Buses, trams and commercial vehicles: general interest

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.

You wouldn't think that a steam lawnmower could evolve into a high-class luxury coach or a 100-seat doubledecker bus.

From tiny acorns, mighty oaks do grow, and this is certainly true when it comes to the story of Leyland Motors.

The deregulation of the bus industry in 1986 led to the formation of new bus companies in Central Scotland such as Clydeside, Kelvin, Strathtay and Magicbus (Stagecoach).

Designated as a new town some fifty years ago, Milton Keynes was designed for the car owner, but public transport has provided a vital link for many.

Luton & District was formed in 1986 to operate the former southern depots of United Counties; it was sold by NBC to its employees in 1987 (a first), then sold again in 1994 to British Bus.

After the 1969 nationalisation, bus and coach companies had generally continued with their traditional liveries and, in 1971, it was decided the time had come to apply a corporate image to state-owned bus operations.

Roaring through the millennium into the twenty-first century we find the Transport Act 2000 that allows for increased cooperation between local authorities and operators, something that had not been allowed previously under competition legislation.

After the upheavals of the 1980s, with the break-up of the National Bus Company, the 1990s saw further changes.

In this book David Moth chronicles buses in South West England between 1990 and 2005.

The 1980s was a decade of change in the bus industry.

The legendary East Yorkshire Motor Services has been providing bus services in East Yorkshire since 1926.

Brighton is famous for many things, and coaching is certainly one of them.

Preston Corporation Tramways was formed in 1904, later becoming Preston Corporation Transport Department.

North Yorkshire has long been the meeting point of many major bus operators.

This book captures the final decade of the Eastern National name, starting with the company becoming part of the ever-expanding Badgerline Group in April 1990.

All of Britain's airports are served by buses and coaches in some form or other, whether it be by regular services from nearby towns and cities, those many miles away, or by buses connecting them with the airport's own long-stay or off-site car parks, and a few airports are also connected by rail and tram networks.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s the state-owned National Bus Company, with its familiar corporate livery, was a common sight across much of England and Wales.

Since 1952 former London buses have found new homes across the whole of the UK as well as in over seventy countries across the world, and this book takes a wide look at those that gained new lives outside the capital.

Unlike other parts of the world, Britain was slow to start operating bendy buses and, despite the first ones appearing in service in Sheffield in 1978, it was not until 1985 that the next examples made their appearance, again in Sheffield.

Carrying on the story of Stagecoach, this volume looks at the company's continuing growth across the UK and its various overseas ventures, which took it to Hong Kong, mainland Europe, the USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Although several coaching pools for express services were established in the late 1920s, it was not until 1972, three years after the formation of the National Bus Company, that a nationwide, fully coordinated express coach network came into being under the National banner.

Starting in October 1980 as a small coach operator with two coaches and a service from Glasgow to London, Stagecoach rapidly developed throughout Scotland in the 1980s and 1990s when it purchased three major Scottish Bus Group companies and a number of smaller independent operators before floating on the stock market as a plc.

The period after April 1974 brought about major and irrevocable changes to bus operations in Doncaster and the surrounding communities to the north-east of the town.

1955 opened with optimism for Hull's trolleybuses.

The London to Brighton run, held each year by the Historic Commercial Vehicle Society, is a key date in the diary of any vintage vehicle enthusiast or member of the preservation community.

The Ayrshire Road Run was instigated in 1993 as an adjunct to the established annual vintage rally organised by the Ayrshire Vintage Tractor & Machinery Club (AVT&MC).

With a wealth of rare and previously unseen images, Southampton City Transport Buses illustrates the development of mainly diesel-powered buses operated by Southampton City Transport and its successors since the early years of the twentieth century until recent times.

The provincial bus operations of Britain underwent great upheavals following legislation enacted in 1969.

The start of the twenty-first century saw a flurry of bus activity at Stratford in East London to provide services to the Millennium Dome - this proved to be largely unneeded.

As Britain entered the 1990s, the character of East London was changing rapidly.

Aberdeen Corporation Transport and its successors, Grampian Transport and FirstBus/First Aberdeen, can trace their history back to 1898 when they commenced tram operation within the city of Aberdeen.

Dating back to 1921 and originally operating from a base in the small Northamptonshire town of Irthlingborough, United Counties expanded significantly during the 1920s and 1930s, firmly establishing themselves in the county of Northamptonshire, as well as a network of services in south Lincolnshire, south Leicestershire and the Stony Stratford area of Buckinghamshire.

From author David Christie's home town in Essex, the Green Line route 721 (by RCL) was the usual way of getting to London - into Aldgate, one of his haunts as a young spotter in the '50s.

The East London bus scene in 1969 was one of contrast.

One of the most evocative reminders of Victorian ingenuity at the British seaside is the much-loved cliff lift.

Based in the city of the same name, Bristol commenced production of buses at the turn of the twentieth century, initially for its own bus fleet.