Manchester Corporation/Selnec PTE Buses

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Regarding the radiator blinds on Stockport's PD2s and PD3s in the 1960s, there was a theory at one stage that they were specified by Frank Brimelow, General Manager in 1963 and 1964 who wrote the specification for the return to traditional radiator Leylands with East Lancashire bodies in April 1963 - a specification that lasted with minor variations until 1969.

The theory was based on the fact that he came from SHMD which stabled over half its fleet outdoors. It falls down on the basis that most of the modern SHMD fleet was composed of tin front Daimlers, and whilst some of the exposed radiator Leylands did have radiator blinds, the majority didn't and the fleet stabled outdoors was connected to electrical heating for both radiator and interiors when parked overnight.

More likely the blinds on the Stockport vehicles were one of those historic throwbacks which persisted in various ways in many municipal fleets and survived when other detail changes to the specs were made.

Harry Postlethwaite's book (which I found thin on many details and something of a disappointment) shows the blinds in use on PD2s on Pages 141 and 143.

An even more odd variation shown up by the book is the occurrence or absence of starting handle connection points through the radiator on traditional radiator PD2s and PD3s delivered in the 1960s.

26 is depicted with no access whilst 35, from the same batch, with access. Of the Neepsend bodied batch, 62 is shown with, 68 without.

53 is shown in SELNEC days with, whilst 34, in preservation is shown without though 65, in preservation, is shown with.

Of the PD3s shown, 71 is shown in service with, 86 and 97 are shown without as is 91 in preservation though 97, since being preserved and losing its roof, has gained a starting handle access point.

[Orla Nutting]

QUOTE=Phil Blinkhorn;2439]
Harry Postlethwaite's book (which I found thin on many details and something of a disappointment) shows the blinds in use on PD2s on Pages 141 and 143.
[/quote]

Yes, I'd noticed that too on those pages.

Can't fault your view on Postlethwaite's book. Lots of incomplete material and occasionally inaccurate. Didn't see any need for him to cover the trams in such detail as they been covered well enough in the past by Maurice Marshall and Raymond Keeley. Generally I regarded the book as a fairly slapdash affair though it did have some wonderful pictures of the vehicles. Chunks of the scrpit appeared to come directly out of Buses Extra #75(the one with a cover showing a Longwell Green PD2 exiting Lloyd Rd on route #14 in SCTD livery[which is another route of which neither I nor Postlethwaite appear to know anything about!!]during the Selnec days) when describing post-war purchases.
I've long wondered whatever happened to Roy G Chapman's proposed publication on SCTD, 'Fares Please'. It was advertised as forthcoming at the 1997 GMTM Stockport Weekend in May 1997, priced £4.45 and to be published by Tiviot Dale Publishing which had a private address in Lynwood Grove. To the best of my knowledge it never saw the light of day though I noticed that the GMTM library claimed to hold a copy a few years later but it's absent from their current listings.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

I doubt Chapman's book was ever published. The Museum may have held a proof copy or even an original script - which may still be in the archive - but small time publishing, even in the enthusiast market, requires a great deal of hard work and often deep pockets to gain any distribution.

Route #14 didn't, to my knowledge, exist. The only reason for a Stockport vehicle to have the number on the blind at all would be a previous temporary move to Oldham and the installation of an Oldham number blind as in:
Another example of the temporary influx of Stockport buses in 1973 (see later photos) is 5946, a Longwell Green-bodied PD2 which is just passing the end of Brewerton Road. A sign of the times is the advert for Belle Vue Zoo Park on the end of the block

with the blind being incorrectly set in the Buses Extra photo.

Oldham route 14 was, of course, the joint MCTD, Oldham and North Western route from Stevenson Square to Uppermill.

[Orla Nutting]

That's a nice pic of that Longwell Green PD2. Thanks.

I think that the one shown on the cover of Buses Extra 75 (see attachment)is on a Stockport route (it certainly isn't going to Uppermill!). Though two of the other buses in the shot are in Selnec livery the Stockport bus has yet to receive a 'Southern' flash though it has been renumbered. I think that all the transferred PD2's, both Leyland bodied and Longwell Green bodied received 'Southern' signs (when they weren't being given the full Oldham or SHMD livery).

In it's latter years SCTD introduced a raft of new route numbers. Some are known such as the #49 (later 97) Piccadilly to Mersey Sq via Green End (or Green Lane as Harry Postlethwaite has it!).

To my knowledge there was #15 which I vaguely remember went to either Reddish or down M/cr Road from Mersey Sq. There was certainly a #19 which went to Reddish from Mersey Sqare from the same stop as the #17 and #17x. This would have been rather confusing as M/cr was still operating the #19 Victoria to Houldsworth Square (a joint service with Stockport, M/cr operated). Perhaps the Stockport service just complemented the M/cr route? (Of course Stockport did have a #19 back in the '40's which was a short working of the #9 between Houldsworth Square and Didsbury Road/Mauldeth Rd but that's another story as they say.)

By 1969 there was #36 running along much of route #16 but terminating in Offerton rather than Stepping Hill.

Similarly a variant of the #26 was introduced in 1968 as #46 which ran from Mersey Sqare to Alfreton Lane Offerton (rather than Mile End).

Then there was a rush hour joint service with M/cr (Stockport operated) from Lloyd Road to Sale via Wythenshawe numbered 37x.

Again, by the end of SCTD the rush hour #18 had been extended to Torkington from Bramhall Moor Lane and whilst still a joint service with M/cr it was operated only by Stockport.

I think that there was also a #13 introduced which operated from Lloyd Rd (or Crossley Road as Stockport would have it) but I can't be sure.

However, with all this going in the final years of operation it doesn't surprise me to know that there was a #14 operating out of Lloyd Road to Mersey Sq.

