The distinctive liveries of several out-of-town operators long added variety to the streets of a town which has also used several different colours on its own municipal fleet. As NICK THOMSON explains, even more hues appeared early last year when it expanded at short notice with secondhand vehicles.
I
have always thought of Warrington, from a bus point of view, as a town of many colours. That was as true in the 1960s as it is today.
Besides its own municipal fleet, it was on the periphery of several companies’ operating areas, thanks to the town having been established at the lowest crossing point of the sometimes treacherous waters of the River Mersey before the Runcorn-Widnes transporter bridge was completed in 1905 and the Mersey Tunnel opened between Birkenhead and Liverpool in 1934.
The municipal tramway closed in 1935 and the undertaking was renamed Warrington Corporation Transport Department. Its livery of red with three ivory bands, introduced after World War 2, is the one that I remember from the 1960s.
The greens of Crosville, with a depot in the town, and Salford City Transport, which ran in from ‘Manchester’ (actually Salford Greengate), mingled with the different reds of North Western, Lanc…
