The First PTEs - Salford City Transport

The First PTEs - Part Four - Salford City Transport

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In 1946, Salford Corporation Transport was in a mess. John Blakemore, who had started with the Department as a Points Boy was about to retire and his operation was a testament to his lax management style and lack of organisation. A reasonably modern bus fleet was in a very poor mechanical condition and the bodywork of most vehicles - with a variety of colour schemes based on the basic red and white with brown and/or grey camouflage - was generally tatty.
This state of affairs was not totally due to the war. No discernable maintenance plan existed and the Ministry of War Transport had intervened three times during the war to insist on changes and the installation of a detailed schedule of maintenance but little had improved. Things were so bad that the buses had codes painted on their lower front nearside panel which was the route number of the longest service they could undertake with little risk of breakdown.
The situation had become so serious that the Transport Committee had no option but to place significant orders. However a combination of poor management thinking and the potential delays in delivery led to orders being placed for 16 Crossley DD42s, 15 AEC Regent IIIs, and 18 Leyland PD1s, all with MCW bodies plus 17 all Leyland PD1s - hardly an easy assimilation into an already badly organised Department which had a fleet requirement of 225 vehicles.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man and that man was Charles Baroth who came to what was Lancashire's third largest, and reputedly the country's worst maintained, fleet from Newport.
Within months things were on the change. A strict preventive maintenance regime was imposed. Driving standards were improved and low sulphur diesel was bought leading to the Gardner diesels, which eventually powered the bulk of the fleet, running half a million miles without major attention.
In the first twelve months more than forty per cent of the fleet was in a new colour scheme of dark green and primrose with a silver roof which was enhanced by a modern typeface declaring the new name of the Department - Salford City Transport.
New bus stop signs, reinstatement of now fully overhauled unserviceable vehicles and the rebodying of 10 Leyland Titans followed. The whole culture of the operation was changed so that by the time Charles Baroth placed his first major order for 210 Daimler CVG6s the future was looking much brighter. The Daimlers were split into 195 double deckers with MCW Phoenix bodies with straight staircases and 15 single deckers with Burlingham bodies - though four of these were destined to be bodied by Burlingham as double deckers and one was bodied as a Committee coach for the Council.
These well chosen vehicles were delivered between 1950 and 1952. Like the rest of the fleet, they were kept to a very high standard; for instance every summer full resprays were stopped for some months and vehicles were brought into the works to have minor dents rectified, mudguards and the smart black wheels repainted as well as any other minor paint jobs dealt with. No more new vehicles were added until 1962.
In the period prior to tramway abandonment the seeds of a love-hate relationship with Manchester were sown. With delivery delays, Manchester pressing to abandon its trams and the attendant infrastructure, Salford found itself very short of vehicles when Manchester decided to implement a previous agreement to tear up the tracks on Deansgate, over which Salford ran trams on its own and joint routes. Manchester offered to loan buses to Salford but either the vehicles were not to Baroth's standards or there was something in the offer which was unacceptable which led to buses being hired in or bought second hand as well as taking up a frustrated export order from Leyland and a cancelled CVD6 order from Chester.
Whatever the problem with the loan offer it added to acrimony over the tramway abandonment and this state of affairs was to continue throughout the tenure of Baroth in Salford and Neal in Manchester, though truces, such as the joint running of routes 57,77,95 and 96 did ease tensions. Under these circumstances it has always been a matter of interest that Charles Baroth never had the destination "Salford" on any destination blind. All buses running to the Victoria or Greengate termini showed either "Victoria" if on a totally internal Salford service or "Manchester" if operating from elsewhere - though both places were in Salford.
By the time SELNEC appeared on the scene things had changed dramatically. In 1962 Charles Baroth had taken delivery of 9 AEC Reliances with BET standard Weymann bodies plus 1 with Weymann Fanfare bodywork to replace the Daimler Committee coach, which had hardly been overworked. He returned to Daimler and MCW for his double deckers. 30 CVG6s with Orion H37/28R and 6 with H36/28F bodies. All had the three primrose stripes but modernity set in with the delivery of 3 PDR1/1 Atlanteans with H44/33F MCW bodies and only a single stripe above the lower deck windows, matching Manchester's layout. In early 1963 2 Daimler CRG6LX with MCW H44/31 bodies followed. All these vehicles were numbered in a new sequence starting at 101 for the Fanfare bodied Reliance.
Charles Baroth introduced his second signature type to the fleet in 1963 when 38 Leyland PD2/40s arrived with MCW H36/28F bodies, the first of no fewer than 103 delivered in various batches up to 1967.
1964 saw, apart from more PD2/40s, 3 more Fleetlines and 3 more Atlanteans and Salford also took 2 Daimler CCG6s, possibly from the same frustrated order as those delivered to Manchester, though Salford's had H36/28F bodies. They were equally disliked in Salford as in Manchester.
Charles Baroth retired in 1965 having overseen not only a complete change in the fortunes of the Department but also having given the city a bus service to be proud of.
That year 14 PDR1/1s with MCW H43/33F bodies plus 7 more with MCW H43/33F bodies arrived, all with the revised front panels designed by Manchester. John Craggs took over as General Manager and continued the general methods that Baroth had developed. 1966 saw another batch of PD2s as did 1967 whilst 1968 brought 21 more MCW bodied PDR1/1s with H44/33F bodies. The 1969 deliveries heralded a change with the delivery of 20 PDR1A/1s, this time with a rather heavy looking Park Royal H43/29D dual door body. As is well known, Salford also ordered its own “Mancunians” which were delivered to SELNEC and included Salford interiors and indicators and reverted to MCW as the body supplier, being built on PDR2/1 chassis.
Thanks to the efforts of Charles Baroth and the ethos he implanted into the department, SELNEC inherited a modern and well maintained fleet of 271 Leyland and Daimler vehicles.

