Sports Tours RTF 561L in Rochdale - 7 Dec 1986

Sunday 7 December 1986 – RTF 561L was the only Alexander M type coach built for service outside the Scottish Bus Group companies. Mounted on Leyland Leopard PSU5/4R chassis it was delivered to Ribble Motor Services as their 701 in December 1972 wearing National white coach livery.

The body design was created for the overnight Scotland-London services of the Scottish Bus Group and the main windows were of a parallelogram shape of a style familiar for many years on designs in North America. The smaller windows, rather than the large picture windows as used on designs like the Plaxton Panorama Elite and Duple Dominant models of the time, were considered more practical for journeys mostly covered in the hours of darkness. The smaller windows also helped retain interior heat. Whilst the Scottish Bus Group companies operated quite a number of coaches with this body style, this was to be the one and only National Travel example.

In this view taken in a yard on Holmes Street, Rochdale the coach was operated by Sports Tours (John M Whitehead) of Littleborough near Rochdale.