PAUL CHANCELLOR brings a new series to our pages this month, using the Colour-Rail photograph collection to compare towns’ and cities’ bus scenes today with how they were in past decades. He starts 46 years ago in the largest city in Devon when Leyland Nationals and Atlanteans were to the fore.
ALL CHANGE
Until relatively recently, visitors to Plymouth would have seen relatively little change in bus operations in the city save for a reduction in services, updating of the fleets and just a livery and name change from Western National to First for the ‘country’ vehicles plying for trade alongside Plymouth Citybus.
Royal Parade, the main bus thoroughfare through the city, has also changed little save for the replacement of beds of roses on the central reservation with metal barriers.
The biggest changes have only occurred since Go-Ahead Group purchased Plymouth Citybus in 2009, challenging the status quo with First. With little investment in the First fleet, it was apparent that its operations in the city were in decline, but its decision to quit the city in September 2015 might have come as a shock for residents.
Stagecoach stepped into the breach, but with a much-reduced fleet, and the subsequent demise …