TRJ 116, 116 in the Salford fleet has only the SELNEC fleet number to betray its new owners in this shot. Shown heading for Piccadilly - note the absence of the word "Manchester" on the Salford blind - in this shot at the corner of Lever St and Piccadilly, Manchester, 4005 dates from 1962 and lasted into GMT days. The fleet number is based on the Manchester system where SELNEC Central used 1xxx for Leyland Mancunians, 2xxx for Daimler Mancunians, 3xxx for other Leylands and 4xxx for other Daimlers.

A later member of the same batch, 4023 is newly outshopped in full SELNEC Central colours and is seen at the same location. The framework for the blind changing winders, which did not look as prominent when painted green, really stands out in orange. This was another Baroth innovation in the fleet as he insisted on correctly set blinds and there was no excuse as the conductor could reach the handles standing looking at the blind display.
The discrepancy between the last two digits of the fleet number and those of the registration needs explanation. All Manchester Daimlers kept their fleet numbers so, Mancunians apart, the lowest number was 4111 a 1950 CVG6K with a similar MCW Phoenix body to the 195 Salford vehicles of a similar vintage.
The Manchester sequence ended with CRG6LX Fleetline 4760 of 1967, so logic may well have dictated that, with the new Standard Fleetlines being numbered in a brand new 7xxx sequence, the Salford Daimlers should start at 4761 allocated to the oldest Salford vehicle in service - Salford's Phoenix bodied CVG6, number 415 of 1950. That sequence would then have ended with 4852 a CRG6LX Fleetline which had been 208, the last Daimler bought in 1964. The sequence could then have accommodated the 91 Daimlers, including 40 of the 1950-52 batches of CVG6s, in sequential order.
Instead it was decided to start with TRJ 111, fleet number 111 as 4000 and go through the Daimlers bought between 1962 and 1964, in order, up to 208 which became 4042. 4043 was as described above and the sequence ended with 4090, ex 560, the last of the 1952 CVG6s. None of the 1950-1952 batches received SELNEC colours though all carried their new numbers until retirement between 1970 and 1971.

