#AYearOfBuses 353: Cheetham Hill – Pendleton

It’s day 353 on #AYearOfBuses! Today, we’re taking a look at a true Mancunian icon.

Forget the Gallagher brothers. Forget the football teams. The 53 has the honour of being Manchester’s oldest unchanged bus route. That is, the oldest route in the city to keep its number, operating along largely the same route since its inception in the 1920s.

Taking a giant orbit of a route around the city, the 53 started life as a tram route before later being converted to bus operation. It runs from Cheetham Hill – outside the Queen’s Road bus depot – to Blackley, Harpurhey, Miles Platting, Beswick, Belle Vue, Gorton, Hulme, Old Trafford, and Salford Quay, before finishing at Pendleton shopping centre.

These days, it’s in the hands of newcomer Go North West, and rumour has it, it’s due an upgrade very shortly…