Phil - That's quite an intriguing story well worth reading. My interest in buses began in the latter part of the 1960s when I was living in the Moston area of North Manchester. I live in Moston from 1964 until 1980 and during that time, I can remember when there were two Manchester Corporation depots on the north side of the city. Queens Road depot which is still in operation and Rochdale Road in Collyhurst being the other. Both of these garages from my recollection had Leyland vehicles of both the PD1/2 variants and the Atlanteans.
The vehicles that I had fond memories of were the Leyland PD1s, the 31xx series in the Manchester Corporation fleet with their post-war design Metro-Cammell bodywork. Both these and their PD2 cousins the 32xx series were common around the North Manchester suburbs during my school days. With regard to the Daimler buses, it was the 41xx Daimler CVG6 vehicles that were my favourites. These were built in the 1950s with a Metro-Cammell body and were based at Princess Road garage on the south side of the city. The routes on which I rode on these back in the 1960s were the 80, 88, 112 and 113 which were all Cross-City routes back then. Princess Road depot back then was a mixed garage with both Daimler and Leyland vehicles and of those Cross-City routes, the 80 which ran from Middleton to Chorlton (Hardy Lane) was my favourite one where the 41xx Daimlers were concerned.
There was the odd occasion on which a Daimler Fleetline, Leyland Atlantean or PD2 was rostered to work these Cross-City routes. The other vehicles with which I had fond memories were the Rochdale Corporation AEC Regents of which, the earlier batch of the fleet were fitted with a Gardner 6LW engine and the sound of these when travelling from a standing start reminded me of the 31xx Leyland PD1s from the Manchester Corporation fleet when I rode on these from 1972. These AEC vehicles when they were under Selnec PTE ownership were numbered 6168 - 6196.
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