Buses, coaches, & lorries

Ray Smyth:
This Ailsa Volvo bus is seen near the end of Station Road in Wigan, in the early 1980s.
It is painted in the orange and white livery of Greater Manchester Transport.
The second picture is taken from approximately the same spot recently. The engine
in this bus was at the front, immediately to the left of the driver, so it had a drivers
cab door on the offside, reminiscent of thousands of “Half Cab” buses from the past.
Click on 1st picture twice for better image. Ray Smyth.

Hi Ray. I always thought the AILSA bodied chassis looked nice, and was built well. Yes you entered through the cab door. Tayside Regional Council ran a bunch of them with Volvo TD70 engines, one semi-auto S reg, the rest T reg (1979/80) automatic transmissions. Flying machines. City of Cardiff ran some also, but years later.
The latest version posted a few pages back looked superb.
I only drove buses and coaches on the maintenance side, but sat my classs1 PSV in an old Leyland PD2 manual. Spent a lot of time around bus garages in the 70s, my fathers friend married into a family that ran coaches and my cousin did his apprenticeship with Hills of Tredegar.
Never had to pay a fare as I new all the drivers, never had to walk really as someone always gave me a lift, and standing/riding on the step on an empty bus as a young teenager was a bonus.
Great site, thanks for the work you put in to it. Great memories.

Paul