Northumberland Street

Northumberland Street, Newcastle upon Tyne 1969
Taken with an Instamatic Camera from the footbridge that was there at that time.
I started on the buses in 1970 as a conductor, then in August 1971 I passed my bus driving test in a Leyland Atlantean.
I was based at Slatyford Depot until I took early retirement in 2008.

Brian Collison

08/01/13 - 10:39

I suppose the fact that the shot was taken over 43 years ago yet seems to relate to just yesterday is indicative of my advancing years. Be that as it may, the height from which it was taken has shown up something that has raised a question.
Each bus in the shot has a portion of the roof in silver/grey. Now it has always been my understanding that whilst some operators had silver roofs as part of their scheme prior to WW2, many operators added grey roofs to their scheme on commencement of hostilities in an effort to make their vehicles less obvious from the air.
These were gradually removed in peacetime though some, like Manchester, retained the grey for many years to distinguish between 7ft 6in and 8ft wide vehicles.
Others, such as Stockport and obviously Newcastle and Tyneside, retained the roofs in a vestigial form on new and repainted vehicles well after an obvious reason had long since gone.
The question is why? What purpose did the differently coloured roof areas serve, especially when not visible from the ground and in the days of spray booths, when most operators were trying to simplify liveries and reduce costs?

Phil Blinkhorn

08/01/13 - 15:20

Ah Brian! you're the one who used the bridge at the bottom of Northumberland Street, strange to think that until the coming of the Tyne Tunnel, Northumberland Street was the A1. On Phil's comments, the PD3 is one of Gateshead's and would have originally been chocolate with two cream bands 'centre and under the lower windows' and black wings, but the livery was changed in the mid sixties to the same as Tyneside's. It was rumoured at the time Tyne Tunnel opened that plans were afoot to start a circular route linking the towns on both sides of the river via the Tunnel and the Tyne Bridge, and that's why Gateshead's livery was changed, but I don't know if that's true, and it never came about anyway. I left NGT in 1975 and until that time at least, all the group's vehicles were still hand painted, but by that time the paint shop at Cullercoats had long since gone and the work was done at the central works at Bensham. I believe Newcastle Corporation were also still hand painted, but as to why they kept the silver roof, well your guess is as good as mine

Ronnie Hoye

09/01/13 - 05:35

Interesting view, indeed! How many of those stores are still trading, under the names shown or under other names, how many of the vehicles are still in existence - active or in storage? I've mentioned elsewhere that Birmingham kept the sandy colour to their bus roofs, certainly as far as 1968. A former colleague, a relative of a one-time manager, said it was introduced to confuse the Afrika corps!

Pete Davies

10/01/13 - 07:08

Pete, a few of Newcastle's Atlantean's survive in various forms, including at least one open topper, but the only NGT group PD3 I'm aware of is AFT 930, '230' in the Tynemouth and District fleet. It spent some time as a training vehicle towards the end of its working life and is currently in the process of being restored by the N.E.B.P. T. Ltd, hopefully in its origional Tynemouth livery. I did hear of a Sunderland District's Burlingham bodied PD3 that was still around, but apparently it was in a rather poor state. however, that was a few years ago so it may well have gone by now. As for the shops, Fenwicks are still on the go, the large white building at the top of the street is M&S and BHS are on the other side of the street, but not in the same building, but from where the bus at the bottom is turning into Northumberland Street, Montague Burton - Woolworth - Littlewoods - C&A - Callers and half a dozen other well known names have all gone.

Ronnie Hoye

10/01/13 - 09:36

Thanks, Ronnie. And now the place where I used to buy my films has gone into liquidation, too. Pity they didn't stick to mail order!

Pete Davies

10/01/13 - 09:37

Leeds adopted silver roofs with the onset of one man double deckers The original two door buses were thus attired and repaints of earlier rear engined types also perpetuated the silver roof. One theory was that it acted as heat reflection since the original buses had limited opening windows and were very hot in warm weather.
Burton was rebranded as Top Shop some years ago. We all know what happened to Woolworth. Littlewoods became purely mail order while C&A (known in Leeds as coits and ats!) withdrew to the continent were there is a branch in most large towns in Holland, France and Spain.

