The origins of Dennis Brothers dates back to the 1890s, when John Dennis moved from his home in Devon to Guildford and began building bicycles. In 1901, he diversified into motor vehicles, at first cars and two years later vans, fire engines, and buses. While car production ceased in 1913, development of the larger vehicles grew and after the First World War the company’s products were to be seen across the whole of the UK and several overseas countries. In 1972, it was sold to the Hestair...

Formed in 1969, four years later in 1972 the state-owned National Bus Company introduced a corporate livery and identity for all its subsidiary companies and continued as such until the early 1980s, except within the Tyne & Wear and West Yorkshire PTEs where other liveries were used. As a consequence of its Market Analysis Project, several local fleet names made an appearance. After it was announced that the NBC subsidiaries would be sold to the private sector in 1986–88, a number of them ...

Following deregulation in 1986, the established bus operators suddenly found themselves being challenged by new independent operators, some of whom ultimately disappeared from the scene while others were swallowed up by the larger groups. After Yorkshire Rider, an arm of West Yorkshire PTE was privatised in 1988 and grew following its acquisition of former NBC subsidiary West Yorkshire Road Car Co. It was subsequently purchased by Badgerline/FirstBus, who became the dominant operator in th...

Over the past hundred years, the scrapping of life-expired buses has changed in numerous ways. From being a physically demanding task, it is now undertaken with the use of sophisticated machinery and governed by ever-increasing environmental and health and safety regulations. While bus breaking was initially concentrated in certain areas across the UK, where metal recycling facilities were close at hand, it has ultimately become a nationwide activity.Here Keith Jenkinson remembers ...

The transport scene in the historic city of York has seen numerous changes since 1986, with the breakup of the National Bus Company into a number of separate units whose ownership have since changed several times. In addition, a number of independent operators have served the city, which has a large park and ride network of services, electric-powered open-top sightseeing buses and bendy buses. A constantly changing scene, the comprehensive range of photographs in this book showcase the vas...

Although several coaching pools for express services were established in the late 1920s, it was not until 1972, three years after the formation of the National Bus Company, that a nationwide, fully coordinated express coach network came into being under the National banner. With coaches provided by the various NBC subsidiaries, National Express dominated the scene and continues to do so today despite opposition from other major operators. Over its forty-five years of existence it has intro...

Unlike other parts of the world, Britain was slow to start operating bendy buses and, despite the first ones appearing in service in Sheffield in 1978, it was not until 1985 that the next examples made their appearance, again in Sheffield. Somewhat surprisingly it took a further thirteen years before bendy buses gained wider acceptance in the UK and began to appear in other towns and cities, with the largest number being operated in London from 2002. Never reaching their potential, however...

Despite all the current hype making people believe that electric and hybrid vehicles are a staggering present-day breakthrough in the quest for a carbon-zero future, both are, in fact, old technology introduced over 100 years ago that has been refined. This book takes a look at how gas, hybrid and electric propulsion has been redeveloped after disappearing during the twentieth century and is now regarded as ‘the future’. Although not intended to be a definitive history of public road trans...

In addition to the major operators such as National Welsh, South Wales Transport, First Group and Stagecoach, South Wales boasted a number of municipal bus operators, most of which have since been acquired by the major groups. In addition, South Wales also had (and still has) numerous privately owned companies who have operated bus services across the company. All of these can be seen in the wide variety of photographs featured in this book, which will bring back memories of an interesting...

Manchester and its surrounds, such as Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale, Oldham and Stockport, have always been a haven for bus enthusiasts, with a wide variety of operators and liveries to be seen. Deregulation in 1986 changed the scene dramatically with the appearance of numerous independent companies – some of which were short-lived while others survived for many years or were swallowed up by the major national conglomerates such as Arriva, FirstBus and Stagecoach. Added to the mix is the Metroli...

The history of Ballymena-based Wrightbus dates back to 1946, when the company began producing lorries, vans and mobile libraries largely for Ulster customers. After becoming firmly established, the company turned its attention to building school buses for Northern Ireland’s education departments and followed these with conventional single-deck buses and coaches for a variety of UK operators. Since the 1980s, Wrights has expanded rapidly after gaining large contracts to build single-deck, d...

Since deregulation in 1986, Merseyside has offered a wealth of variety to bus enthusiasts with numerous new independent operators entering the scene, and some soon departing again, while the major companies have gained strength through takeovers and area expansion. The area covered here includes Liverpool, the Wirral, St Helens and Southport, all of which have seen wide changes, particularly in the 1990s, and all are captured with a selection of previously unpublished colour photographs.