Services began at 9 am on Good Friday 9 April 1909 with four Commer covered top double deck buses with solid tyres operating between the old Transporter Bridge at West Bank and Peelhouse Lane. The service was soon extended to Halton View, Farnworth and the Black Horse. Later, services were extended to Rainhill.
Although there was never a tram service in Widnes the Corporation was one of the first municipalities to start a bus service; it was the first operator in the country (perhaps the world) to operate covered top double deck buses instead of open toppers.
In 1913 six Tilling Stevens buses were added to the fleet. During the First World War, the upper decks on the Commers were removed so that gas bags could be fitted. Many buses ran on gas because of petrol shortages. The buses could manage one return trip to the Black Horse before refilling.
In those early days it was hard to maintain services as the appalling condition of most roads caused a lot of damage to vehicles.
Services to most parts of Widnes began during the 20's and 30's so that by the outbreak of the Second World War an extensive service was offered covering most of the town. Timetables and route details were complex compared with today as basic hourly services were provided to areas such as Blundell Road, Stewards Avenue and even Moss Bank. The main line service operated every 10 minutes from the Transporter Bridge through the town and diverting at Deacon Road into several splinter services. The post war period saw the boom in demand that was enjoyed by all bus operators. Fares were cheap and the buses ran full. Large loads would be carried on evening services to the cinemas etc. Factories such as the Everite Works hired our buses to "ship in" large numbers of workers from the Huyton area. We even operated works contract services for the new Ford Factory at Speke.. However the onset of the car and television caused a big decline in demand after about 1960. The downward spiral of reduced demand leading to reduced services and fares increases merely caused an even greater reduction in demand.
With the opening of the new Runcorn - Widnes Bridge in 1961, regular bus services were extended to Runcorn High Street Bus Station. Under the legislation then prevailing we were grated sole right to carry local passengers across the bridge, as the old Transporter which closed was owned by Widnes Corporation. Crosville, who operated all local services in Runcorn used the new Bridge for services to Liverpool. Crosville Services in the Widnes area had restrictions on their ability to carry local passengers as the law of the time protected the Department. Such restrictions included higher fares on Crosville buses and a payment to Widnes Corporation for each passenger that Crosville carried.
In 1966 one man operation commenced on various routes, although the majority of new deliveries continued to be the now traditional East Lancs bodied Leyland Titan PD2 double decker with 65 seats. The Department took delivery of the first Leyland National for a municipal operator in 1971.
During the early '70's construction of Runcorn New Town, incorporating this country's only busway system, was at an advanced stage. Although Crosville had a virtual monopoly on busway services, we found ourselves on the small section past Beechwood Depot. This followed agreement with Crosville to operate joint services from the Shopping City (ground floor) to either Whiston (J61, hourly) or Bold Heath (J62 two hourly) or Black Horse via Horns (J63 two hourly). These services combined to give a 30 minute service along Clifton Road.
Initially the fleet was housed in old premises at the back off the old Widnes Market site. In 1924 the present Moor Lane depot was built; the work shop was built in 1945; the canteen and cycle shed in 1949 and the upstairs offices were fitted out in 1950.
With local Government reorganisation in 1974 we found ourselves part of the much larger Halton Council. Service patterns carried on much as before and, in 1976, for the first time ever service numbers were used on local Widnes Services which did much to break the mystique about our services.
Towards the end of the '70's we were no longer able to make profits. This was because of the steady decline over the years in passenger revenue, combined with the need to provide costly services for a few work people plus an extensive early morning, evening and Sunday service. Also the pedestrianisation of Widnes' main shopping Street involved us adopting an expensive diversion. For the next few years our losses were met by a subsidy from Cheshire County Council as was usual in the rest of the country.
The Conservative Government realised the ailing state of the industry and they believed that bus services would improve if they were opened up for competition in addition to transferring publicly owned bus companies such as ourselves and Crosville to the private sector. The 1986 Transport Act introduced deregulation whereby an operator could run any service, subject to six weeks notice. We became a private company, albeit wholly owned by the Council, to ensure that no hidden subsidies were paid to us out of the rate fund and to ease the assumed eventual sale into the private sector.
Our own preparations for D Day (26 October 1986) were to devise a profitable network of mainly daytime services in the Widnes area which only required the use of 25 buses. The County Council then invited tenders to augment the commercial network with socially necessary services. We were able to win, on tender, many of the local services that we would otherwise have lost. Significantly Crosville decided that they did not want to operate their High Street - Astmoor - Shopping City - Whitehouse 30 minute service. Nor were they interested in the hourly service from Runcorn to Warrington via Moore. When these services came out to tender we decided to operate them commercially, from October 1986. These additional services enabled us increase the size of operation so that we were less vulnerable to attack.
In 1987, Crosville decided to close their Liverpool depot and withdraw their services in the Huyton area. We decided to increase our hourly 61 service which terminated at Whiston Hospital to every 30 minutes and run through to Huyton. The service was soon extended through to Liverpool and increased to every 20 minutes. The increases followed Merseybus (St. Helens) attacks on our Hough Green Services. An hourly Service 14 to Liverpool began in 1992 following North Western's (who were by now the old Crosville operation) withdrawal of their comparable service. At the same time as this we learnt that Merseybus were to double their presence around Hough Green to every 15 minutes by extending their Halewood (78) service. We immediately responded by increasing our new Liverpool service to every 20 minutes. Eventually Merseybus withdrew their competitive services following an agreement to rationalise the St. Helens service.
North Western and previously Crosville, have tried on several occasions to take our revenue on our Widnes services. We have always had a policy of responding to competition by operating more buses in Runcorn, particularly along the busway. This explains how our network of three 20 minute services in Runcorn have developed. Following a crazy situation in late 1995 when there was a period of intense competition provoked by North Western a more sensible level of service resumed in March 1996.
This more or less takes us up to where we are today. Our fleet is perhaps the most modern in the country; all new buses are to a low floor design and our services are respected by passengers over a much greater area than our humble Widnes beginnings.
| Year | Fleet size | Miles operated |
| 1910 | 4 | 90,000 |
| 1915 | 10 | 94,000 |
| 1920 | 15 | 139,000 |
| 1930 | 22 | 456,000 |
| 1940 | 25 | 536,000 |
| 1950 | 44 | 1,047,000 |
| 1960 | 44 | 1,091,000 |
| 1970 | 39 | 1,185,000 |
| 1980 | 37 | 982,157 |
| 1985 | 37 | 850,000 |
| 1987 | 42 | 1,507,000 |
| 1990 | 53 | 1,895,000 |
| 1996 | 51 | 2,370,000 |