Manchester Corporation/Selnec PTE Buses

[Degsy168]

Hello Everyone,

As a Mancunian, I've had an interest in buses for many years and would like to hear from fellow members who would like to share nostalgic memories about the buses from the municipal and PTE (1960s-1990s) era.

I thought I'd start the ball rolling with my website photo collection:

Buses of Greater Manchester from Municipal Days. @ Fotopic.Net

I look forward to reading your stories.

Degsy168

[Phil Blinkhorn]

I'm not sure from where I get my interest in transport - it certainly isn't a family tradition. In the late 1940s/early 1950s my father used to be a maintenance electrician at Williamson's ticket printers in Ashton who printed tens of millions of bus tickets. He sometimes brought transport magazines home and, even before I could read, I could identify various types of buses and trucks so perhaps it stems from there, but it doesn't explain the interest in railways or the deep, lifelong, passion for civil airliners.

My first memories are of riding on a Ashton Crossley Mancunian from the depot on Mossley Rd to the town centre with my mother and my brother in a push chair - about twice the size and weight of today's pushchairs.

The conductor got off the bus, folded the chair and placed it under the stairs. At the terminus he took it off the bus and erected it on the pavement. As my sister, born 1951, wasn't with us and my brother, born 1949, was in the push chair this would have been circa 1950.

I had to take the bus to primary school from Limehurst to the town centre from 1952 until we moved closer to the town in 1953. This involved travelling on the Ashton - Rochdale route #9 which was jointly run by the Ashton, Oldham and Rochdale transport undertakings. Ashton provided their all Leyland PD2s for through running and their Massey bodied utility Guy Arabs were used on Hathershaw "turnbacks". These vehicles were resplendent in Ashton's patriotic red, white and blue livery. There was great competition amongst small boys to stand at the front lower deck bulkhead on the PD2s where there was a circular heater outlet which doubled as a steering wheel in their 5 and 6 year old imaginations!

Oldham's maroon and white livery was borne by their splendidly turned out all Crossley double deckers as their contribution to the schedule backed up by Roe bodied PD1s and PD2s.

Rochdale offered something totally different. Their lined out blue and cream livery was carried by Weymann bodies on AEC Regent chassis.

Due to the timings of the school day, most of my trips were on the Ashton PD2s but, on the homeward journey - if my Mum did some shopping, we'd travel in the style provided by workers in Addlestone and Southall.

Before we moved to Stockport in 1956, the odd Weymann bodied Daimler appeared from Rochdale but, in the last month or so before the move, new AEC Regents appeared with the new look AEC bonnet, updated Weymann bodies AND - though I didn't find this out for a further 2 years - Gardner engines, built in Patricroft.

Deep in Ashton territory, things were changing. The Massey bodied Guy Arabs started to be withdrawn. New Guy Arabs appeared in their place but they weren't new. I was quite an observant 6 year old and I noticed both old and new vehicles had registrations in the same series. What was happening was that the old chassis, far more durable than the wartime, uncured wood framed bodies had taken the short trip to Errwood Rd Stockport to be re-bodied by Crossley.

In 1955 the last couple took a longer trip to Leeds where Roe rebodied them and I can recall perfectly being on the swings on Ashton Marketplace as an 8 year old when one travelled past carrying trade plates as, presumably, it was on some form of work out prior to being licensed. This was also delivered in the new blue and primrose scheme which I first saw and travelled on on an all Crossley double decker (memory says it was #8) operating the Hurst Circular at (I think) Christmas 1954.

This scheme had been adopted due to both cost and the the modernisation of the paintshop to spray painting. The patriotic livery was both difficult to mask and apply and was intricately lined out.

Whilst some opposed the scheme in the letters column of the Ashton Reporter, the appearance of the new colours brightened the town.

Also in 1955 I was on Katherine St when I saw in the distance, heading towards the town, a Leyland double decker in the new colours. I assumed this to be the first PD2 to have been repainted but, as it drew closer I noticed differences in the front profile and then the UTB letters of the registration as opposed to the LTC letters of the all Leyland batch.

