Wigan Album
Ribble Buses
3 Comments
Photo: Ray
Item #: 31693
1967, seen here in the mid to late 1970s, in the
National Bus Company livery of "Poppy Red".
It appears to have been on route 333 to Dangerous
Corner.
The Leyland Leopard was the standard Ribble single decker in the 1960s with 245 buses numbered from 458-682 with TCK. UCK, ARN-B/C, CCK-C, CRN/DRN-D registrations. The last 20 were 201-220 ECK201-220E with bus 206 shown here. These were just the buses, there were many more coaches, and dual purpose (buses with coach seats). The mid engined Leopards (the similar looking Panthers of which Ribble had only one, number 774 were rear engined) could be found all over the north west from Liverpool to Carlisle and 206 was on the 333 route that had to be a single decker because of the low railway bridge in Mill Lane, Appley Bridge.
Dangerous Corner , Robin Hood Lane , High Moor & Wrightington Hospital was also served by route 343 double decker buses that used to go through Skull House Lane , as opposed to route 333 using Mill Lane , originally having two railway bridges .
I was a casual driver for Ribble from late 70’s till early 90’s and although these single deckers were used because of the low bridge in Mill Lane, in fact if the height restriction label in the cab had been taken literally to correspond with the height warning restriction on the bridge, the bus should never have been driven under that bridge because technically it was too tall.