated at Piccadilly Gardens once more in 1968, following the (most controversial) rebuild of Chorlton Street Bus Station (underneath a multi-storey car park designed by Leach Rhodes Walker).
Expansion into Yew Tree and Lyne Edge
The 1950s saw Dukinfield expand in an easterly direction towards Hough Hill. New local authority housing was built between Cheetham Hill Road and Yew Tree Lane. This also included new shopping arcades on Yew Tree Lane, Gorse Hall Road and Oak Tree Drive. The Butler Education Act saw the opening of Astley Grammar School on Yew Tree Lane which augmented facilities at Lakes Road. Crescent Road became a Secondary Modern school in the older part of Dukinfield.
This left a yawning gap for a direct Manchester link serving the new developments. Therefore, the 21 was extended to serve Yew Tree Lane, terminating outside Coronation Avenue. Some 21 journeys became the 21A, this time terminating at the Buck Inn, reducing dead time to the then new bus garage on Tame Street.
Shortly after, private housing developments sprouted behind the Gorse Hall and Yew Tree estates. Local authority provision reached Lyne Edge Road, further up Yew Tree Lane. To allow for this, the 21 terminus was shifted a few yards uphill. By the 1970s, private developers built up to Range Road, with semi-detached houses and bungalows the norm. New primary schools were built on Yew Tree Lane and Broadbent Fold. Unlike the previous local authority developments, Broadbent Fold was aimed at the more affluent resident. People more likely to drive to work than catch the bus.
SELNEC, GMT and Tennyson Avenue
November 1969 saw the formation of SELNEC which led to the SHMD green giving way to Sunglow orange and white. During the transitional period, ex-Stockport and Bury vehicles would take temporary residence at the Tame Street depot. 1973 saw another change: the renumbering of all routes to a standardised system relative to each depot. The 21 and 21A were renumbered 221 and 220, which saw Hyde Road buses as well as Tame Street vehicles.
By April 1974 came Greater Manchester Transport. The Tame Street depot was becoming an anachronism, along with the nearby Mossley Road depot late of Ashton-under-Lyne Corporation. The following year saw construction begin on GMT's first purpose built bus garage: the new Tameside Depot off Whitelands Road.
The new depot opened in November 1977. Given environmental awareness and the then recent Oil Crisis (The Yom Kippur War), economy and ecological awareness was key to the design. Waste oil from the buses was collected from the inspection pits and recycled for heating the depot itself.
Further changes were made to the 220 and 221 routes. The Lyne Edge terminus of the 221 was moved further up to Tennyson Avenue, one of the new private developments. The 220 was extended from the Buck Inn and Stanley Square to serve Stalybridge town centre.
At the time, the basic weekday and Saturday frequency between Dukinfield (Albion Hotel) and Manchester (Piccadilly Gardens) was every half hour, with buses every 15 minutes in the peak hours. Sunday services by contrast offered a 45 minute frequency.
Contraction Time Begins
In 1980, budget cuts imposed on Greater Manchester Transport by the Conservative Government saw Greater Manchester Council being forced to accept a 15% fare increase by Transport Minister Sir Norman Fowler. Some economies also had to made with the phasing out of crew operated buses and service cuts. Greater Manchester Transport had seen a rapid drop in passengers from 1980 to 1981 as a result, exacerbated also by job cuts which saw unemployment double within a year in the county.
The 220 and 221 services weren't immune to this. The Sunday service of the 221 was axed with a revised hourly frequency on Sunday's 220 journeys. Limited Stop status was also discontinued. There was some thinning of peak hour extra journeys. Even so, the off-peak Monday to Saturday service remained half hourly, and this was the case till the mid-1990s.
During this transitional period, the 220 and 221 services
also changed termini. As well as stopping at Piccadilly
Gardens, they would later finish their journeys at
Manchester Victoria railway station. This continued till
the opening of the Metrolink in June 1992. The start of
the 1990s also saw a change of operator for the Sunday and
Bank Holiday services. C-Line, an offshoot of Crosville
took over Sunday journeys with dark green Bristol VRs and
Leyland Olympians forming part of its operation.
In 1993, the daytime 220 and 221 services ceased to be operated by GM Buses. The recipient of these journeys were Mayne of Manchester. By then, the Sunday and Bank Holiday service was reduced to every 90 minutes in the mornings before being hourly in the daytime and every 90 minutes again in the evenings. Among Mayne of Manchester's first moves was the extension of its 220 route to Tameside Hospital. By the end of 1993, they also had the evening service from Manchester to Stalybridge.
In 1994, the 221 service was extended to serve Hyde. From Tennyson Avenue, Hyde journeys would continue along Yew Tree Lane, Cheetham Hill Road, Ashton Road and Park Road, following the 389 route.
Standard fare on Mayne's journeys included Alexander bodied Dennis Falcons (late of Chesterfield Transport), former London Transport DMS Daimler Fleetlines, ex-Greater Manchester Transport Leyland Atlanteans and Fleetlines, and its state-of-the-art Volvo Olympians (ex-Grampian Regional Transport). In the peaks, GM Buses' (later GMS Buses) Atlanteans and Olympians ruled the roost.
By 1996, the 221's Hyde link was discontinued; this time
it would terminate at Stalybridge Bus Station like the
220. March 1996 also saw Stagecoach Holdings take over GMS
Buses. Their takeover would see the orange and white of
its predecessor replaced by the all white livery with
Starsky and Hutch style orange red and blue stripes. For
the first two years of its tutelage, all was quiet with
the 220 and 221 at Clayton and Hyde Road depots. The
uneasy peace would end by the close of the decade.
