The Halifax Corporation livery was similar to the Glasgow Corporation livery because it was adopted after Halifax borrowed a Glasgow liveried bus as a demonstrator. The fleet had worn a blue and white livery until, in 1924, the new General Manager prompted a change to red and cream. The Glasgow Corporation livery of green and orange worn by former AEC Regent demonstrator MT 2114, delivered early in 1930, so impressed the Tramways Committee that it was adopted as Halifax’s standard livery. The livery lasted until the Halifax fleet was absorbed into the West Yorkshire PTE in 1974.
The same livery as Halifax Corporation is now being used by an independent operator, 'Halifax Joint Committee' which operates a few routes around Halifax. This operator is nothing to do with the original Halifax Joint Omnibus Committee which was the half railways owned and half Corporation owned part of the Halifax municipal operation which operated routes that crossed the former County Borough Boundary.
The Halifax Corporation fleet, which was 100% Corporation owned, operated routes that were entirely within the County Borough Boundary. There were no differences in livery between the two sections of the fleet but they could easily be identified by different fleet number sequences. The Corporation fleet had lower numbers with the Joint Omnibus Committee fleet having numbers starting at '200'. Halifax used a ‘reversed’ version of the livery on some single-deck vehicles used as dual purpose or coaches with cream below the window line and green above with an orange waistband between. When the Metropolitan Counties were being set up in the early 1970's, Halifax took over the Todmorden Joint Omnibus Committee fleet and a couple of Todmorden’s lowbridge Leyland PD2's were painted in the Halifax livery which suited them very well.
The Halifax fleet was always well turned out and was sadly missed in the area after the setting up of the PTE.
Philip Halstead
01/2011
27/02/11
The Glasgow livery would have fitted in well in Halifax. There are several versions of the story of how Halifax came to adopt the Glasgow livery in 1929; the one linked to the AEC Regent demonstrator MT 2114 has been disproved as this bus was not in Glasgow livery at the time of its visit to Halfax. Even Geoffrey Hilditch is now not sure of the actual reason!
Geoff Kerr
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