Roll on the good times - a photo on Flickriver

The purpose of this official photo was to show the new 'rolling road' brake tester installed at Manchester Corporation's Princess Road garage - but what makes the mouth water to our twenty-first century eyes is the rather splendid bus that's sitting on it.

In 1929, the tram-minded General Manager of Manchester Corporation Tramways died suddenly. His successor was R. Stuart Pilcher, a man of a very different mindset. Pilcher was a bus man, and he quickly drove a policy of replacing all the City's tram routes with a target date for Manchester's last tramway to close in 1940.

To make the change, Manchester bought hundreds of new buses such as number 350 here which was new in 1932. Mr Pilcher would have liked to split purchases between AEC and Leyland but the city council wanted to prefer local industry: which meant that instead of AEC, chassis were supplied by local company Crossley Motors Limited of Gorton.

The city's orders helped Crossley become a major name in the industry, but after the war some poor company choices plus a change of City Council policy led to the firm's purchase by AEC and eventual closure.

Number 350 worked very hard, firstly with this body by Strachan's of Hampshire and later with a second-hand body from Crossley. It finally came out of service in 1946, utterly worn out by hard war service.

There's now just one prewar Manchester Corporation Crossley left - number 436 of 1934, which at the time of writing is under restoration in the Museum's workshop. You can donate to help the project by visiting www.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/mctd436

If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to www.motgm.uk.

© Greater Manchester Transport Society. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is strictly prohibited and may result in action being taken to protect the intellectual property interests of the Society.

Taken in: UK / England / Moss Side (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 1933

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