David Slater (Spoddendale)'s photos with the keyword: North Western

Monday 17 July 1972 - (approx 1300) - Seen from the former cafe window overlooking the bus station. Going clockwise the vehicles are: North Western Leyland Leopard/Duple Commander (Westbound duplicate service X98); West Yorkshire Bristol RE/Eastern Coachworks (Service 43 to York and possibly Scarborough); West Yorkshire Bristol RE/Eastern Coachworks (dual purpose model); Northern General Leyland Leopard/Marshall (dual purpose model); Northern General 2631 (FCN 631F) Leyland Leopard/Alexander Y type (0900 Newcastle-Liverpool X98 service coach); Northern General 2633 (FCN 633F) Leyland Leopard/Alexander Y type (0910 Newcastle-Coventry 'Ten Cities Express' service coach); then a cream topped Alexander Y type that I believe was a Hebble or Yorkshire Woollen District coach running as the 1320 Leeds-Liverpool service X97); then a pair of West Yorkshire Bristol MW/Eastern Coachworks coaches. Out of shot to the left was Lancashire United 216, the service coach working the 0950 Liverpool-Newcastle X98). The station inspector can be seen in the dark suit at the rear of the NGT Marshall bodied vehicle. Note the West Yorkshire crew walking across the station towards their assigned vehicle, the male driver in short beige dust jacket and the female conductor in the longer version coat - both have the red collar and the coat a red belt.

Holt Brothers (Rochdale) Limited had commenced a service from the industrial towns in the Oldham, Rochdale and Rossendale areas to Blackpool in the 1920s. When Yelloway Motor Services Limited was created from the failed Holts business in April 1932 the services to Blackpool went from strength to strength and the services became a signifcant part of the Yelloway business. In the mid 1950s Yelloway entered pooling arrangements with Ribble, Standerwick, North Western and Lancashire United under the 'Fylde Coast Services' pool.

Saturday August 19 1972 - The cover of the Yelloway Lancashire-London services timetable extolled ‘Air conditioned reclining seat coach services’ although the definition of ‘air conditioned’ back then wasn’t what we know as air conditioning today. It was basically forced air ventilation. The Yelloway services competed with those of North Western (later to become National Travel and then National Express) which was without doubt the market leader on the routes. There were various reasons for this, the main one being that the Yelloway services used lesser known coach stations in Manchester and London (Kings Cross - where fewer connections to other destinations were available rather than Victoria used by all the big companies). Another was that the North Western services ran all year whereas those of Yelloway only ran in summer and at Christmas. The Yelloway coaches did have more luxurious seating and with such lightly loaded trips it was often quite possible to have a double seat to oneself in most cases on a Yelloway service. This shot, taken at Corley Service Area I seem to recall, shows Yelloway KDK 805F a Plaxton Panorama bodied AEC Reliance’s seen alongside one of North Western’s Alexander ‘Y’ type bodied Leyland Leopards which had recently been painted into the then new National white coach livery. The two vehicles were working almost parallel services. That of Yelloway was the 1600 hrs service from Rochdale (departing from Manchester (Central Station Forecourt) at 1700) and due in Kings Cross at 2125 with that of North Western being the 1715 service from Manchester (Lower Mosley Street) arriving at Victoria at 2145.