Title: Preston Buses Before and After Deregulation
Author: Mike Rhodes
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4456-8378-2
Specification: 230mm x 160mm, 96pp, softback
Price: £14.99
Such is the prolific output of Amberley’s colour picture albums that we currently have over 30 of last year’s titles waiting for a chance of a review. This is one of the first released in 2019. Although the title might suggest that content is focused on the years immediately before and after the Big Bang of 26 October 1986, the uncaptioned cover picture of passengers waiting to be admitted aboard a 1965 Leyland Titan PD3A/1 points towards the welcome inclusion of scenes from a good many years before. Mike Rhodes’s introduction tells the story of public transport in what now is a city from the introduction of trams in 1879, the start of electric municipal trams in 1904 and buses in 1922.
He says the pictures cover the 14 years from 1979 to the sale of the arm’s length Preston Bus company to its management and employees in 1993, but includes the bonus of eight taken between 1967 and 1978. These extra photographs enhance the content by showing the maroon and cream livery phased out between 1966 and 1970, the initial version of…
