The early years of Reliant : Daniel Lockton

So cool :-)

70s Poster

Odeon, Worthing 1974

Cool love the old cars and buses

Odeon

Midland Red 4031 SHA431 Leyland LD8 Farington

26th July 1976 sees 2988HA, Midland Red 4988 on the H4 service in Hereford.

This Flat Sheets item by MariansMemorabilia has 37 favourites from Etsy shoppers. Is dispatched from Canada. Listed on 16 Dec, 2023

Yelloway of Rochdale was once one of the most famous names among British independent coach operators. You don't seem to see their coaches on the roads these days, so I assume the firm disappeared into one of the big combines which emerged, once the dust had settled, from the 1986 deregulation of the industry. It was always a faithful buyer of the AEC Reliance, this particular example being the 6U3ZR variant with Plaxton 53-seat body. The photograph was taken on Saturday 20th May 1978 at Cambridge, which city I had reached by train on a BR excursion from Bristol. I can't quite get my bearings. Was this the Cattle Market Car Park? The ferro-concrete building on the left is still standing and is familiar to travellers using Cambridge Station. In the background a line-up of Eastern Counties Bristol FS Lodekkas. I had a little go on one of these once. At Bristol's bus and coach station, where I was then working, it was the practice during the summer to take vehicles that were not required at the weekend for parking at Lawrence Hill Depot. This was to make space for all the summer Saturday coach traffic. "Standing spare" on such a Saturday I was bidden to take a Yelloway AEC Reliance to Lawrence Hill and come back "on the cushions". Ooh-er ...six-speed manual gearbox. Not the sort of thing we were used to at Bristol Omnibus Co. on a full-size coach. So out of the exit I went, into the thick of the city centre traffic in this completely unfamiliar vehicle. The other drivers jostling for position around me were unaware of my predicament, of course. I suppose this is what they mean nowadays when they talk about a "steep learning-curve". I managed to find two or three of the gears and roared at high revs up to Lawrence Hill, choosing the direct, mostly dual-carriageway route via Newfoundland Way, Lower Ashley Road roundabout and Easton Way. It was a bit of a handful, and I remember that the steering seemed horribly "low-geared". An interesting experience though. A Yelloway driver told me a little later that the AECs were a very nice drive once you'd had about six months to get used to them.

❤️Best ice cream

Old Odeon Worthing, West Sussex, demolished in 1987 and replaced by the Montague centre http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/351995239/

Old Liverpool