This was one of the first, if not the first of the 1955 batch of Crossley bodied Leyland PD2s.

We moved to Heaton Moor in 1956. Mauldeth Rd/Didsbury Rd, 100 yards from where we lived, was the terminus of the #26 and the short workings on the #9 from Reddish.

In those days Stockport had many pre war all Leyland double deckers still in service, a few pre war all Crossley double deckers, a large collection of all Crossley post war double deckers, two batches of all Leyland PD2s and a number of Guy Arabs with Massey utility bodies (which Stockport managed not only to have modernised, rather than rebodied, in the late 1950s but managed to keep in service until as late as 1964 - not all wartime wood framing was poorly cured then!).

There were also the 1936/37 batches of Leyland TS7 and TS8 half cab single deckers with English Electric centre entrance sliding doors, a streamline curved stripe in the brown used to line out the red and white scheme on the rest of the fleet and masses of polished woodwork and art deco shaded interior lamps. Their main stage carriage duty was to service the #75 from Green End, via the town centre to Offerton but most of their work was on school trips to playing fields, swimming baths and, in the case of St Winifred's School, the "Burnage Bus" which daily transported Catholic children from the Green End area at the Manchester boundary to and from the school.

Stockport had not received any new vehicles since the delivery of all Leyland and all Crossley double deckers in 1951 and it was to be another two years before any further deliveries were to be made. The vehicles were always pristine, the fares were low (though the Suez crisis and fuel rationing added a halfpenny to all fares at weekends and outside rush hours for a period) and the undertaking regularly made a profit at a time when many of its competing and neighbouring undertakings were losing money.

Most Stockport vehicles ran until they were at the end of their useful lives - though they were always well maintained - and one of the TS8s was rebuilt with a chair lift and handicapped facilities for the County Borough Welfare Department when withdrawn in the early 1960s and ran for many more years resplendent in an off white scheme with a light green stripe instead of the brown and was much loved by the staff at Heaton Lane and later Daw Bank depots who cared for it.

The other operators in the area at the time were MCTD, who provided Northern Counties bodied PD2s for the #16 Chorlton -Stepping Hill service, with the odd MCW PD2 of the post war standard Manchester design filling in where necessary. By 1958 the "standard" MCW vehicles did not appear anymore and the Manchester contingent were normally the Northern Counties bodied vehicles with the odd MCW Orion bodied PD2 of the 1956 batch appearing. Manchester also did early morning "workman" turns on the #9 and #18, normally operated by post war "standard" MCW PD2s and Crossley bodied Crossleys.

North Western operated the #80 from Mersey Square to Altrincham and this was normally the preserve of the massive looking, noisy and intensely vibrating Bristols which had been delivered in the late 1930s and had been re-bodied by Willowbrook in the early 1950s.

From 1956 they were joined by Leyland PD2s with "tin fronts" and lightweight bodies (to cut costs) though they did boast platform doors. They were fairly miserable vehicles to look at and ride on - not helped by the fact that, as all North Western double deckers of the period, they were low height which meant the upper deck had bench seats seating four placed on a platform, accessed by a sunken gangway on the offside of the vehicle.

In 1958 I went to grammar school which meant travelling daily to Manchester. This broadened my horizons and brought me into contact with Ian Allan's Buses Illustrated - a monthly periodical which both answered many questions and imparted technical knowledge -and with a wider range of vehicles.

I'll deal with 1958 and onwards, and some other observations during the next few days.

[Degsy168]

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.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Rochdale Rd depot was built in the late 1930s by Stuart Pilcher specifically for trolleybuses. When the Moston routes changed to diesel buses, Rochdale Rd picked up allocations from depots around the City and, needless to say, they got the rogue and old vehicles depot engineers elsewhere didn't want.

