Out of its time - a photo on Flickriver

Out of its time

Now part of Wigan's council area, Leigh once had its own municipal borough and, with it, a municipal bus fleet. Operations stared in 1920 so no trams were bought, and it did so in the teeth of opposition from local bus company Lancashire United Transport. This led to occasional outbursts of friction and the use of separate bus stations, separated by a cinema, in the town.

Leigh's fleet was small, it was conservative in its buying choices and it was low: in that all buses were either single deckers or low height double deckers because of the many colliery railway bridges in the area. Even after the pits closed, the tradition remained simply because Leigh has arranged for (most of) its garage to be suitable only for this type of bus.

In 1960, Leigh bought two single deckers that seemed to hark back to a bygone age. The East Lancashire Coachbuilders body wasn't the most modern on the market at the time, and Leigh topped this by applying a 'streamline' livery that even then was a throwback to the 1930s and 1940s. Even so the pair were very handy on Leigh's short routes and they were often to be seen beetling in and out of the bus station.

In 1969, Leigh was absorbed by the new SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive and the blue and cream swoops looked even more anachronistic against the PTE's newly-adopted orange and off-white. But Leigh 1, as SELNEC 6001, lasted until March 1973 when it was withdrawn and noted, in 1975, with Cardinal Newman School in Hove. We assume it's no longer around today.

Nor is the Leigh garage, closed in 1986 and the land used for housing; and indeed preserved Leigh buses are very thin on the ground. Thankfully number 15, an AEC 'Renown' built in 1965, is restored and on display in Leigh Corporations' lovely blue livery at the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester.

If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to 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 / Leigh (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 1971

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