Rochdale Regent rocks up - a photo on Flickriver

Rochdale's buses were, for much of the Transport Department's existence, a rather beautiful shade of blue and pale cream; and from the late 1930s to the early 1960s the colours were arranged in a splendid 'streamlined' style with swoops and curves. But this was expensive, so from 1961 the Borough's buses became a more prosaic cream with one broad blue band plus blue wings and wheels.

But it got worse: in 1969 Rochdale Corporation Transport was absorbed by teh new South East Lancashire, North East Cheshire Passenger Transport Executive: thankfully more often known as SELNEC. SELNEC had taken over all the municipal bus operators in its area and wanted a clean break - they didn't want the move to be seen as a takeover by Manchester City Transport. So a bold move was made to a colour scheme that was unlike any in the region that had gone before - to a bright orange and off-white livery. On modern buses it looked progressive, modern, bold. On Rochdale's buses it perhaps threw into sharp relief how beautiful, even poetic, the old blue streamlined style had been.

So although this ex-Rochdale bus didn't exactly look bad, it also wasn't exactly the best colour this bus had ever worn.

You can see a similar bus to this one in its original style in the comments below; and the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester also has two Rochdale buses restored to the blue streamlined livery.

If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to www.motgm.uk.

© Greater Manchester Transport Society. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is strictly prohibited and may result in action being taken to protect the intellectual property interests of the Society.

Taken in: UK / England / Rochdale (show map)

Taken on: August 1, 1975

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