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Saddleworth has seen a variety of works services over the years. Those to Greenfield Paper Mill are considered sufficiently interesting to warrant a section to themselves. This collection covers all others.

Some works journeys were simply extra workings on existing services and occasionally these are referred to in the relevant service histories or photograph captions.

Others were contract workings, usually for the exclusive use of workers. In PTE days some of these were given numbers in the 800-series. This type of work was important to local independents, particularly Ken Shaw of Dobcross and Stott’s of Oldham.

The disappearance of works services is evidence of a decline in industry in Saddleworth combined with greater car ownership. There is now only one survivor, which is a contract worked by Stott’s for Robert Scott’s in Greenfield. Unusually this also works at lunchtime as many of the people working at Scott’s only work mornings or afternoons. In more recent years the Scott’s site has expanded to include Heybottom Mill. Part of that mill was used for eighteen years for the storage of preserved buses - this may form a separate gallery some time in the future.

Neptune Measurements on Delph New Road was once a sufficiently large employer to require to require additional works buses and I believe in the 'thirties these were the only journeys in Saddleworth regularly worked by double-deckers.

Saddleworth even had a coal miner's contract service, surprisingly worked by Manchester C. T. The 193 from Grotton to Bradford Colliery (where Manchester's Eastlands now is) ran from the 1950s when the collieries in Hollins and Bardsley (amongst others) closed to carry transferred miners to the much bigger and modernised pit at Bradford. Problems caused by subsidence caused the pit to close in 1968, despite having large coal reserves. I remember the 193 as I occasionally saw it (and recall it generally operating as a 193x), but at the time it was a complete mystery to me which was only solved much later.