First Manchester 119 (T919 SSF) and 404 (G62 RND) at Showbus, Duxford – 26 September 1999 (424-15)

Sunday 26 September 1999 – Part of the First Group display at Showbus, Duxford bringing vehicles from various parts of Britain. These two vehicles had travelled from Greater Manchester.
Left: 119 (T919 SSF), a Wright bodied Scania L94UB new in April 1999. The destination screen showed ‘Oldham 409’ the town were the vehicle was garaged. The 409 service is now branded as a ‘Gold Service’ (indicated by the gold star alongside the destination display ) which pledged amongst other things clean buses. To this end mobile cleaning teams were employed to carry out the cleaning of buses at termini between lay-overs.
Right: 404 (G62 RND), now a driver training bus, was an Alexander (Belfast) N type bodied Leyland Tiger that had been new to Shearings in November 1989. In 1992 Shearings sold their bus operations to Timeline Travel and in turn in late 1998/early 1999 Timeline sold their business to First Greater Manchester. That’s how G62 RND ended up with First.