Chris Hough

10/01/13 - 11:57

London Transport went into the war with silver roofs, started to change them to grey, then brown. Buses which went near to sensitive installations were painted grey, a hangover from World War I. Gloucester Corporation painted all its trams battleship grey at the outset of WWI and they never reverted to their maroon/white livery. They looked terrible! But I digress! I do recall some buses of the photos era with some sort of fibrous opaque roofing which let in a modicum of natural light, but only a modicum. I suspect it was added for lightness (an oxymoron and pun, if I ever wrote one!) rather than passenger consideration.

Chris Hebbron

11/01/13 - 05:32

Chris H East Lancs were the company that used semi translucent panels in roofs, Leeds fitted coach style roof lights on deckers from 1962 they had orange tinted glass in the roof.

Chris Hough

15/01/13 - 06:23

Maybe this is too simple, but it looks to me as if the roofs have been left unpainted, because, since no-one could see them, there was no need to paint them.

Peter Williamson

15/01/13 - 07:58

Peter, I'm afraid that is too simplistic. As South Wales found in the late 1950s with its unpainted Regents, you couldn't leave the metal unpainted without a varnish like coating and even that tarnished quickly.
Stockport amongst others definitely used grey paint covering a similar area as did others at the time of this photo.

Phil Blinkhorn

15/01/13 - 07:58

I suspect that Peter's comment may be close to the truth, which is that aluminium paint was much cheaper than coach enamel and used where it wouldn't show. There's quite a large area that remains generally unseen in the middle of the roof and coach enamel was not cheap!

David Beilby

15/01/13 - 10:28

I like the comments about using aluminium paint rather than coach enamel. Different operators have different ideas. When I was at Lancaster, the Transport Department must, I suppose, have used coach enamel. For the rest of the Municipal fleet, the City Architect's Department had the painters, and vehicles and house doors were all painted using normal undercoat and gloss!

Pete Davies

15/01/13 - 10:29

David may well have got to the truth as far as the buses in the photo are concerned and maybe, similarly, a grey paint was cheaper for other operators.

Phil Blinkhorn

16/01/13 - 05:04

The practice of painting the central portion of the roof with aluminium/silver/grey paint is a relic of the days when the roof consisted of planks with a canvas covering. The textured nature of the canvas meant that the application of coach paint and varnish would have been pointless, and a cheaper substitute was used. With a traditional planked roof this would extend at the side over the coving as far as the cantrail, and this can be observed on older buses where the central part of the roof is a different colour right down to cantrail level. Planked roofs were still being produced by some constructors up until WW2.

Alan Murray-Rust

16/01/13 - 08:37

That's a very interesting point Alan. I was always told, 50 and more years ago, that the grey was a hangover from WW2 camouflage but your version makes much more sense, particularly in an industry which was generally conservative in its practices.
Amazing the alleyways we venture down on this Forum.

Phil Blinkhorn

16/01/13 - 13:11

Phil: Derived from first-hand experience! I was one of the group involved in purchasing the Widnes Lion http://holmes.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ for preservation. The views here show the central portion of the roof clearly. When we got it the canvas was well life-expired, and split along many of the plank jobs. We had neither expertise nor funds to do a proper canvassing job, so resorted to a variety of 'available materials' solutions, none of which was successful in preventing water ingress for any length of time. Unsurprisingly we never found covered accommodation.

Alan Murray-Rust

08/12/17 - 09:34

I am currently undertaking a architecture and urban planning degree and would like to know about the history of Northumberland street and what people during 1996-1999 thought about the street being pedestrianised. If anyone has any information you could give about the transition of the street being part of the A1 and then becoming pedestrianised I would greatly appreciate it.

Andrew Fong

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