New Bus Route Week Day 2: Route 319

Tuesday 21st February 2023

All this week I’m describing travel experiences on brand new bus routes. It certainly makes a change from cataloguing routes about to be withdrawn and with Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding now starting to flow, we can expect to see many more forlorn initiatives like the ones I’m featuring in the coming months.

Yesterday we were in Telford, today we’re on the border where Lancashire meets Merseyside. Skelmersdale to be precise, one of those new towns from the 1960s, and which gained a new express bus link across to Kirkby on the Merseyrail network from 22nd January thanks to Lancashire County Council’s Government funded BSIP.

Skelmersdale is often cited as being the largest town in the north west without a railway, but rail-less Leigh in Greater Manchester is actually bigger although that town now has a guided busway of course. Poor old Skelmersdale has had nothing, until now.

Last year the DfT rebuffed a local campaign for a pie-in-the-sky new rail link to the Kirkby to Wigan railway line which passes north of Skelmersdale. The County Council had even purchased the site of a former college for a possible station. Hopes were raised when Boris Johnson included the project in a list of pre-General Election promises in 2019. In the event characteristically that turned out to be the kiss of death for the project.

Amid much disappointment that campaign failed funding has instead been made available for a new dedicated bus link to Kirkby station which is at the end of a branch of the Merseyrail network.

Once the new station at Headbolt Lane opens (sited north east of Kirkby) it’s planned that the bus will call there.

As well as a number 319, the route has been christened ‘trainlink’ complete with a Best Impressions designed livery and branding.

At the moment route 319 operates from the small bus station known as Skelmersdale Concourse adjacent to a shopping centre making a small deviation to serve the Chapel House area to the north of the town before joining the M58 for a fast run to Kirkby.

The service is being operated by Stagecoach from its Gillmoss bus garage.

The ‘trainlink’ logo and departure times are on display at the Concourse departure bay.

But at Kirkby railway station at the other end of the route, where I started my journey having arrived by train, there was nothing.

No indication at all of where the bus would depart from which isn’t very reassuring for passengers wanting to use a trainlink.

Luckily Kirkby has a staffed ticket office – with two members of staff on duty too – and one of them kindly directed me towards the bus stop over the road on the other side of a road junction.

Quite why the 319 trainlink doesn’t stop right outside the station is a mystery. It’s not that there’s no room as a full size rail replacement coach was there.

I made it over to the designated bus stop where there was a timetable …

… and after a short wait the bus appeared having started its journey at Kirkby’s bus station a few minutes away.

As you can see it was a former Stagecoach Gold branded single deck offering a slightly higher than standard level of comfort.

The one passenger already on board alighted at the stop after the railway station and then it was just me for the rest of the journey.

The only way to work out which way we were going was to look through the front windscreen as all the side windows were caked in grime and dirt making them impossible to see through which was very disorientating.

The driver said the dirt is thrown up from the motorway and as it was only lunchtime I dread to think what state the bus was in at the end of the day.

I’m not convinced it had been washed overnight.

As we pulled into Skelmersdale Concourse there were two passengers waiting for the next trip and it wasn’t long before the bus was on its way again.

Not only does this trainlink not call at the railway station but there are no integrated tickets available. Lancashire County Council are quoted as saying that integrated ticketing is being developed “for future introduction with Merseytravel.” It’s a pity whatever is being developed wasn’t in place from the start. I understand there was a £6 introductory weekly offer.

For the numbers travelling you might as well offer free travel to the station and make the bus for the exclusive use of passengers connecting with the train. That might raise its profile.

It’s a fairly tightly timed service taking 26 minutes with each of the two buses rounding in an hour including four minutes layover at each end thereby providing a half hourly frequency from 06:00 to 18:00 and hourly until 23:30 with Sundays also hourly all day.

A seven/eight minute connection is available between buses arriving/departing from/to Skelmersdale and trains arriving/departing to and from Liverpool Central at Kirkby station so that’s good to see.

Numbers travelling weren’t very impressive four and a half weeks since introduction and like any new route of this kind it needs relentless high profile marketing and promotion.

A dirty branded bus (albeit attractive looking) won’t cut it.

Likely long term success rating: 2/10 (although once Headbolt Lane station opens it might creep up to 3/10).

Roger French

Next New Bus Route Week blog posting tomorrow comes from Oxfordshire.