Queens Rd, as Parrs Wood, was very much a Leyland depot.

The 41xx batch of CVG6s was, in fact, 2 batches - one of 50 and one of 40. They all spent their lives based at Princess Rd. They were almost identical to the batches delivered to Salford in 1951/2 - which formed that undertaking's front line fleet for nearly 10 years - no new vehicles appearing until 1962.

The bodies were the standard MCW Phoenix design, Manchester specifying a turn in the staircase - Salford's, and everyone else's, had straight stairs with an offside window to illuminate the stairs - and Manchester had front upper deck window vents, unlike Salford. These minor differences changed the appearance of the Manchester vehicles.

Both undertakings made excellent use of these vehicles with almost all of them in regular all day service for 20 years or so.

Manchester's next Daimlers, the 44x series, of which almost all spent all their lives at Northenden Sharston serving Wythenshawe were an equally long lived excellent investment. The bodies, a hybrid between the MCW Phoenix and the Orion designs were unique to Manchester.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

In early 1955 my father started work as a rep for a London based electronics components company, covering the whole of the UK and Ireland except the Home Counties - though visits to London were frequent.

During school holidays I used to travel the country with him and was able to see a much wider range of transport. In any given year I could watch aircraft at Prestwick and London Airport (as Heathrow was then) visit engine sheds as far apart as Stirling and Plymouth, and observe the fleets of companies as far apart as Devon General, Lincolnshire Road Car and Alexander Fife.

Nearer home I was able to visit a wider area of Manchester, although the advent of the company car which replaced a not very reliable Standard 8 meant far less bus travel.

Once we moved to Stockport there were weekly visits to the grandparents in Ashton. Travelling via Reddish and Denton the range of buses to be seen was, by today's standards, diverse.

Between Heaton Moor and Reddish, the #9 was operated by 3 all Crossley DD42s, normally from the 1946 and 1947 batches with the odd pre war all Leyland TD7 on the Mauldeth Rd "turnback". Crossing Wellington Rd would afford a glimpse of all Leyland PD2s from the 1949 batch on the #89 and #92 (if the turns seen were Manchester vehicles they would be Birchfield Rd's lightweight CVG6s with MCW Orion bodies), an all Leyland lowheight PD2 of North Western might be seen on the #28 and, if really lucky, single deckers belonging to Trent, East Midland and Midland Red might cross our path at the traffic lights en route to Nottingham, Chesterfield and Birmingham/London.

From Houldsworth Square to Bulls Head the #17 was the preserve of the 1951 batch of all Leyland PD2s, the #40 was in the hands of the 1951 batch of all Crossley DD42s, and Manchester's #33 would be serviced by that Department's all Crossley DD42s or all Leyland PD2s from the 1953 batch which would also appear on the #109. This batch was an oddball. The body was the standard Leyland Farington design but the rear upper deck emergency window had shallower glass than standard and the rear number indicator blind box was housed in a bulge on the rear mid outer panel to save obstruction of the narrower than standard staircase. Only Midland Red had a batch with a similar arrangement.

Turning right at the Bulls Head might afford a glimpse of a front entrance Royal Tiger assigned as the solitary bus working the #110 to Dane Bank. At Thornley Park there was a lay-by in which there would always be 2 buses - either 2 Salford CVG6s, two of the Manchester Farington PD2s, or one of each on the #57 joint service to Pendlebury. Similar vehicles would work the other way around Reddish on the #77.

Turning right on to Hyde Rd/Manchester Rd, the car radio would have to be switched off as the trolley wires caused havoc with medium wave reception. Manchester Rd was the preserve of Manchester's Crossley Empire trolleybuses delivered in 1949 and 1950 working the #210 to Gee Cross. Designed specifically for Manchester, the only other examples were a few built for Ashton and Cleethorpes.

