The county of Yorkshire has always been a hotbed of private bus operation. In the early days, some well-known small companies grew up and gained outstanding reputations in their area – names such as Samuel Ledgard of Leeds, Connor & Graham in Hull and the delightful Felix Motors of Hatfield. Many of these operators adopted stylish and attractive liveries for their buses, bringing a dash of colour to the locality in which they operated.
Virtually all of these names are now just memories as most small operators were swallowed up by the largely nationalised bus industry in the 1970s, ending up as part of the National Bus Company or one of the large municipal concerns.
However, bus deregulation in 1986 brought a new lease of life to the private bus operator, and gave rise to a new wave of privateers, with their eye-catching liveries. Often the new operators used an eclectic collection of second-hand bus vehicles, adding further interest to their fledgling operations.
Independent Buses of Yorkshire contains a collection of over 180 photographs recording some of the many vehicles used by independent operators in Yorkshire, both the established companies from the 1950s and 1960s and those that emerged after deregulation.
Most of the photographs are in colour, with just a handful of older images reproduced in black & white. All the photographs have captions which give further details about the vehicle and, in most cases, the operator. The images are presented in alphabetical order by operator and show in two-per-page format. 96 pages.