The Merseyside Transport Trust

This bus is one of the batch of Leyland Atlantean PDR1/2s with Northern Counties bodies that were originally to be bodied by Massey until their takeover by NCME. The batch was 155-167 (LCM 155G etc) and they were the second batch of rear engined buses delivered to Birkenhead. The first batch were 101-109 (RCM 501-RCM 509), Daimler Fleetlines with MCW bodies.

When delivered, 159 entered service in September 1968, they were crew-operated buses but after Birkenhead introduced One Man Operation in November 1969 they were fitted with Johnson fareboxes along with the recently delivered Atlanteans for routes 2 and 6 (Oxton Circles). The bus was transferred in December 1969 to Merseyside PTE and repainted in blue and cream PTE livery.

With the need to update the ageing Wallasey fleet, a number of these buses and some of the newly-delivered Atlanteans of the OBG-J batch were allocated to Seaview Road. 159 was one of these involved. A fairly routine life was had by 159 between the early 1970's and its withdrawal in early 1982. It was repainted Verona green and then later with brown trim and blue divisional logos.

However, with the delivery of XEM-W registered Atlanteans to Seaview Road and then the later ACM-X batch, the ex Birkenhead Atlanteans were withdrawn from service quite rapidly. 159 was saved from the scrapyard and was purchased and parked up in the grounds of Withens Lane College, Wallasey before being moved to Birkenhead Docks to the warehouses run by Vic Panter. Here the bus had its interior stripped and converted into an exhibition bus.

On Friday 13 July 1984, the bus made a public appearance in Liscard painted in Jonquil and brown trim proclaiming to be the Wallasey Community Bus, complete with Wallasey coat of arms! In this guise it lasted until the late 1980's/early 1990's. A notice on the bus that day said the top deck was dedicated to the late Eileen Hughes who had helped buy the bus and had passed away before it was completed.

The bus was seen in Squibbs factory at Leasowe Station and then vanished. It was reported in Salford and a pub car park on the A56 near Lymm. There was a brief period of invisibility until it surfaced in late 1999 at a boat yard in Lymm. Here the bus stayed until rescued by the MTT & removed to Burscough in May 2009.

This is the last known survivior of the Birkenhead Atlanteans trom fleetnumbers 155 to 195 and the two single deckers which were 95 and 96. 159 is dry-stored awaiting restoration.