Also to be seen were the three axle Dominion versions - usually on short workings. These were unique to Manchester and their 66 seat capacity was rarely used to the full, even in rush hours. In summer it was not unusual to see a number of Sheffield United Tours coaches, mainly AEC Regals with Windover, Burlingham or even Bellhouse Hartwell bodies - some to rather outlandish designs - and all with their SUT shields, plenty of chrome trim and wheel embellishers en route to and from Blackpool, Southport and Rhyl.

The Manchester Farington bodied PD2s also handled #125 Limited Stop service to Glossop, as did a variety of SHMD green and cream CVG6s with Northern Counties bodies.

Crown Point would see us turn left and the Manchester Crossley Empires would be joined on the #217 to Haughton Green by Ashton's mid 1940s Sunbeam trollies, originally bodied by Park Royal and Roe. Between 1954 and 1957, the Park Royal bodies were replaced by Roe and Bond (of whom more later). By 1956 the patriotic Ashton livery was fast disappearing, the remaining Park Royal vehicles being distinguished at a great distance by the fact of them being in the old colours.

Guide Bridge would bring more Manchester Crossley Empires on the #219 and, perhaps the odd all Crossley trolley from the 1940 batch still filling in on a short working to Guide Bridge.

Chester Square would bring in the new BUT/Burlingham Manchester trolleys and the Ashton Crossley Empires working to and from Stalybridge as well as Ashton's brand new BUT/Bond vehicles.

Also to be seen would be Leyland half cab forward and rear entrance single deckers of the Sheffield C (nationalised) Fleet working between Lower Mosely St and Sheffield. These looked old fashioned compared to Yorkshire Traction's Leyland Royal Tigers and Tiger Cubs working the Barnsley service.

Finally, driving up Penny Meadow, we would pass one or more of the brand new and unique batch of 4 Guy Arabs with Bond bodywork bought specifically for the #14 Mossley service which was a solid uphill slog from the town terminus for around three miles to the Hartshead laneway at Tongue Bottom, the just under a mile from Mossley in the other direction being even steeper.

Bond was a Wythenshawe company that set up after World War 2.
It converted a Manchester Leyland TS8 single decker into an airport coach in 1950 and in 1953 finished three Leyland Royal Tiger half deck airport coaches on Burlingham frames for the department.

Its biggest customer was Ashton Corporation who possessed no less than 14 of its bodies: 2 rebodies on Sunbeam trolleys, 8 new BUT trollies and the 4 Guy Arabs. I rode on various trolleys and the Guys over the years and all were very well built. The Guys passed to SELNEC.

If anyone has any details of the Bond company I'd be pleased to receive them.

I'll do some more memories over the weekend, starting in 1958.

[Degsy168]

I certainly remember Parrs Wood depot as being a Leyland garage with vehicles built by Burlingham, Northern Counties as well as Metro-Cammell. The Northern Counties bodied Leyland PD2s (3300-3329) were the vehicles that I never rode on but did see a lot of mainly working the 42 route to East Didsbury and the 161/162 to Gatley. Another vehicle that was associated with this depot was Leyland bodied PD2 No 3494 TNA 494 which was formerly 3363 NNB 203 when new in 1953 and was then based at Hyde Road garage. The change of identity on this vehicle had taken place following a collision of the Burlingham bodied 3494 which had hit a low bridge in Barton working the 22 route to Eccles in October 1966. Also based there were six Burlingham bodied PD2s Nos 3515-3520 with semi-automatic transmission which had worked regularly on the 16 from Chorlton Bus Station to Stepping Hill in Stockport.

