Buses, coaches, & lorries

240 Gardner:

Ray Smyth:
I drove this Leyland Leopard many times during my 2 years with Ribble from early 1968.
ECK 900E, fleet number 900 was a fine machine to drive.
Ray Smyth.

Not nearly so smart in the beastly NBC livery:

Untitled by Chris Roberts, on Flickr

Hi Chris, Thank you for posting this picture of Ribble 900. I agree with your remarks regarding the NBC livery.
The location looks very much like Lytham Road in Blackpool. Early in 1970 I left Ribble and joined Robert Baillie
Transport of Portsmouth, based at their Wigan depot, from which time I rarely remember seeing either of Ribble
Wigan based 899 or 900. Other than a couple of weeks in the Summer, we didn’t do any Coach work, and these 2
machines were used on Stage Carriage work as “One Man Buses”. I assume that they were transferred to Blackpool
or one of the Liverpool depots. Another of my favourite machines was 1760, Leyland PD3. Ribble at Frenchwood
always referred to a bus or coach as a “Machine”. Kind Regards, Ray