Sheffield Pond Street: East Midland

Leyland National Series1 production lasted about eight years, but even though it almost had as long a production run the replacement Series2 soon started to appear in much smaller numbers because impending Deregulation was hitting bus orders and instead operators were busy cutting corners by buying the much cheaper minibus. Also Leyland had a new chassis with more power to replace the Leopard called the Tiger and NBC fleets were allowed to try it. So even though most NBC Tiger orders were for coaches a few operators took buses including East Midland who quite surprisingly had nine of them bodied by Alexander with the very square looking P type body normally found on Scottish Buses. No.625 was photographed when still quite new and I always liked these buses, and yes even later too after they received those Stagecoach Stripes. As you can see I also have a young admirer in this Sheffield view taken in 1984.