It wasn't until 1972 when I first rode on these semi-automatic PD2s. The first one of the six that I had was 3517 which was working the 82 route from Waterhead to Chorlton by which time, all six of these were based at Hyde Road garage following the closure of Parrs Wood depot. The other routes on which I rode these vehicles were the 66 to Peel Green with 3519, the 218 to Ashton with 3518 & 3520, the 181 to Newhey with 3516 and the 212 to Gamesley near Glossop with 3515. During the 1970s, I would usually keep a lookout to see which of these semi-automatic vehicles were on duty. I wasn't really keen on the other PD2s in the fleet as they had the syncromesh (Manual) gearbox and, were generally slow from a standing start whereas the semi-auto vehicles were quick off the mark like the Daimler CVG6s.
3515_TNA515.jpg :: An offside view of Burlingham H37/28R bodied Leyland Titan PD2 No 3515 TNA 515 in Selnec PTE livery seen here at the northern end of Piccadilly working the cross-city 82 route from Chorlton Bus Station to Waterhead. This vehicle wa

The 41xx series of the Daimler CVG6s I remember were in two batches. the first batch 4100-4149 had the JND registration whereas the second batch from 4150 to 4189 had a KND registration. I only rode on two from the first batch back in 1966 and, they were 4127 and 4145 both of which were on the 65 route from Moston to Trafford Park whereas those from the second batch I had on the 80/88/112 & 113 routes. These vehicles had an H32/28R configuration with a spiral staircase whereas their Salford counterpart had an H30/24R seating configuration with a straight staircase. Here are two pictures in which to draw a comparison
4172_KND933.jpg :: The 80 from Chorlton (Hardy Lane) to Middleton was another Cross-City route on which the 41xx Daimler CVG6s were rostered to work in the Manchester Corporation era. 4172 KND 933 is seen here at the northern end of the route in Midd
531_FRJ531.jpg :: A front & offside view of Daimler CVG6 No 531 FRJ 531 with a Metro-Cammell H30/24R body at Victoria Bus Station working the No 8 route to Bolton. @ Fotopic.Net

[Phil Blinkhorn]

The accident to 3494 was the result of a rather odd decision which, with hindsight, was bound to lead to disaster.

Route #22 had been a single deck operation which, since 1953, had been operated by the Northern Counties bodied rear entrance single deck Royal Tigers.

In 1965 it was decided that some workings would be handled by double deckers. As they could not pass under James Brindley's iron bridge on Barton Lane, the route used by the service, it was decided that the double deckers - and only the double deckers - would continue along Barton Rd and make a tight right turn into Liverpool Rd at Patricroft. The reason for the decision not to change all the trips was that the turn could just be handled by the 27 foot 6 inch long double deckers but not by the 30 foot long Royal Tigers with a long front overhang.

Eventually the inevitable happened and and a Parrs Wood driver forgot he had a top deck above him, though how on earth he could have confused the noise and heat of the 0.600 engine next to him, the half cab around him and the rather solid ride of the wheels beneath his seat with the relative quiet of the full fronted, underfloor engined Tiger, with a double seat to his left and a soft ride as his seat was well ahead of the front wheels, has been a matter of debate ever since.

The body swap was the first performed by the Hyde Rd Car Works since the end of WW2.

I'll have some stories about both the Northern Counties and Burlingham PD2s and how a Birmingham idea was replaced by a better one from Manchester when I next post.

The 41xx CVG6s were the mainstay of Princess Rd's contribution to route #53 for the best part of 15 years - a tribute to their ruggedness and the depot engineers.

[Degsy168]

Moving on to the 44xx series of the Manchester Corporation Daimler CVG6s. When I was living in Moston, I remember travelling on these vehicles to school when they were used on school contract services in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The vehicle batch 4400-4479 were the first to have the concealed radiators in the Daimler fleet and, were predominantly based at Northenden garage with a handful of them based at Hyde Road and latterly at Princess Road. The ones I had travelling to school were from Hyde Road garage of which, the lowest numbered vehicle I had was 4404 NNB 214 and the highest numbered one I had was 4470 NNB 280. The school I went to was Clough Top in the Blackley area of North Manchester and, I found it very strange as to why buses from Hyde Road garage were used for the school run when Queens Road garage was nearer. But then, I had discovered why that was the case. Following the evening school run after I was dropped off on St Mary's Road in Moston, the bus would then travel to Avro's on Greengate just to the north of the Gardener's Arms pub in Moston to pick up factory workers and work the 67 route to Fallowfield which was routed via Newton Heath, Clayton Bridge, Abbey Hey, Gorton, Belle Vue, Levenshulme and along Wilbraham Road. The 67 service as I remembered it had started from Newton Heath(Old Church Street) and was operated by crews from Hyde Road garage. That route today is now the 171 operated by Mayne's I believe.