What might be described as Charles Baroth's second "Standard", The PD2/MCW forward entrance combination on a 27 foot chassis - though this one was ordered after his retirement and is one of the last batch from the first part of 1967. All the PD2s lasted into GMT days. 3121 is at the corner of Lever St and Piccadilly and shows something that Salford eschewed until 1968 - adverts. Baroth hated "mobile passenger carrying hoardings" and even moved the coat of arms to the between decks panels in an attempt to deter them, but after his departure economics won out. Like the Daimlers the 170 Leyland PD2s and Atlanteans were numbered ahead of Manchester's oldest PD2, 3200 of 1951. Starting with 149, an Atlantean of 1962, renumbered 3000 the sequence ended with 3169, ex 323, the last Park Royal bodied Atlantean.

The next to last vehicle delivered to Salford, PDR1A/1 Atlantean 322 has the rather heavy looking Park Royal dual door body but is not equipped for OMO. Pictured on Bridge St with George Best's first boutique hidden behind the bus and Albert Bridge House shrouded in scaffolding, the bus is at its rather odd terminus. The official destination was King St West which runs on the other side of the buildings to the nearside of the bus but to which access may well have been denied due to the building of Albert Bridge House. Having crossed the River Irwell 150 yards previously to gain Manchester as shown on the destination blind, the bus will later have turned about to regain Salford.
The bus is immaculate in full Salford colours, though there seems to be a problem with the nearside mirror. Note the coat of arms on the lower panel, reversing Charles Baroth's move, leaving the between decks and stair panels free for ads. All this batch passed to SELNEC and GMT.

Copy by Phil Blinkhorn - Photographs by Roger Cox
08/2013

04/09/13 - 06:27

Thanks for this article, its very close to my heart, as I worked for SCT in the 60's.
Due to being away from home for a few weeks and my dongle internet connection being very slow, here in Norfolk, please wait until I return home, when I shall be very happy to provide you with stories of 149, 150, 147 & 148 plus the later ones, 211, 206, 207 and Luxemburg-208.
It was great reading the article

Mike Norris

14/09/13 - 16:25

Some anecdotes, as promised. ( Internet connection still poor !! ) The TRJ Daimlers arrived in Salford, just as I was getting seriously interested in buses and I am happy to relate some of my own observations of the new buses.
111 - 140, TRJ 111 - 140, were split between Weaste and Frederick Road depots, bit not as far as I could detect on any permanent basis, and were to be seen on all the joint services. From Frederick Road, With LUT on the 31 to Mount Skip (my home route) with LUT & Leigh on the 26, and with LUT & Bolton on the 8 & 12 routes, lastly with Bury on the 35. From Weaste depot, with LUT on the 10 (and its Saturday short working 45's) Weasts also had, permanently in this case te batch, 141 - 146, TRJ 141 - 146, the front entrance Daimlers. These worked the 3 service and some 15 workings to Piccadilly, which were in anticipation of more front entrance buses to follow on this route.
The two Leyland Atlanteans 149 & 150, TRJ 149 & 150 then arrived and 149 was allocated to Weaste and was selected to go straight onto the 15 service (the history of Salford putting its newest buses on this route has already been well documented) but 150 was used to start staff training and was for several weeks to be found on Victoria Bridge Street, allowing crews from both depots an out and back trip to Windsor Bridge for familiarisation and after many times trying I was allowed to travel on it one Saturday! (That Inspector and driver became long time friends, as a result !) 150 then joined 149 at Weaste and most of its life was spent on the 15 service. Then the two Daimler Fleetlines arrived, 147 & 148, TRJ 147 & 148. For some reason these had a lower seating capacity downstairs, as only two rear inward seats were fitted, I never did find out why though. 147 & 148 went onto the 15 along with 149 & 150. Later when I commenced working at Frederick Road Traffic office, I could 'arrange' for a Fleetline to work a Frederick Road duty and most importantly on the 31, through the Fleet engineer's office, was when one of the Fleetlines came into Frederick Road for maintenance and as was usual, work a Frederick Road, peak hour extra, before returning top Weaste!
Next to arrive, were a batch of PD2's 151 - 188, WRJ 151 - 188, these were split between the two depots and worked on all routes from new. Two oddities next, 189 & 190 ARJ 189 & 190B, these were constant mesh front entrance CCG6's and like as at Manchester were despised by crews at Frederick Road, Weaste would not have them, so they were banished to the lightly used route 2. (where my friendly driver from earlier, mostly worked it !) 191 - 205 ARJ 191B - 205B were more PD2's and were again allocated to both depots. 203,4 & 5 were a little different in having a removable panel on the staircase behind the driver to allow them to be used as driver trainers. The amount of passengers who hurt their hands/arms defending the stairs, with the handrail being interrupted became obvious when I later worked in Salford's traffic office. Next came three more Fleetlines 206 - 208, ARJ 206B - 208B. all were again allocated to Weaste for principally the 15 service and the 3. Another mystery to me was why Frederick Road, still did not have any of the rear engine buses? The last three ARJ's are three more Atlanteans, all allocated, yes, again to Weaste. 211 was retained by Leyland/MCW to appear at the Commercial Motor show, as it featured the wrap around windscreen arrangement but went straight onto the 15 once it arrived, for the earlier reasons.

