seen parked on travis street mancheste on rMay 4, 2013 at 4.30PM BST
L501 was numerically the second vehicle from Liverpool’s batch of 200 Leyland Atlanteans (L500 to L699) bodied by Metro Cammell which were delivered between November 1962 and September 1964.
The bus was rebuilt prior to delivery with a revised rear end design, which differed from the other buses being built at the same time, and was displayed on Metro Cammell’s stand at the 1962 Commercial Motor Show held at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London. This revised rear end design was adopted for the vehicles delivered from May 1963 (L560 to L699).
The body was designed by Liverpool Corporation and incorporated ideas that were interpreted from contemporary car designs of the period and was a great improvement on the bodybuilder’s standard product available at the time. Buses built to Liverpool’s design were also delivered to Bury and Bolton Corporations. The chassis of these Atlanteans differed from Leyland’s standard chassis.
Liverpool had rebuilt its original 1959 experimental Atlantean, E2, with numerous new features and most of these were incorporated in the production batch. It was found that by moving the steering column and driver’s controls to the offside by a few inches, a wider platform area was created improving passenger loading times. It also made it easier to reverse the bus as the driver had improved vision. The wheelbase was also extended by six inches to allow for the seating to be arranged in a back-to-back fashion over the rear wheel arches, increasing the seating capacity.
Large-scale introduction of the Atlanteans was delayed whilst the unions and the Corporation settled their differences over the use of bigger buses. So it was not until 4th February 1963 that the first routes, the 86 & 87 Pier Head – Garston Circular, were converted to Atlantean operation and L500 to L519 were allocated to Garston Garage for use on these routes. L501 remained at Garston garage until it was de-licensed in July 1969, after which it underwent a "B4 Dock", which was the initial overhaul that buses required after seven years’ service. This was required for a Certificate of Fitness, the equivalent of a MOT, to be issued. The B4 Dock was a very thorough overhaul which saw nearly all the exterior panelling removed to enable the basic structure of the vehicle to be checked for damage and corrosion, and rectified if required. The The mechanical and electrical components would also be checked and replaced where necessary. Following repanelling and a repaint the bus would emerge almost like new.
L501 was converted to facilitate One-Man-Operation at the same time as the overhaul, this included fitting a periscope, simplified destination displays and equipping the driver’s cab with a cab door that housed ticketing and cash handling equipment. On completion L501 was returned to Garston Depot.
The 1st December 1969 saw the formation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, which took over the responsibility of running the buses from the corporations of … Read More
