Photo by M Standeven

Douglas Corporation
1947
AEC Regent III O961/2
Northern Counties H30/26R

A nice shot of a very early AEC Regent III taken on the Isle of Man about 1964/5. The Northern Counties bodywork that Douglas Corporation seemed to favour is quite obvious by the front upper deck.
An interesting bit of information I came up with whilst researching Douglas Corporation was from Peter Goulds very informative website was that buses which operated within the borough boundary did not require road tax, if the route took it outside the boundary then it did. Needless to say they only had enough buses taxed to do the necessary routes and the letters ‘EA’ which stood for ‘Extended Area’ accompanied the fleet number. With a change of rules in 1964 no Douglas Corporation bus needed road tax to operate. 
Now I know that the Isle of Man had and still have there own rules and regulations, but it got me thinking what the regulations were for the rest of the UK with regards road tax, MOTs and insurance. If you know please leave a comment

16/11/15 – 10:22

Something I have noticed but has not been commented on or explained is that DCT 56-59 (HMN 687-690) delivered in 1947, 60-63 (JMN 724-727) delivered in 1948 and 64-65 (KMN 835-836) delivered in 1949 had consecutive chassis and body numbers and were virtually identical, whereas the rest of the 1949 delivery, 66-71 (KMN 837-842) had much higher batches of chassis and body numbers, and were significantly different in outward appearance (gasket glazed indicators) and internal layout (one fewer seat on lower deck to create more luggage space). Was a batch of 10 chassis sent to Northern Counties in 1947, and when were the later deliveries bodied?

M Jones