Yelloway MDK 994G leaving Rochdale - 19 Sep 1970

Saturday 19 September 1970 - During the 1960s Yelloway supplemented their group fleets with lightweight coaches of Ford (1961) or Bedford (1962-1969) manufacture which were only kept for 1 or 2 years. The final year of this practice saw MDK 994G added to the Yelloway fleet which was a Bedford VAM with Plaxton Panorama Elite bodywork (another similar coach, MDK 995G, worked for North Manchester). This was the first year of the Plaxton Panorama Elite model, a model which had less depth between the window line and the side moulding. Consequently the Yelloway fleetname would not fit and had to be positioned on the lower panels. A more squat fleetname was created so that future deliveries could carry the fleetname higher up on the body sides. MDK 994G sets out from Weir Street as a duplicate on the North Wales service and was showing ‘Colwyn Bay’ on the destination blind. Visible behind is a Hebble coach which had worked through from Halifax to Rochdale on Hebble’s own service carrying through passengers for North Wales. The coach had now become ‘On hire to Yelloway’ for the journey to Llandudno. (1970 was the first season that the North Wales service was licenced to Yelloway. It had until this time been licenced to The Creams (Lancashire) Limited). Vincent Reeves, my mentor in the Chart Room, is standing by the front of the parked Harrington Cavalier coaches watching the coaches pull out. He supervised the coach departures from Weir Street on Summer Saturday mornings although his main ‘day job’ was charting the bookings for the very popular North Wales and Blackpool services.