Amongst the disappointments of Harry Postlethwaite's book was the fact that he didn't shine any light on this expansion of activities in the dying days.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

If you have fairly easy access to either Stockport Library (local history section) or the Museum of Transport, one or other may well have a copy of the 1968 or 1969 Timetables and Fares Tables.

The library certainly received at least one copy every year and used to archive them and may well have hard copies or microfilm

[Degsy168]

Hi Everyone,

I found this photo of Ex Manchester Corporation Daimler CVG6 No 4468 NNB 278 which was one of only three vehicles in the 4400-4479 batch given a repaint into Selnec PTE livery in the early 1970s. I'm trying to ascertain where the vehicle is turning as shown on the attachment below. Can anyone identify the location please?

I'm guessing that it's turning from Princess Street onto Mosley Street heading towards St Peter's Square for it to be working the No 62 route in the Chorlton direction or, possibly from Cateaton Street onto Cross Street within the city centre.

[Orla Nutting]

Originally Posted by Degsy168

Hi Everyone,

I found this photo of Ex Manchester Corporation Daimler CVG6 No 4468 NNB 278 which was one of only three vehicles in the 4400-4479 batch given a repaint into Selnec PTE livery in the early 1970s. I'm trying to ascertain where the vehicle is turning as shown on the attachment below. Can anyone identify the location please?

I'm guessing that it's turning from Princess Street onto Mosley Street heading towards St Peter's Square for it to be working the No 62 route in the Chorlton direction or, possibly from Cateaton Street onto Cross Street within the city centre.

Despite the destination I think it's turning right at the bottom of Market St towards St Marys Gate....that looks like the Royal Exchange clock in the background and the hoarding is advertising the building of the new M&S for (I guess) the Arndale Centre that the IRA did so much to transform in later years. I'm guessing also that with that destination setting the bus has done a short working into town (as it's a 62X), come down Cross Street, turned right into the bottom of Market Street and is about to go down St Marys Gate before turning right back into Victoria Street(?) and then crossing Market Street into Cross Street again and then going back to Wilbraham Road. Like I say, just a guess.

[aidanorourke]

This is the corner of St Mary's Gate and Deansgate. We are looking south along St Mary's Gate towards the Royal Exchange - the clock is visible on the right. Straight ahead is Market Street, along which the bus probably came.

Today on the left is Number One Deansgate, built on the site of the former Shambles West development. Here is the corner in question, from a different angle.



I never got used to seeing the buses in that ugly orange livery. It was a 'modern' colour scheme but the buses were still from the 'traditional' era and looked better in the greens and reds and creams of the old municipal liveries.

I remember the distinctive sound of the engines of these buses. A very good photograph - but where did you get it?

[mr angry]

It is a good picture, I enjoy seeing pictures of Manchester and its buses in the 60s and 70s, the happy days of my childhood and teenage years

Aidan,

I didnt actually dislike the orange and white, although I did prefer the municipal liveries

[Phil Blinkhorn]

The SELNEC livery colours and design was the subject of much controversy in 1969 and has continued to be so.

Of the PTEs West Midlands, Tyne and Wear and Merseyside went for colour schemes based primarily on their largest constituent municipality's scheme (Merseyside having green for the main fleet and a very Birkenhead like blue for the detached Wirral fleet) whilst West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and SELNEC strove for more neutral colours - though the green of West Yorkshire reflected the colour, if by no means the shades, found on the buses of of Todmorden, Halifax and Leeds (one wonders if the denizens of Bradford felt left out) and the cream and brown of South Yorkshire can only be described as insipid.

The way the colours of the SELNEC scheme were applied was actually worked out scientifically to give the new SELNEC standard design a clean and attractive appearance. The proportions were laid down in detail and rigidly adhered to. The problem was the rest of the fleet. During my visit to Tony Harrisons office in Peter House I noticed a number of models of various front and rear entrance vehicles (presumably hand made) representing various body styles in the fleet bedecked in a number of variations of layout in sunglow orange and cream.

Those that looked best were the ones where the upper deck orange finished immediately below the window line. The problem seems to have been, however, that there were many different upper deck window depths and someone had worked out that the ideal proportions (certainly for the upcoming SELNEC standards) were to a particular formula.

Somewhere along the line it was decided to make the formula a rigid rule. The outcome was that none of the Orion bodied vehicles with their shallow upper deck windows, which made up the bulk of the fleets in Manchester and Salford, looked good, the Bolton East Lancs bodied Atlanteans looked odd and only the Mancunians really suited the change over. One can see from the photo that that particular batch of Daimlers looked particularly odd and this may have been why so few of the batch were repainted in the political rush to wave the flag (see below).

Discussions in the late 1970s with GMT officials who were involved with the setting up of SELNEC revealed that it was decided to use the standard proportions on all vehicles as it was intended to rapidly reduce the life of all vehicles to 12 years or less by replacing everything with standards by 1979 and to restrict non standards to rush hour only duties by the mid 1970s, by which time some of the newer vehicles would still be in their municipal colours.

The political masters thought otherwise, however, and whilst the vehicle replacement scheme was only marginally slowed, it was deemed necessary to wave the SELNEC flag and a great number of vehicles never intended to appear in orange and cream not only did so but did so well before they would ordinarily have been due for a respray.

BTW I refer to the colours as sunglow orange and cream. Sunglow orange is the correct name for the orange. The "cream" is a little more contentious. In 1969 the colour was described as "Mancunian White" - confusing because the the Mancunian double deckers were painted in a much starker white and the word "Mancunian" could hardly be held to be neutral. The colour has always been acknowledged as an off white shade which tended to fade to cream when exposed to the rigours of traffic.