There were yellow buses in Newcastle for over 60 years and in other parts of Tyne & Wear for a quarter century. The MHD Partnership suggests how they could be revived in its latest imagined makeover
IDENTITY PARADE
If ever a bus livery was rooted in a particular place, it was the deep yellow of Newcastle.
The shade of yellow was cadmium, which verged close to orange. First applied to trolleybuses in 1935, it was extended to motorbuses from 1949 and was adopted by the the Tyneside PTE at its formation in 1970, Newcastle’s yellow and cream taking the place of blue and cream on the buses of South Shields.
Its reach extended farther. The PTE took over the Sunderland bus fleet in 1973 and was renamed Tyne & Wear in 1974. It later modified the livery to replace cream with white, and maroon coach lining with blue.
This became the livery of the new Metro railway when it opened in 1980 and also was applied to many National Bus Company vehicles in the region.
Deregulation ended the PTE’s direct operation of buses in October 1986 and the soon-to-be-privatised NBC companies’ use of the livery. It was phased out from the Metro from 1995. But the arms length company created to take over the PTE’s buses — Buswa…
