Strathclyde becomes Tomato Soup First Greater Glasgow: N969 SOS.

Sadly Glasgow's Strathclyde buses fell prey to First as can be seen in this busy view of bus congestion, it was not a favorite of mine but it was nice to see a former Glasgow Atlanteen running around in the Corporation colours.

Warrington's Sixties East-Lancs bodied Ugly Ducklings

Perhaps with the exception of the rather elegant but very traditional looking Northern Counties bodies also seen in Warrington with Lancashire United early rear-engined bodywork on the double-decker didn't amount to much in looks. Like all the Lancashire bodybuilders East-Lancs could produce a fine looking half-cab bus but struggled here. It was not helped by the badly placed Daimler scroll but when on later buses a curved windscreen and front was added the design came together and was much more attractive and certainly different. The batch  was18-26 5827-5835 ED and no they couldn't even quite get the registration numbers to match either which also confuses the senses lol. No a bit of an ugly duckling then which is a bit surprising as by 1963 when these arrived Alexander of Falkirk was starting to build it's modern  timeless classic with fibre-glass and of course Ralph Bennett was prodding the design team at East-Lancs to do something a lot more exciting with this body and also took the much more striking Liverpool style customised standard MCW body.

Rugeley Bus Company: Former Exeter No.5 GFJ 605D

Middleton's of Rugeley dabbled with the idea of keeping the spirit of the old Green Bus Company alive with this suitably painted former Exeter Massey bodied Leyland Leopard GFJ 605D but in the end it was the only bus so treated.

What a Cheek! A.G & M Deeble

Well plenty of cheeks actually but even though Darleyford Coaches had two of them those Jonckheere bodied Mercedes-Benz coaches weren't exactly common. An 0303 A.G & M Deeble's RAF 477Y was seen on Plymouth's Royal Parade which has always been a good spot for snapping girls.... er .I mean buses.

Berresford's East Kent AEC TFN409 at Hanley

Thankfully by the time most of you get around to looking at this you will be too stuffed with turkey and Christmas Pudding to notice the scratches as I'm afraid my old trusted Voitlander Vito2 camera was showing it's age by then. I think the fact that I was buying in bulk loading my own spools of film caused them to snag a bit as well. At one time I would not have wanted to add this one of a former East Kent Park-Royal bodied AEC Reliance which still looked quite smart despite being with Berresfords and being covered in Potteries winter filth but now it's definately worth a second look..

Chaserider Laser Bodied Tiger A602 HVT in Stafford

This was my favorite spot for bus photography in Stafford till they cut out the traffic for pedestrians. A Chaserider Duple Laser bodied Leyland Tiger looked rather grubby and cold in the snow.

Atlanteans Galore in Bolton

Bolton Corporation amassed a large fleet of Leyland Atlanteans mostly with East Lancs bodywork like two of them here. When it was integrated into the Greater Manchester PTE more were added including the Park Royal bodied example 7109. Galore

London General Greenway WLT 696

With so much uncertainty in the bus industry during the period just before and just after Deregulation operators were forced to use their money wisely, and as well as this resulting in a plague of low-cost minibuses operators tried to get optimum returns from their stock and with a swing away from coachwork and especially as many of them had poor quality bodywork rebodying as buses became quite commonplace. As well as that East Lancs introduced the Greenway as a way of both extending the life of elderly Nationals and a means to make them more operator friendly. Often after conversion they reappeared somewhere else but London Buses had it's Red Arrow National2's rebuilt as Greenways and returned to their normal duties such as this one at Victoria which had gained the registration number off RM 696.

Tracky in Barnsley Bus Station

Who would have thought it, a dull damp day in Barnsley. For the size of the town I was rather amazed at the huge size of the busy bus station and YTC was something of a mecca for Leylands. By the time I took this photo in about 1970 the blue and cream buses of County of Lepton had been integrated into the parent company including this Willowbrook bodied Leyland Tiger Cub.

D649 NOD Portsmouth: Too Many Noddy's To Nod

Harry Blundred's empire included Portsmouth where typically large numbers of Ford Transit minibuses could be found plying their trade as he took over City of Portsmouth Transport and did away with it's Atlanteans so his passengers could be packed in like sardines instead. I have a brother who lives in Devon and they had a car with D-NOD as it's registration letters as well and not surprisingly they named it Noddy. As for  parent fleet Devon General and Blue Admiral I suspect they had too many Noddy's to christen and probably called them something a little more rude. The Alexander Dash body on the Dennis Dart was well suited to those Stagecoach strips and they had a strong presence here as well for the were the new owners of the once magnificent Southdown.

TGE 837R Strathclyde Atlantean

I didn't usually have a lot of time to stop in Scotland as it was a long day anyway driving both ways from the Midlands. But when I just had one or two deliveries which took me right into Glasgow I had to stop even if it was ten-minutes to snap some buses. As you can see the weather wasn't always wonderful but I saw it more as a challenge for as transport photographers were should be able to cope with all conditions and besides where film was cheap it never did any harm to waste a few to get one or two really good ones.

Are You a Seddon RU? Yes Darlington had some like this

Standardisation with a very basic livery was very much the order of the day within the NBC Empire so it was very dull compared to what came before it, but those Municipals that didn't get drawn into the PTE's continued to provide a bit more interest. The Corporations traditionally used to usually operate mostly double-deckers but  with the advent of driver only buses they saw a rapid decline during the Seventies. This left Darlington to see in the Eighties with a just a few elderly  Roe bodied Daimler half-cabs, but the now mostly single-deck fleet  was varied and interesting and it included these not too common Pennine bodied Seddon RU buses. This photo was taken in 1980.