f801ylv-f825ylv were a batch of mk2 metrobuses ordered by Merseybus and delivered in 1989. Nearly all had cummins engines except f801, f802, f803 and f805 which had gardners. They were originally allocatted to Gillmoss and I regularly travelled on them when in Liverpool (the 12/13 and 217 were routes I used a lot around that time)
In 1993 Merseybus went to war with GM Buses, rebranded their St Helens operations "Lancashire Travel" and extended several routes into the Great Manchester area. the 62 now ran from St Helens-Manchester, as did a "new" route 34 and the 10 ran all the way from Liverpool to Manchester from its existing Liverpool Ashton route then up to Bolton via a unique route and then out along GM Buses route 12 down to Manchester. Needless to say these routes did not last long in their full form and were soon renumbered and rerouted to correspond more obviously to GM Buses routes resulting in Merseybuses running on route 12, 36, 68, 582, 628 and others. GM Buses responded with their own routes.
When this expansion occurred, all of Merseybus' metrobuses were relocated to St Helens. The original MCW and Alexander "experimental" moved, as did the growing collection of ex London buses. A batch of particularly life expired examples from Newport were acquired as, in time, were some ex gt yarmouth (which themselves were rare ex London mk2s) Much to my delight, all 25 Merseybus mk2s also migrated to St Helens (some in all over Lancashire Travel promotional livery) and I got to know them very well. Every one had its little foibles and over the next 5 years I caught at least 2 every day of school term and most other days too. What a wonderful time it was! When they moved to St Helens they had their original destination equipment ripped out and it was replaced by bizarre "insert cards" which the driver actually had to change from the top deck! The no.10 only ran to Manchester during the day and so for several weeks buses at night/sunday had to run with no destination displayed towards Ashton. It was very interesting to see the different ways drivers used all bits of card to cover up the board so that just 10 and "Ashton" was showing. Then they revised the cards and Ashton got its own one and then they got an electronic version of them with a slightley smaller route and via board on the top with final destination displayed on a separate blind below.
Sorry to rage on so much but I am getting a nostalgic feeling just thinking about it! Sadly at the time I didn't even think of recording them (why oh why did I not, I could have got them all millions of times over!) . I know it is supremely cheesy to say it, but these buses were a major part of my life for 5-7 years and are the main reason why I count myself as a bus enthusiast to this day. As yet I never have travelled upon buses with as nice a sound as these to this day. Of course that's only my personal opinion, other people will undoubtedly say that there are other much better sounding metrobuses; and I admit I've travelled on some blistering metrobuses but I still love these the most. The nostalgia bit again I suppose - as of course Arriva no longer operate them and the examples have gone far and wide which make it very difficult to see them now (Stotts of Oldham operated several for a while, and I believe still own them but no longer run any passenger services - I did get recordings from them, but again they weren't very good.)
Anyway, this is 806 and its the only one I have that is of reasonable enough quality to bother uploading (I have another one but that is even quieter!) Not a particularly spectacular file but I always enjoy to listen it
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