Mike Norris

01/10/13 - 17:57

HI, now that I'm back home from the vagaries of the Internet in Norfolk, I wondered if you and perhaps the author - Mr Blinkhorn - may care to see my further notes on my days working at Salford.
So,
Some further jottings
101 - TRJ 101 - The Committee Coach much has already been posted on this vehicle under the Weymann Fanfare item.
102 to 110, TRJ 101 - 110 These Reliances were purchased by Salford to replace 50's Daimler saloons 451 - 450, as Salford needed single deckers for two routes. Route 5 ran from Victoria to Peel Green via (or underneath) the 'infamous' Barton Aqueduct. This structure which claimed several top decks of Manchester & North Western buses was the result of 'dual' saloon and decker running on the long 22 service from Levenshulme to Eccles. It was always asking for trouble to have two separate routes, one for saloons and one for the deckers, so, the inevitable did occur with dramatic consequences. But back to Salford, Weaste depot had 102 to 107 allocated there for this service. The second route was service 4 from Prestwich to Simister. As this route was away from the city and was a single vehicle service, crews started and finished at Frederick Road by taking/returning the vehicle they used for the service, so in 99% of the time, it was one or both of now 109 & 110 that were used on it. 108 was a floater, it was used by either depot to cover for maintenance etc.
Must tell you this story of 109. Salford Office staff social club ran two special trips every year. One was to Chester Races, not of any interest to me, as a young office clerk, but the second one was. That was the annual Christmas trip, which ran to a country pub or restaurant usually the Hodder Bridge Hotel, Nr Clitheroe for a Christmas meal out. 109 was usually chosen, as it was just that bit quicker than the rest and would have been specially cleaned by the night cleaners beforehand. As Salford held no Private Hire Licence (Outside of Salford itself) an 'On Hire to Lancashire United' white paper sticker was placed in the front nearside windscreen. Returning very late to Salford, a route was followed to allow nearly all staff to get of near to home, so it would be Whitefield, Prestwich, Carr Clough, Agecroft, Frederick Road Depot, Pendleton, Weaste Depot, then Eccles and lastly Little Hulton, where I lived. As all the management had left the bus by Weaste, things got a little interesting after there. To use the words from Jake Thackeray,s country bus song - Amarous - Scandalous - were very apt indeed !
137, TRJ 137 This Daimler, was found upon delivery from Met-Cam to Salford to have sustained accident damage. Mr Brougham, the fleet engineer would not accept the bus from the driver and it was turned back to Birmingham to have the damaged panels replaced and re-painted so it was the very last of the batch in service as a result, by about six weeks.
On a similar theme, one afternoon, two new Liverpool 'C' Reg Atlanteans arrived at Frederick Road. The drivers, having quite mistakenly confused Liverpool for Salford, as they had delivered Salford ones only the week or two prior. Unfortunately, they now had insufficient fuel to get to LIverpool, but a request for fuel from Salford was not forthcoming and they were sent away to resolve their problem by their own devices.
The WRJ PD2's I should have mentioned that following their delivery, the four joint services with Manchester Corporation - viz - the 57 & 77 Thornley Park / Reddish to Swinton / Pendlebury, and the 95 & 96 Whitefield to East Disbury services, were now able to be fully allocated to the TRJ Daimlers, 110 - 140.
212 to 232, DBA 212C - 232C - Leyland Atlanteans These were shared between the depots and at long last Frederick Road had a permanent allocation of large capacity rear engine buses. They were set to work on the joint with LUT longer distance services, 8 to Bolton, 12 to Bolton, 26 to Leigh, 31 to Mount Skip and 35 to Bury, where they proved very popular with crews and passengers alike. So much so that passengers on other routes also wanted them and some residents of the more affluent areas of Salford - Prestwich and Whitefield also wanted to ride on the Big buses, so they got the local press involved and the local Prestwich paper approached Salford Council for the new buses on their routes also. The result was that routes 33, 40 & 73 also saw some operation by Atlanteans with Weaste buses 150 & 209 being moved across to Frederick road until things quietened down and the press moved onto newer stories and 150 & 209 went back to Weaste.
Two more batches of PD2's followed - 233 to 257, FRJ 233D - 257D And 258 to 282, JRJ 258E to 282E These were identical in most respects to the first batch but they did have the light green interior paint scheme started by the C reg Atlanteans instead of the earlier brown. They were shared between the two depots and my experience and perhaps others that these were very nimble machines with some exhilarating runs on the long Bolton 8 service especially noteworthy.
283 to 303, MRJ 283F - 303F, Leyland Atlanteans These were the last REAL Salford buses, being identical to the 212 - 232 batch except that they had a plain front dash panel, being devoid of the heater intake grilles, so were easily identifiable. There was some surprise amongst engineering staff that I knew at Frederick Road as the 212 etc batch were already showing quite serious bodywork problems around the front end. The glass of the one piece windscreen was very heavy and the fibre glass dash/front panel soon became weekend allowing the windscreen glass to move about alarmingly, this not excepting the rain water which was now running into the bus during rain, accompanied by a black sticky substance - the windscreen sealant - that was being washed away by the rain. It was so thick & sticky that the windscreen wipers would not shift it. Manchester obviously had the same problems with this design and buses with new two piece windscreens, instead of the original one piece was their solution. Again the allocation was shared, Weaste as ever using the newer buses on the 15 to Piccadilly and Frederick Road, mindful of earlier passenger rumblings put theirs on the higher loading services, both inside the City and outside.
304 to 323, PRJ 304G - 323G I suppose because I and many others did not like these Park Royal 'Heavy' looking dual door buses, I never saw them as real Salford buses. In a parallel with neighbours Lancashire United, these were purchased as the herald to one man double deck operation. (LUT had Daimler Fleetlines 358 to 363, which were to share the same history) One Man operation was never agreed by Salford City Transport staff, so they ( like the LUT buses) were always crew operated. The saying of 'putting the cart before the horse' can be used to sum up these buses.
So with all the talk in 1967 of the incoming PTE, with centralisation of all administration, there was much talk in the various transport staff circles from as far away as Ashton across the other side of Manchester of the big 'R' word with those redundancies to follow, that I left Salford tp pursue another career, but wit buses in the blood so toy speak, went on to later drive for LUT from 1970 to 1973.
Hope my Salford reminisces are found of interest.

