Stagecoach Manchester 13173 - BN61 MWX
And then there was one. One more bus, then it was time to go home. When Queens Road first fell to Go-Ahead, a notable early sight was First's batch of 14 Volvo B5LHs sporting Go-Ahead fleetnames before slowly being refurbished into version 1 of Go North West's blue, grey and orange livery... eventually superseded by Stenning's variant when they decided 'We Are Buzz' wasn't doing a good enough job with it.
Then, Queens Road fell again, this time to Stagecoach under Tranche 2 of the Bee Network. With the garage came it's entire allocation of Volvo B5LHs, renumbered in short order under the Stagecoach system, reallocated to Oldham, and slowly, but surely refurbished into Bee Network standard livery. 13173 here appears to be one of the newest examples in fleet livery, bearing no adverts, having hardly kicked up any dirt, and seemingly having no Flickr photos of this repaint. It made the agonising five-or-so minute wait for it to pull away worth it.
And that's it. We're done with our Manchester spots. Now to take a heavily delayed train back to Hull and arrive in time for 11PM due to the usual chicanery of Transpennine Express. So... Manchester in review? I would love, absolutely love to see more of the local bus scene and catch up on more that I'd missed out on. But this is all, what I coined, a nice 'even spread' of vehicles, some of which most likely won't be here next time. They do things differently down in Manchester, y'know. I was in you, Manchester, and I will be back at some point. Hopefully in warmer weather.
My final photo from the Manchester trip, Stagecoach Manchester's 13173, a 2011 Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 new to First Manchester as their 39219 before later becoming Go North West's 3013, is seen pulling out along Oldham Street on, fittingly, an 84 service to Oldham.
Stagecoach Manchester 13173 - BN61 MWX
And then there was one. One more bus, then it was time to go home. When Queens Road first fell to Go-Ahead, a notable early sight was First's batch of 14 Volvo B5LHs sporting Go-Ahead fleetnames before slowly being refurbished into version 1 of Go North West's blue, grey and orange livery... eventually superseded by Stenning's variant when they decided 'We Are Buzz' wasn't doing a good enough job with it.
Then, Queens Road fell again, this time to Stagecoach under Tranche 2 of the Bee Network. With the garage came it's entire allocation of Volvo B5LHs, renumbered in short order under the Stagecoach system, reallocated to Oldham, and slowly, but surely refurbished into Bee Network standard livery. 13173 here appears to be one of the newest examples in fleet livery, bearing no adverts, having hardly kicked up any dirt, and seemingly having no Flickr photos of this repaint. It made the agonising five-or-so minute wait for it to pull away worth it.
And that's it. We're done with our Manchester spots. Now to take a heavily delayed train back to Hull and arrive in time for 11PM due to the usual chicanery of Transpennine Express. So... Manchester in review? I would love, absolutely love to see more of the local bus scene and catch up on more that I'd missed out on. But this is all, what I coined, a nice 'even spread' of vehicles, some of which most likely won't be here next time. They do things differently down in Manchester, y'know. I was in you, Manchester, and I will be back at some point. Hopefully in warmer weather.
My final photo from the Manchester trip, Stagecoach Manchester's 13173, a 2011 Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 new to First Manchester as their 39219 before later becoming Go North West's 3013, is seen pulling out along Oldham Street on, fittingly, an 84 service to Oldham.