Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

East Midland Motor Services 
1958
Leyland Tiger Cub PSUC1/2
Willowbrook DP41F

Not an operator I know very much about but on researching this particular vehicle it would appear that it started its life with a fleet number of C40. I have come across a photo of XRR 535 C35 which was in a livery of all Cream with a single coloured band below the window did this vehicle start life as cream coach? I am not sure what their prefix fleet letters stood for ‘C’ For coach ‘D’ for double decker I can guess at but ‘R’ ‘O’ ‘L’ which were for single deckers do not mean much to me. If you know please leave a comment. It would appear that East Midland at one time had a livery of Chrome Yellow for the body, Cream for the lower saloon windows and Chocolate for the upper saloon windows and roof I bet that looked good, has anyone seen a colour shot. The livery at the time that the shot above was taken was Dark Red and Cream but that changed to Dark Green in the early seventies.

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I recall the original livery which was very distinctive! It was almost art deco- very thirties- and then went into a sort of drab utility maroon. The green was presumably NBC….?

Joe

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I vaguely remember these vehicles from my Sheffield childhood (on the Derbyshire border, towards Chesterfield).
I quite liked the maroon and cream – because I was not then aware of the original livery, which had disappeared by the time I was old enough to be aware of these things. It is possible that this livery was derived from that of Underwoods – the firm which became East Midland under BET control. The original livery adorned a RM in the short time that they plied the roads of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
Over a period of time – in BET times – East Midland became joint owner, along with Yorkshire Traction and North Western, of one of the greatest coach tour operators – nearby Sheffield United Tours.
East Midland became one of my favourite operators – which I used regularly – and I was sad when NBC leaf green replaced the drab maroon. This was especially so when my favourite (J – M) registered RE coaches lost their cream and maroon for NBC corporate livery.

David Oldfield

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In 1977, long before the RM already mentioned, East Midland repainted an Alexander bodied Fleetline in the old brown/cream/yellow livery to commemorate their 50th anniversary. One of the 1965 batch, but can’t recall which one. It should also be mentioned that the famous bus photographer Roy Marshall (who once worked in Nottingham and was thus familiar with EMMS’s original livery) later became the General Manager of Burnley & Pendle and adopted the same colour scheme for several of that Lancashire undertaking’s vehicles including some Y-type bodied Leopards and at least one VRT3/ECW double-decker.
Going off at a slight tangent, Roy Marshall also did a stint as the boss of Gelligaer UDC’s fleet and when he moved to East Staffordshire (Burton-on-Trent Corporation as it used to be) he repainted this Midland fleet in Gelligaer’s old livery of green, red, and white – a vast improvement over the gloomy maroon and cream previously used by Burton.
Does anybody know of any further examples where migrating General Managers have ‘taken the livery with them’?

Neville Mercer

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Can’t remember which way round it was but Halifax and Glasgow shared a livery due to a demonstrator in one fleet being borrowed by the operator who liked the livery and adopted it themselves.
There is also the apocryphal story of legal action when someone saw the old Bostock’s livery, liked it, adopted it and upset Bostock’s.

I also vaguely remember the Fleetline, now that Neville mentions it.

Trivia: Can anyone explain why, with a head office in Chesterfield, all East Midland buses had Nottinghamshire registrations?

David Oldfield

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The 1965 edition of BBF5 says that the R prefix was for 30-foot long dual purpose vehicles, but that can’t be right because it shows all the bus-seated 30-footers with R prefixes as well. L meant long – i.e. 36 feet.
Joining Neville on his tangent for a moment, did Geoffrey Hilditch once set up a coach fleet at Aberdare using Halifax livery? Or did I dream that? The memory does feel very much like a dream . . .

Peter Williamson

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According to the Prestige Series book on East Midland (excellent B&W photographs by G H F Atkins; text by John Banks) the old livery was derived from United, who abandoned it in 1930 in favour of red and cream. The company was originally W T Underwood of Clowne, but with strong backing from United (virtually a subsidiary).

As for the alpha-numeric number series, the type-series letter seems to have been allocated in a rather haphazard fashion. Note that only the single-deckers were distinguished in this way. All of the double-deckers were just series D, irrespective of chassis or body manufacturer.

However, unravelling the tangle it seems this is how it went for the single deckers (Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin…) :

G – 50 x ADC 416A (Short Bros.) 1927 – series allocated to EM by United
M – 10 x AEC Reliance (Lowestoft – later ECW) 1929 – series allocated to EM by United
N – 10 x AEC Regal (Short Bros) 1930 (some rebodied 1939 with Leyland bodies taken from 1935 TS7s, i.e. type B)
L – 20 x AEC Regal (Brush) 1931 (of which 3 were coaches, designated LC)
L – ? x AEC Regal 4 (Brush) 1933-34
C – 5 x Leyland KP2 Cub 1934
B – 20 x Leyland TS7 (10 Brush; 10 Leyland) 1935 (4 Brush rebodied 1949 by Willowbrook re-designated type N)
B – 14 x Leyland TS7 (5 Brush; 1 Burlingham coach; 8 Leyland) 1936
E – 30 x Leyland TS7 (ECW dual purpose) 1937 (6 rebodied 1948 by Willowbrook re-designated type N)
F – 11 x Leyland TS7 (ECW bus) 1938
A – 10 x AEC Regal (Weymann) 1946
A – 14 x AEC Regal III (Third-hand ! Leyland bodies)  1947-48 (rebodied 1952 by Willowbrook and re-designated type K)
AC – 2 x AEC Regal III (Windover coach) 1948
H – ? x AEC Regal III (Weymann) 1949
J – ? x AEC Regal III (Willowbrook) 1950
R – All underfloor engine buses from 1952-62 (all Leyland chassis)
C (Second time round) – All underfloor engine coaches and dual-purpose from 1954 onwards.
L – ? x Leyland Leopard buses from 1963 (Willowbrook)
O – ? x Bristol buses from 1969 (ECW)

N (Second time round!) – various re-bodies (see above) also 10 second hand Leyland TS7s purchased from YWD 1949 and subsequently re-bodied by Willowbrook.

Please note that this is not comprehensive, and takes no account of vehicles absorbed through takeover. There were certainly 5 x Bristol L5G (ECW) in 1938 and 2 x Bedford WTB (Duple) in 1939, for which no type letter is quoted.

Stephen Ford

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Someone mentioned East Midland having a Fleetline in the old brown livery. This was in fact an Atlantean PD1/2 fleet no D177 registration BNN 177C.
Chesterfield corporation also had Nottingham registrations as well.

Alan Ridge

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Chesterfield Corporation had NU and RA registrations – Derbyshire CC.

David Oldfield

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Does anyone have any photos of 163 URB163S a Bristol VRT or 193 PNN193F a Atlantean with the clipsone comets jazz band? or 589 GRB589N Leyland National.

Alan Ridge