Going back to the 44xx buses. When these were passed over to Selnec PTE in 1969, I distinctly remember that out of the 80-strong fleet, only three of them had the PTE livery applied to them in 1972, of which one was based at Northenden(4446) and the other two were based at Princess Road(4466/4468) and I was fortunate to have all three of them. Princess Road's allocation were 4432 to 4439 and 4466 to 4468 to replace the 41xx Daimlers. The MCW Orion batch in the 44xx series were in two distinct categories, the first batch 4480-4489 also with a NNB registration were Daimler CVG6s fitted with a slide opening cab door whereas those from 4490-4509 with a PND registration were the slow speed Daimler CVG5s. The CVG6s in this batch were predominantly based at Birchfields Road garage with the odd one or two based at Princess Road. 4480 NNB 290 which I had twice on the school contract run must have been a Hyde Road vehicle whereas 4485 and 4489 were both at Princess Road as I had these on the 64 & 80 routes respectively in 1971. The former of those routes ran from Manchester Exchange to Altrincham back then.

The Leyland vehicles (3411 to 3470) in the MCW Orion fleet from 1956 were based at virtually every garage across the city from my recollection. I only had a few of these from the southern based depots. Otherwise, the majority were northern based vehicles that I had travelled on.

Here are some pics of the aforementioned vehicle types:

3426 PND 426 with hopper vents on front window of upper deck
3426a_PND426.jpg :: The No 8 route from Bolton to Manchester was principally a Salford Corporation domain back in the old days. In this view, 3426 PND 426 from the Manchester Corporation fleet with an MCW Orion H36/30R body heads south on the A666 th


3461 PND461 with plain front windows on upper deck
3461_PND461.jpg :: 3461 PND 461 with an MCW Orion H36/30R body was one of the few vehicles in this batch of sixty with plain front windows on its upper deck. 3461 was allocated to Queens Road depot and is seen here at Stevenson Square working the pea

4433 NNB243
4433_NNB243.jpg :: Two Metro-Cammell bodied Daimler CVG6s stand alongside each other in the bus park on Chester Road. The vehicle on the left is 4433 NNB 243 with a standard front end appearance whereas its sister vehicle 4467 NNB 277 by contrast has

4498 PND498
4498_PND498.jpg :: Of the thirty MCW Orion H36/28R bodied Daimlers in the Manchester Corporation fleet, the first ten vehicles 4480-4489 were Daimler CVG6s with a slide-opening cab door and, the remaining twenty vehicles including 4498 PND 498 as see

[Phil Blinkhorn]

The 44xx series were all originally allocated to Northenden and most spent all their MCTD lives there, with the exception of 4416-4419 which ran for 6 months in the winter of 1954/5 with various varieties of 5LW and 6LW engines as part of a number of fuel efficiency trials based on Hyde Rd.

They were to be found as far from their normal haunts as Glossop as the #125 was limited stop with a good mix of urban traffic, long mainly flat running between Ardwick and Hyde an some significant hills beyond Hyde.

The most visible outcome of these trials was the cutting of the full length front mudguards in a way reminiscent of the way the pre-war streamliners had had theirs lopped some 16 years earlier.

4480-4509 may well have been, 15 years later, numbered with EX (for experimental) fleet numbers.

A F Neal was continuously under the cosh from the Council to keep costs down at a time of falling passenger numbers and rising fuel prices and wages. If his direct masters' continual monitoring - and sometimes misguided interference - wasn't enough, the Evening News and the travelling public rarely had anything but criticism for the ever rising fares and late running due to the growing use of private cars.

