OUR OCCASIONAL GLIMPSE INTO THE NEW LIVES OF RETIRED BRITISH BUSES AT HOME AND OVERSEAS
Our occasional glimpse into the new lives of retired British buses finds three notable survivors from the 1960s and 1970s
NY Atlantean lives on in BC
Still around in Victoria, British Columbia last summer was this reminder of a British attempt to sell double-deckers to North America over 40 years ago.
It is one of eight Park Royal-bodied Leyland Atlantean AN68A/2Ls that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York bought in 1976 to offer a better standard of service to tempt car commuters on to public transport. Their bodies were based on the Mancunian design developed for Manchester eight years earlier, but modified to incorporate air conditioning — powered by a small second diesel engine under the centre staircase — and nine emergency exits.
They operated for just four years before being sold to Gray Line of San Francisco for sightseeing tours in that Pacific Coast city. This is one that migrated north across the Canadian border and on to Vancouver Island, where Keith McGillivray found it intact, if covered in garish, lessthan- see-through vinyls. At some stage in its long retirement its original barrel-sh…
