Pictures of Liverpool

Now that Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year is officially over, Omnibuses2.0’s Northern Correspondent felt it safe to return, to find a thriving city...

(Hover over each picture for more information. Pictures by Northern Correspondent)

Recession? What recession? Liverpool city centre’s still teeming with shoppers and there are remarkably few casualties in the shape of empty shops.

For the hub of a city region of 1.3mil people, it has to be said that the centre was once mediocre in terms of shopping capacity & choice. The hugely colourful and brand new 125-strong Liverpool One development’s remedied that. Since over 60 per cent of shoppers are reported to arrive in central Liverpool by bus, this central shopping bolt-on will do no harm for the local bus service, especially as Liverpool One is advertised to stay open till 2000hrs. The once marginalised new Paradise Street bus station is now within feet of Liverpool One but, strangely, the terminus still has something of a deserted feel about it, even more so than the slightly more northerly old one that languished darkly beneath a now vanished multi-storey car park.

The parallel land reserved for the doubtful tram interchange has temporarily been taken over by fencing while Liverpool One’s Hilton is finished off. The tram was never much liked by bus operators neither Arriva nor Glenvale’s successor, Stagecoach, with scathing accusations of public money wasted that could otherwise be invested.

Arriva North West has wasted no money in its continued fleet upgrade, as part of a £45mil commitment to ensure 100 per cent low floor accessibility by 2011. Thirty 55- and 06-reg Volvo B7TL/Alexander Dennis ALX400 double decks worth £4.5mil joined from January 2006, initially for the 82 and 86As. Double decks had previously been ruled out on the grounds of anti-social behavioural, but loadings above 44 were such that Arriva felt it had no option, though it trialed an articulated Citaro in 2004. An interesting experiment in what might have been—but concerns over revenue losses and major infrastructure upgrades held sway.

The B7TLs were followed in the spring that year by some 34 VDL SB200/Wright Commander 44 seat single decks.

Representing a £1.8mil investment, new 44-seat VDL SB200/Wrght Pulsars for the famed 18A (Liverpool-Croxteth Park) arrived from November 2008, replacing England’s first super low floor buses, the former Merseytravel ‘Smart’ Neoplans once cascaded to the 18A. There followed further Pulsars this month, for the 52/52A Liverpool-Netherton.

The most exciting arrivals have been 23 all-Alexander Dennis 80-seat Enviro400s for the Wirral-Liverpool cross-river 432/3/7s. To semi-dual purpose standards with medium-backed seats and the first in the north west to carry Arriva inter-urban livery, they update the established Crossriver Express brand and largely replace the 1996 batch of Leyland Olympian/North Counties Palatine IIs also specifically delivered (for MTL as Silver Service) for the same suite of services. In spite of their length and wheelbase, they offer no problems in the old Birkenhead tunnel. Upper deck vision is excellent, through the wide panoramic window.

Of interest to the north are the four Alexander Dennis Enviro300s in service from July 2008 on Sefton Council's Southport park & ride service. Cream is rare on buses but just like the pre-1974 erstwhile days of the Southport Corporation, red goes well with it. Someone at Sefton has a sense of history.

To be continued...