This weekend saw the closure of the Arriva Oswestry depot. The announcement to close was made a few months ago and some of the services were transferred to Shrewsbury a few weeks ago.
The main service 2/2A/2C has this weekend transferred to the Wrexham (Arriva Cymru) depot and 9 Wright Pulsar2s have transferred from Arriva Midlands to Cymru 3755-7/85-90 (YJ59BUW/FEF/FEG, FL63DXT/U/V/W/X/y and are to become 3204-3212.
Yesterday (Sunday 2nd July) was the first day of operation by Wrexham depot on a Sunday service which involved 2 vehicles. (These were not keeping to time as Arriva Midlands normally had 3 vehicles working).
(Photo courtesy Chris Clegg)
Then the depot was empty!!
From 1925 there has been a substantial bus depot in Oswestry. The first premises was in Lower Brook Street and was operated by the Wrexham and District Company Limited that later combined with the bus services of the GWR and became Western Transport. By 1930 the depot was moved to the former Drill Hall in Oswald Road.
In 1933 when Western Transport was merged into Crosville the Oswald Road depot operated under the Crosville banner.
The depot passed to Crosville Wales in 1986 despite the fact that Oswestry was in England. The split of the company was imposed by the Government of the day to facilitate the future privatisation of Crosville. It was convenient to have Oswestry part of the Welsh side.
The depot further transferred to Midland Red North (MRN) in 1991. MRN closed the depot in December 1991 and opened a new depot in Salop Road. The Oswald Road depot was demolished in about 2000 with the land being used for a new Aldi Supermarket. The Salop Road depot was used by Arriva until last weekend.