Mike Norris

02/10/13 - 07:11

Thanks for your reminiscences Mike. They add interesting colour to the basic information I provided.

Phil Blinkhorn

08/01/15 - 07:30

I was very pleased to find and read this article, especially as it brings into focus the unfortunate tenure of manager John Blakemore during the period 1933-1946. Growing up in Salford in the 1950's and 1960's I always believed that the deplorable state of the bus and tram system in 1946 was because of the war. But as the years have gone by and with much more access to information about other transport undertakings and their difficulties, it becomes clear that John Blakemore was, to be polite, completely in over his head. Was there some local political interference or agenda during his tenure?
Whist we are left with plenty of depressing immediate post war images of antique open ended Salford trams, the records show that over 70 trams were rebuilt between 1925 and 1932 incorporating fully enclosed platforms and upper decks. Their neat design was originally created in Belfast by James Moffet who came to Salford in 1923 and introduced this concept to the tram fleet. But as bus replacement of the trams accelerated in the 1930's it was these Moffet trams that were sent to the scrap heap by Blakemore.(Belfast still had a considerable number of Moffet style trams on the rails until the early 1950's.) With the outbreak of the war all transport undertakings were directed to maximise use of their tramway infrastructure. Blakemore appears to have gone out of his way to ignore this directive! Quite a considerable sum of money was transferred from the transport operations to rate relief in 1941 /1942 and this is the time when the Central Government became involved. By not allocating funds to maintain,operate and patch up the remaining trams and track, it became even more difficult therefore to maintain ,what was, a fairly modern bus fleet. By 1946 the situation in Salford was chaotic and the central government was still involved. By this time many other undertakings who had followed government directives were allocated utility vehicles to ease the pressure on travel demand. My late father related to me quite a few times his memory of travelling on over loaded ex Wallasey Corporation centre entrance vehicles. The topic of the Blakemore hangover in those early post war years of Salford City Transport plus the vehicles he ordered that arrived late could probably fill a book. It was the poor citizens of Salford that continued to suffer until the Baroth Daimlers began to arrive in numbers from 1950.

