Buses, trams and commercial vehicles: general interest

The North East is a region of great geographic, economic and social contrast.

In addition to the major operators such as National Welsh, South Wales Transport, First Group and Stagecoach, South Wales boasted a number of municipal bus operators, most of which have since been acquired by the major groups.

Following the deregulation of bus services in 1986, West Yorkshire became flooded by small independent operators, some of whom survived while others were swallowed up by larger companies.

The transport scene in the historic city of York has seen numerous changes since 1986, with the breakup of the National Bus Company into a number of separate units whose ownership have since changed several times.

Bus builder Optare was formed by some of its employees in 1984 after the closure of old-established coachbuilder Chas H.

On 1 April 1974, the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive was created by merging the municipal bus fleets of Bradford City Transport, Halifax Corporation with Calderdale Joint Omnibus Committee, Huddersfield Joint Omnibus Committee and Leeds City Transport.

Around the early 2000s, there was a concern among transport enthusiasts that variety in terms of vehicle type and livery in the passenger transport industry in and around the South Wales Valleys would decline.

Following the deregulation of bus services in the United Kingdom in 1986, it did not take long for many distinctive local liveries to disappear.

The exact definition of east Scotland can be difficult to define due to its wide geographical areas, but for the purpose of this book the bus services covered are from a wide range of destinations including Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Perth, Fife, the Borders and the Lothians.

In 1961 the maximum length of single-deckers was increased to 36 feet.

Golden Miller was a rare bus operator permitted to run bus services within London Transport's vast monopoly area.

Two large bus companies once ruled this rural part of the United Kingdom.

Britain's biggest county, Yorkshire, was particularly affected by the period of deregulation.

Edinburgh did not adopt electric traction until the early 1920s when the Corporation took over from the Edinburgh & District Tramway Co.

The boundaries of the current county of Lancashire were established in 1974 when the Furness district was lost to the newly formed Cumbria.

From its formation in 1919 in Wigan, Lancashire, Northern Counties Motor & Engineering Company Limited grew to become one of Britain's most prominent bus builders.

The bus scene around Southampton and its surrounding towns in the 1970s and early 1980s was one of change.

The bus scene around Southampton and its surrounding towns in the 1970s and early 1980s was one of change.

Bradford had the distinction of running its trolleybus system for over sixty years, being, along with Leeds, the first to operate in Britain.

Wallace Arnold was founded in 1912 and was named after its founders Wallace Cunningham and Arnold Crowe.

The buses on Britain's roads went through a period of great change between 1950 and 1986.

One of the great names of the British bus and coach industry was Royal Blue, whose vehicles were a familiar sight on the express routes between London and the West Country.

The first forty-five years of the twentieth century saw the most formative period in the history of commercial vehicles: in 1900 the mechanically powered lorry was a novelty, yet by 1945 the ancestors of today's 38-ton juggernauts were clearly identifiable.

The years from 1969 to 1975 were a time of great change for buses in England and Wales as operations were consolidated and rationalised under the publicly owned National Bus Company.

The Routemaster is the iconic London bus, recognised around the world.

Between 1982 and 2015, Showbus, Britain's largest bus rally, was, with the exception of 2013, held at two sites.

The North of England has long been an area of immense interest to bus enthusiasts.

Steam power led the transport revolution in England throughout the nineteenth century, but was crippled on the road network by punitive legislation.

Southdown Motor Services was a well-known and respected bus and coach operator formed in 1915 and based in the south of England.

Like many of the conurbations across Britain, the Greater Manchester region in the 1990s offered a fascinating mixture of buses from operators both large and small, new and established.

'You see them everywhere' was the slogan adopted by Bedford when advertising its commercial vehicles in the 1930s and it held true for many decades.

Nowhere had the nineteenth-century rivalry between competing railway companies had a more marked effect on the much later motor-omnibus industry than in the South West of England.

Although to many enthusiasts, municipal vehicles never extended beyond the trams, trolleybuses and buses that were required to provide the basic public service, behind them were a range of vehicles that were required to enable operations to proceed smoothly.

The North Western Road Car Company is just a fading memory now, but for fifty years its red and cream buses served a broad sweep of England's North West from the Cheshire plain to the Pennines, and from Manchester's industrial mills to the threshold of the Potteries.

In 1959 there were twenty-seven Corporation Transport systems in the Red Rose County.

When the words Buses of North Staffordshire are used most people will think of PMT, and later First, running through the urban areas of Stoke-on-Trent, with additional vehicles from a few medium-sized family-owned operators thrown in for good measure.

Blazefield commenced operations in 1991, having bought the final shares in the former AJS Holdings group.

Like the railway industry in the nineteenth century, Britain was a major player in supplying the world with buses, particularly double-deckers.

This book covers bus and coach operators in South East Wales between 1968 and 1979.

From 1967 to the late 1970s author David Christie visited many towns and cities in Britain, photographing the remaining traditional buses in service.

This book covers many variants of the long-lived Leyland PD marque, photographed throughout Britain from 1967 into the seventies.

By 1970, the boundaries of the county of Kent had been finalised, with parts, including Bexley, Bromley and Erith, being lost to Greater London.

Distribution of milk started from cow houses in the city, or farms using horses and carts.

The Enviro400 was introduced in 2005 and has become a popular model among bus operators around the UK, as well as in Hong Kong.

Launched in 1988, the Dennis Dart saloon became one of the most successful single-deck buses in the UK.

On 26 October 1986, bus services were deregulated throughout the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland and London.

Inspired by the AEC Routemaster, the New Bus for London, later renamed the 'New Routemaster', was the first bus specifically built for use in London since 1968, when the last Routemaster machines were constructed.

Southdown Motor Services, renowned for their impressive fleet of green and cream buses and coaches, also operated an impressive fleet of ancillary vehicles.

When Wolverhampton's horse-drawn trams were replaced by the unusual surface-contact Lorain system electric trams in 1902, it was one of the first such networks in the country.

From demonstrating a petrol-engined double-decker at the 1905 Commercial Motor Show to building huge 100-seat Olympians for the overseas market, the Bus and Coach Division of Leyland built thousands of vehicles for markets all over the world.