On the 5th January 2025 the third and final tranche of bus franchises that form Greater Manchester’s Bee Network went live. This final tranche covers Stockport, Ashton-under-Lyne, Salford and the rest of Manchester. The tranche sees a new bus operator coming into Manchester – ComfortDelGro-owned Metroline, a name known for its operations in London. Metroline’s franchise operates from the former Stagecoach Hyde Road along with Sharston, Wythenshaw and Ashton-under-Lyne. Stagecoach retains Stockport. Smaller franchises in the third tranche went to Diamond and Go North West. Manchester Metroline becomes the largest operator in the Greater Manchester area. A lot of new buses feature on this programme the most prominent being new diesel buses that are Wrightbus StreetDeck Ultroliners with Metroline along with electric MCV-bodied Volvo BZL double-deckers. New ADL400EV electric double-deckers are also seen operating with Stagecoach in this programme.
The independent transport videos cameras visit Stockport, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester during September, October and December 2024 to record the scene that will change completely from the start of 2025. In Stockport locations include the newly opened Stockport Interchange, Swaine Street, Wellington Road and Wellington Road North. Here we see mostly Stagecoach buses in service. Look out for Stagecoach ‘407’ - 19407 (MX58 FTD), an ADL Enviro400 smartly painted in the erstwhile North Western red and cream livery. In Ashton-under-Lyne our cameras film at the Interchange, Wellington Road and Katherine Street capturing the busy bus scene that include a number of the former Go-Ahead’s Oxford Bus Company low-height Wright-bodied Volvo B5LHs, some completely refurbished and painted for the Bee Network. Our December filming is at Manchester’s busy Shudehill Interchange where we see preserved GM Buses Northern Counties-bodied Leyland Atlantean AN68 4706 (A706 LNC). This bus took part in an evening run on the 4th January to mark the end of ‘Stagecoach Manchester’ as it was before the start of the third tranche the following day.
The second part of our programme is filmed in February 2025 just a few weeks after the third and final tranche went live. We return to Stockport and film in Wellington Road, the Interchange and Swaine Street. We see many new buses as well as Stagecoach buses with Bee Network stickers. The buses that have been transferred to Metroline have the Metroline alphanumeric fleet numbers placed over their previous Stagecoach ones. A number of the ADL Enviro400 buses in the Stagecoach ‘Magic Bus’ livery (a brand now discontinued) are currently operating on a number of different routes before repaint or replacement. At Ashton-under-Lyne we return to the Interchange and Wellington Road. Again it is all change – former Stagecoach East Scotland VolvoB5LH/ADL Enviro400 MMC double-deckers, now renumbered in Metroline’s VHA series, but still in their Stagecoach Dundee branded livery are here.
In the final part of this programme we return to Manchester city centre and film the action in Portland Street, Piccadilly Gardens, Piccadilly and in and around Shudehill Interchange. Again many changes are to be seen including Volvo B9TL/Wright Eclipse Gemini double-deckers, new to First Manchester in 2007, then transferred to Go North West (GNW) in 2019 when Queens Road depot was taken over from Firstbus. They were then transferred to Stagecoach when they took over the operation of Queens Road in early 2024 when the second tranche was introduced. They have now moved to Metroline’s Hyde Road depot and are seen in GNW livery with Bee Network stickers and Metroline fleet numbers. So many changes and so much to see, we hope you enjoy this film of a ‘snapshot in time’ of the ever-changing bus scene in Greater Manchester.
Produced by - Independent Transport Videos
Duration - 106 minutes
Region - 0 (worldwide) PAL
Aspect Ratio - 16:9 Widescreen
DVD only
Released - March 2025
