Latest News - please also check the Forum
Ribble PD3/5 joins the collection
Two of the groups members have purchased the former Ribble PD3/5 1775 which has a M.C.C.W. (Met-Cam) body. This bus was new in 1962 and initially allocated to Chorley depot, then transferring to Fleetwood in 1968 remaining there until Fleetwood got its first Leyland Nationals when it moved to Bootle. It was painted into NBC Poppy Red in October 1973. It was withdrawn in 1981 and sold to PVS breakers at Barnsley but was immediately acquired by the Mersey & Calder Bus Group at Burscough, it later passed to Gerald Bowden in 2003. While the bus was with Gerald he converted it to a manual gearbox. In due course it will have this replaced with the semi-automatic air operated gearbox. It last appeared in the North West at the Stagecoach open day at Morecambe in 2009.
Further building progress
Work is progressing on our new building (albeit at a slower pace than we would have liked ). The roof and frame work are now complete the floor is now concreted and the area between the new building and the concreted area down the side of our existing building has now been covered with "crush and run" which will help enormously when we are fetching the vehicles round to fill the new shed.
Start made on our new building
Late last year the trustees decided to invest in a new building so that all our vehicles could be on one site, this will save us money in the long term by not having to pay storage charges to third parties in what has in some cases been sub-standard accomodation. Once the decision had been made building plans were drawn up and quotes for the building work obtained , planning permission was then sought and this was granted on the 11th of February. Work started in earnest on the 23rd of February as these photos by Geoff Meek show :-
The left photo shows the land where the new building will be erected, the existing doors in this photo will be bricked up. The centre and right photos shows the area right up to our boundary fence has been levelled and aggregate laid with the shuttering for the concrete being put in place. When it is finished the building will be used to store some of our long term restoration projects and hopefully give us a better layout for workshop space in our main building - sorry there are no vacancies for other vehicles !!