JGurney
Member
I had a ride on Merseytravel bus 129 yesterday, which led me to wonder whether it is the last of its kind.
The 129 runs once every Sunday afternoon, linking Liscard, Wallasey and various other suburban districts of The Wirral to Frankby Cemetery (formerly called 'Wallasey Metropolitan Cemetery'), which was established in the late 1930's due to a shortage of space in existing cemeteries and churchyards in the area. Because the new cemetery was beyond walking distance from most of Wallasey, the bus service was provided to enable relatives of the interred to visit graves.
I gather that similar new cemeteries in other places gave rise to similar bus services but I have not come upon any others still in operation, so I wonder whether the 129 is a unique survival?
When I used it yesterday, I was responsible for 60% of the loading. I made a return journey, along with one other return passenger, an elderly man who was clearly familiar with the regular driver and who visited the cemetery. There was one other one-way passenger, from Liscard to Leastowe, but she was only there because she had just missed the half-hourly Arriva 423 to Leastowe and got on the 129 when I told her it also went there. So without me and the casual third passenger I prompted, there was only one apparently regular user, which gives a dismal prospect for the route's survival.
The only other cemetery-related bus route I know of is the unnumbered internal one in St Pancras Cemetery in London. That is of a quite different kind, being a free minibus service which runs around the cemetery's internal driveways at weekends, never exiting onto public roads.
The 129 runs once every Sunday afternoon, linking Liscard, Wallasey and various other suburban districts of The Wirral to Frankby Cemetery (formerly called 'Wallasey Metropolitan Cemetery'), which was established in the late 1930's due to a shortage of space in existing cemeteries and churchyards in the area. Because the new cemetery was beyond walking distance from most of Wallasey, the bus service was provided to enable relatives of the interred to visit graves.
I gather that similar new cemeteries in other places gave rise to similar bus services but I have not come upon any others still in operation, so I wonder whether the 129 is a unique survival?
When I used it yesterday, I was responsible for 60% of the loading. I made a return journey, along with one other return passenger, an elderly man who was clearly familiar with the regular driver and who visited the cemetery. There was one other one-way passenger, from Liscard to Leastowe, but she was only there because she had just missed the half-hourly Arriva 423 to Leastowe and got on the 129 when I told her it also went there. So without me and the casual third passenger I prompted, there was only one apparently regular user, which gives a dismal prospect for the route's survival.
The only other cemetery-related bus route I know of is the unnumbered internal one in St Pancras Cemetery in London. That is of a quite different kind, being a free minibus service which runs around the cemetery's internal driveways at weekends, never exiting onto public roads.
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