Darlington 1 (A101 CVN)
And when you thought that Darlington's fleet couldn't get any more wacky, it did ! It goes without saying that the Ward Dalesman was a new model to the fleet, as was the choice of Wadham Stringer Vanguard body, but the difference here was that the chassis was designed in conjunction with Darlington's engineers, to produce as close a match as possible to their Seddon RU buses, with a Gardner 6HLXB rear engine, and semi-automatic gearbox. But Ward Bros., with their very limited facilities and buying power, found themselves over-stretched, and struggled to deliver the 6 vehicles ordered. The vehicles were said to be good once they did enter service, but no further orders were placed, and the Ward business folded in 1984.
The entire batch was sold early in 1994, just prior to the company's terminal decline, and went to Devaway Travel near Chester, who got a further 2-3 years out of them, before they all sadly went for scrap.
Darlington town centre, 10/7/85
Darlington 1 (A101 CVN)
And when you thought that Darlington's fleet couldn't get any more wacky, it did ! It goes without saying that the Ward Dalesman was a new model to the fleet, as was the choice of Wadham Stringer Vanguard body, but the difference here was that the chassis was designed in conjunction with Darlington's engineers, to produce as close a match as possible to their Seddon RU buses, with a Gardner 6HLXB rear engine, and semi-automatic gearbox. But Ward Bros., with their very limited facilities and buying power, found themselves over-stretched, and struggled to deliver the 6 vehicles ordered. The vehicles were said to be good once they did enter service, but no further orders were placed, and the Ward business folded in 1984.
The entire batch was sold early in 1994, just prior to the company's terminal decline, and went to Devaway Travel near Chester, who got a further 2-3 years out of them, before they all sadly went for scrap.
Darlington town centre, 10/7/85