Brian Longworth

27/07/15 - 09:14

I came across this article quite by accident when searching for information on the current status of 109 and I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to read it.
I was born in 1940 and spent the first 26 years of my life in Simister – the almost forgotten part of SCT territory so I was pleased to see a mention in the article.
I just about remember Jack Parry’s Simister to Prestwich bus service which was the predecessor to the SCT operation. He ran a Bedford OWB with slatted seats for a while – I didn’t know the type at the time of course but it was sufficiently memorable to be able to identify at a later date. Then followed a Leyland – perhaps a second hand Lion but I’m not sure. On one occasion when this bus was out of service for a while, a rather elderly Manchester Corporation Leyland saloon was hired in and this caused great excitement amongst us youngsters.
Perhaps it was 1947 or thereabouts when Salford arrived on the scene. For the first few weeks, the bus didn’t come right into the village and turned round at Cordy Lane until a passing place on the narrow road could be constructed – Simister was very rural in those days. On the first day of operation we rushed down to the temporary bus terminus to see the “new” bus – it was 63, one of the batch of AEC Regals and was in the red and brown livery. This seemed to be the regular bus in the early days and was relieved, when necessary by 4, a similar vehicle from an earlier batch. Later, all the AECs appeared at different times but very rarely the Leyland Tigers (6, 7 and 8) which seemed mostly confined to the Victoria to Peel Green route 5. In those days of course route 6 from Radcliffe to Eccles was also single deck operated.
The first Charles Baroth green AEC to visit Simister was 5. I disgraced myself by reversing my kid’s tricycle into the shiny black mudguard as the bus was parked at the terminus. Having since read about Mr. Baroth’s fearsome reputation, I now understand why the bus crew were so distressed.
At some stage in the late 40s (late 1948 or early 1949 perhaps), route 6 went over to double deck operation and AECs 4, 64, 168 and 171 disappeared off the scene. Curiously the published withdrawal dates for these vehicles are the same as the rest of the batch and I wonder if anyone can throw any light on this. From September 1949 I started commuting to Heaton Park station on my way to school and every day I longed for one of the “missing” buses to turn up but it never did.
The honour for the last AEC operation before the introduction of the Daimlers again went to 63.
I already knew that the new buses were on the way because I had seen 441 in Victoria bus station a little while earlier but, even so, it was a big thrill to see 447 on its first day in service. This became the regular Simister bus for the next 12 years or so with 448, 449 and 450 deputising in that very strict order. So we hardly ever saw 450! The Weaste buses 441 to 446 quickly became very scruffy inside compared to “ours” but, in fairness, they had a much harder working life. I last saw 447 being cannibalised at the back of Grimbsy-Cleethorpes depot to keep 444, 445 and 446 in service.
One other oddity about 447 was that, after one of its overhauls, it came back into service having shed 6 cwt. Its unladen weight now became 6-13-3 instead of 6-19-3. There was no obvious sign as to where the weight had come from unless it now had a smaller fuel tank.
The last Daimler on the route before arrival of the Reliances was 449 and this vehicle, together with 448, remained at Weaste depot for about a year after the others had been withdrawn. As has been well documented elsewhere, 450 was transferred to the Social Services Department and converted to carry wheelchairs.

Alan Heywood

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