That's more like it
If you looked at the bus operators of Greater Manchester in 1960, you'd find a patchwork of bus companies - private and municipal - with different policies and traditions. But one thing that quite a few of them had in common was the external colour scheme.
For many of these operators had red, or maroon, or crimson as the primary colour. Manchester buses were red. so were North Western ones, the same in Stockport; while crimson or maroon ruled the roost in Ramsbottom, Bolton and Oldham.
This troubled the General Manager of Oldham Corporation, who thought the town's buses should be more distinctive and should stand out amongst this sea of buses painted at the red end of the spectrum. Oldham's livery was crimson and ivory, usually with miles of lavish lining out, and this was getting expensive at a time of reducing income. And the crimson was prone to fading, becoming pinkish and dull fairly quickly.
So, the manager decided to have an experiment: Oldham buses would become two shades of blue, with a primrose band to separate them. Distinctive, certainly. An aesthetic disaster, possibly. The town's populace and elected Councillors were up in arms - they were appalled that the town's bus colour scheme should change so radically, and not (in their view) for the better. So the single bus painted in this livery, number 402, needed to find a new colour that was more to the town's liking and promptly.
The GM came up with another idea - if the crimson was prone to fade to a pinkish colour and the off-white started to go a bit creamy, why not simply make the town's buses a pinkish-red and couple that with cream? The result was known officially as 'Pommard and Cream' and was greeted much more sympathetically by the Burghers of Oldham and so this became the colour scheme for the last few years of Oldham Corporation Transport existence - when everything became orange, whether the people of Oldham liked it or not.
We have photographs of Oldham 402 on blue but we though we'd show this photo that was taken at the time to mark its painting into the new 'pommard' shade - if you're not sure what this looked like, we have other photos in this album in colour. We don't know what the crew are discussing but our guess is that overtime and annual leave were perhaps higher priorities than the paint work!
Oldham 402 was scrapped long ago but if you want to see an Oldham Corporation bus you still can - at the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester where identical 394 is restored to its original crimson and off-white colour scheme. If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to 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.
That's more like it
If you looked at the bus operators of Greater Manchester in 1960, you'd find a patchwork of bus companies - private and municipal - with different policies and traditions. But one thing that quite a few of them had in common was the external colour scheme.
For many of these operators had red, or maroon, or crimson as the primary colour. Manchester buses were red. so were North Western ones, the same in Stockport; while crimson or maroon ruled the roost in Ramsbottom, Bolton and Oldham.
This troubled the General Manager of Oldham Corporation, who thought the town's buses should be more distinctive and should stand out amongst this sea of buses painted at the red end of the spectrum. Oldham's livery was crimson and ivory, usually with miles of lavish lining out, and this was getting expensive at a time of reducing income. And the crimson was prone to fading, becoming pinkish and dull fairly quickly.
So, the manager decided to have an experiment: Oldham buses would become two shades of blue, with a primrose band to separate them. Distinctive, certainly. An aesthetic disaster, possibly. The town's populace and elected Councillors were up in arms - they were appalled that the town's bus colour scheme should change so radically, and not (in their view) for the better. So the single bus painted in this livery, number 402, needed to find a new colour that was more to the town's liking and promptly.
The GM came up with another idea - if the crimson was prone to fade to a pinkish colour and the off-white started to go a bit creamy, why not simply make the town's buses a pinkish-red and couple that with cream? The result was known officially as 'Pommard and Cream' and was greeted much more sympathetically by the Burghers of Oldham and so this became the colour scheme for the last few years of Oldham Corporation Transport existence - when everything became orange, whether the people of Oldham liked it or not.
We have photographs of Oldham 402 on blue but we though we'd show this photo that was taken at the time to mark its painting into the new 'pommard' shade - if you're not sure what this looked like, we have other photos in this album in colour. We don't know what the crew are discussing but our guess is that overtime and annual leave were perhaps higher priorities than the paint work!
Oldham 402 was scrapped long ago but if you want to see an Oldham Corporation bus you still can - at the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester where identical 394 is restored to its original crimson and off-white colour scheme. If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to 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.