4480 - 4489 were heavyweight CVG6s with MCW Orion lightweight and rather miserable bodies (though not as spartan as the North Western PD2s delivered with the lightweight body at the same period) and were fitted with lightweight seats with small backs which the public bore with little grace until they were replaced in 1966 with seats from withdrawn trolleybuses. (The small seat experiment was repeated on the first batch of Atlanteans in 1959 and they were also re-seated with ex-trolleybus seats in 1967). 4488 was fitted with a 5LW engine after delivery.

4490 was a Daimler CVG5 with a 5LW engine and a lightweight chassis and appeared in chassis form at the 1954 Commercial Motor Show. The rest of the batch were standard chassis with 5LW engines and a hybrid Orion body somewhere between the lightweight and full weight specification, though more spartan than the hybrid bodies fitted to Leyland PD2s 3411-3470 which were contemporanious (and which were the first post war batch not to be allocated 100% to one depot from new).

All the early Orion bodies gave problems, not least of which were those caused by the single skinned front domes which cracked and had to be replaced by glass fibre ones, condensation and noise problems caused by lack of inner double skinning along the body sides and numerous rattles and squeaks.

Given Manchester and MCW had had a long and close relationship, that the excellent and very rugged post war standard design had been the result of close collaboration between Piccadilly, Hyde Rd and Elmdon and that MCW were the leading supplier to municipalities, the reaction of both MCTD engineers and managers to the Orion caused nothing short of seismic waves as Manchester looked elsewhere for bodies.

The result was a very un-Northern Counties like body on Daimler CVG5s, the modification of Burlingham's standard double deck design to Manchester's standards resulting in a not too handsome Daimler CVG6 and an extremely handsome Leyland PD2 - at least when in the original colour scheme and turned out by the staff at Parrs Wood for whom their allocation, usually to be found on the #1 and the #16, was the equivalent of railway engines used on crack expresses.

But these moves away from the traditional supplier were not to lead to an end to the long running relationship. Whilst they were being delivered, MCW was working hard to meet Manchester's concerns and a modified Orion body with a host of improvements, a more upright profile and many Manchester features eventually became Manchester's next standard design.

Both sides must have been confident of the improvements as the first batch delivered from 1958 numbered no less than 100.

Further deliveries were made on both Leyland and Daimler chassis from 1959 up until 1964 on front engined buses (a further 125 bodies) and the improvements were incorporated and developed for Orion derived bodies on the rear engined Daimlers and Leylands delivered until 1967(a further 272 bodies).

[Phil Blinkhorn]

49 years ago few children were driven to school by their parents and most of those who, at ten or eleven, passed the Eleven Plus exam and went on to grammar school (and not a few who didn't and went to secondary or technical school) found themselves travelling by bus using normal services, often changing buses once or twice to complete their journey.

Some boys at my school in Victoria Park, Rusholme came in every day by bus, or train and bus, from as far as Glossop and Macclesfield. My journey from and to Heaton Moor was far shorter but packed with interest for a transport enthusiast - especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the bus industry was changing, British Railways were using the Styal line for 25 kV electric traction trials, and the approach to Ringway, whilst nowhere near as busy as today, could offer types as varied as the Miles Marathon, Lockheed Starliner and the Caravelle, not to mention the B707.

In September 1958 my starting point in all weathers was the bus stop at the junction of Mauldeth Rd and Didsbury Rd which was alonside a tall brick wall. The first part of the trip was to connect with services to Victoria Park or Rusholme and the logical point to change was Parrs Wood - though for various reasons such as meeting friends or, later, spending more time with girlfriends on the journey, the change would be made in Didsbury.

