Mayne's in Manchester: Those Ugly Buses

People used to really knock the poor old MCW Orion family of bodywork in the Sixties. I know it was rather plain looking and of course often unpleasant to ride in due to it's flimsy lightweight nature. But I feel even though standards of noise accessibility and comfort might have improved over the decades not always have the designs of our buses. East-Lancs has produced some rather uninspired buses in it's time including this example whose incongruous appearance isn't helped by Mayne's rather bitty livery highlighting the broken lines of the bodywork. The biggest problem here is that it's no good mixing gentle curves with such a jagged profile as the top of the bus doesn't go at all well with that curved windscreen. Indeed everything looks as though it was added on as an afterthought unlike the rather more sleek Alexander-Dennis Enviro on a similar Trident belonging to Stagecoach Manchester. This view was taken a couple of years ago and sadly Mayne's no longer run it's buses only coaches and so they now also operate in Stagecoach colours.