From South Wales to South Lancashire! Day 114 on #AYearOfBuses takes us once more to Preston.
From Preston’s iconic Grade II listed bus station leaves Preston Bus 114, bound for a long, winding, ‘around the houses’ trek to the nearby Lancashire town of Chorley, as made famous by comedian Peter Kay. It’s a (sort of, indirectly) much slower competitor to Stagecoach’s quicker and infinitely more high-spec Gold 125, which takes the direct route straight along the A6.
The 114, meanwhile, meanders through the city suburb of Penwortham, schlepping around housing estates before making its way out to the sticks and passing through Leyland, Clayton and the pleasantly-named Whittle-le-Woods, taking a small detour through the Chorley and South Ribble Hospital before finally arriving – 1 hour 50 mins later – in Chorley.
It’s a pathetically slow, miserable and really quite laughable offering when you compare it with Stagecoach’s journey time of around 40 mins to connect the two places, but the 114 was never designed to compete with the 125. It’s the sort of route which makes you wonder how bus drivers ever remember them, with its endless twists, turns, diversions and offshoots – and that’s exactly why we love it.