Mornings would see me at the bus stop by 08.35 (school started at 09.15) and the trip to Parrs Wood could be completed on the #9 turnback (extended from Mauldeth Rd to Parrs Wood during the rush hour)or the #26 (similarly extended) which would both be serviced by either Massey utility bodied Guy Arabs or immediate post war all Crossley DD42s from the first two batches. Rare was the day when one of the 1940 batch of Leyland TD7s, complete with starting handle protruding from the bottom of the radiator, with Leyland bodies which served as the design prototype for the post war Farington body, appeared at the stop.

The #16 and #80 could also be used. The #16 turn at this time of day was also a Stockport preserve and would normally be worked by a 1948 vintage all Crossley DD42.

The #80 to Altrincham was solely North Western's and the Willowbrook bodied Bristols and lightweight Orion bodied PD2s would sometimes be replaced by all Leyland PD2s from the 1948/9 batches. From time to time one of the 6 with rear doors originally ordered for the X60 Manchester-Blackpool service would appear when "running in" after work at Charles St - the comments of the conductors who had to manually open and close the doors at each stop (and the stops were around 600 yards apart throughout the route) have not been recorded.

One other type would be the 1948 PD2s with Weymann bodies which were very similar to London Transport's RLH class which I had seen and travelled on many times working through Harrow to Rayners Lane.

Half fare from Mauldeth Rd to Parrs Wood was a penny halfpenny and would be collected by the conductor in between supervising loading and unloading at each stop. All Stockport's vehicles, with the exception of the utility Guys, were equipped with bell strips on both decks. These had wood frames and some form of flexible thin wooden push strips which ran the length of each deck. They were varnished in a dark brown finish. The conductor could supervise loading from the top deck by using the mirror at the stair head. He was supposed to be close to the mirror if giving the signal to start and use a standard bell push button at the stair head to show the driver, by means of that push sounding a buzzer rather than a bell, that he had verified all was secure. This rule was more often than not honoured in the breach.

North Western's vehicles were equipped with bell push buttons dotted around the lower deck. On top, there was only the bell push at the top of the stairs (a similar situation to London Transport) but officialdom cannot always win and many a conductor gave the signal to start by stamping twice on the raised platform that carried the front four seats above the drivers cab. How many drivers were afflicted by headaches at the end of a shift isn't known but the racket created on a half full lightweight Orion body by such a procedure was something Ginger Baker never achieved.

Not that half full buses were something experienced during rush hours and it was often the case that the six minutes or so to Parrs Wood would be undertaken crammed into the standing space on the lower deck, with the conductor struggling past to collect fares, an unpleasant experience on a cold, wet winter morning, sometimes on the second or third bus to have come to the stop - each bus reducing the queue by no more than for or five passengers.

Fortunately with the four services available the gaps between buses were no more than a couple of minutes.

From 1960 until electrification was established on the Piccadilly - Euston route, crossing the Midland line at the Stockport boundary by Burnage Lane and the Cloister Press would afford the site of the Midland Pullman diesel multiple unit, resplendant in blue and ivory livery, en route to St Pancras.

Back to September 1958. There were no traffic lights at the junction of Parrs Wood Lane and Kingsway (Kingsway extension was still 13 months away) and the stop after Burnage Lane was across Kingsway opposite Parrs Wood depot. This was not a problem if you needed routes 40, 95 or 96 as these all started on Kingsway facing Manchester, alongside the gardens, the buses having turned around the wide central reservation that still bore vestiges of the tram terminus in the lamp poles and ballast that formed the surface of the reservation.

If there had been variety visible and available to travel on from Mauldeth Rd, the choice now became immense.

Getting from Parrs Wood to either Great Western St Rusholme or Denison Rd Victoria Park - either stop was adjacent to school - would take, traffic jams at Platt Fields or at Kingsway/Moseley Rd permitting, around 20 minutes leaving around 10 minutes to walk to school before assembly at 09.15 - at least that was the theory and, with four route numbers and buses at the rate of one a minute available, the theory normally transferred into practice.

Later today I'll look at using the Kingsway/Birchfields Rd route to Denison Rd.