3648 x 5472 px | 30,9 x 46,3 cm | 12,2 x 18,2 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
8 octobre 2022
Informations supplémentaires:
Until 1992, upon leaving either Manchester Piccadilly or Victoria stations you'd be met by this - a line of little 'Centreline' buses waiting to take passengers from one station to the other across the city centre via the shopping and office districts. Manchester was the site of the first passenger railway in the world - the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830. But the haphazard way railways were planned and competed in the Victoria age meant that there was little coordination and there were three separate major stations in the city with no effective links between north and south. London Road (later Piccadilly) served the south, while Victoria served the north. The third, Central, closed in 1969 and for a while became a semi-derelict car park before its wonderful transformation into an exhibition centre. So to connect the two stations, SELNEC and ten GMT ran a 'Centreline' service running at frequent intervals, with a flat fare to speed boarding. Some of the route was in narrow streets so these little Seddon 'Midi' buses were bought, built in Oldham. They were perfect for the job operationally but they were not popular with their drivers or the garage staff as they were difficult to maintain, noisy inside and with most of their weight at the front they could skid in wet or icy weather. But they did their job day in, day out for many years, buzzing around the city streets and usually full. The Seddon's lasted twelve years, a very good age for lightly-built buses, until replaced by new Dennis buses in 1986. Then in 1992 Metrolink at last provide a rail-borne link across the city centre between the two main stations. The raison d'etre for Centreline was gone and the service ended. Most of the Seddon's were scrapped but one or two still exist including number 1722, which is fully restored and on display at the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester.