Speke Garage's 50th Birthday

The South Liverpool garage at Shaw Road, Speke, has, believe it or not, been in use for 50 years now. Speke garage, built for Liverpool Corporation in 1957 and was used until 1989 when it was mothballed by Merseybus. Speke was brought back into use in 1994 when the MerseyRider operations were transferred in and finally became a fully operational depot again in 1996 when Garston's allocation was transferred in and Garston was closed. Sadly, Speke is due to be demolished and rebuilt as an open air garage later this year.

To celebrate Speke's half century, the MTT were invited to take a couple of vehicles down to Speke to both re-create old photographs and also hold a line-up next to newer vehicles. The MTT took A267 and L501 which were lined up next to 2006 delivered Alexander ALX400 bodied Volvo B7TL 4100 (with LeBus branding) and 2005 delivered Scania OmniCity used on the 500 service to Liverpool Airport. The ALX400 had had its LED destination display programmed to show "50 YEARS OF SPEKE GARAGE".

Thanks must go to Barry MacDermot, Mark Owens and the rest of the Speke staff who helped ot make it an enjoyable day.

Some videos of the trip can be seen here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uFdYj2WXTIY and here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vqCHq-FQROo