THE GREENSLADES COACHES IMAGE GALLERY

South West England
Greenslades
Page 2
In the late sixties the Harrington Reliances were earning their keep in earnest. Bristol's Marlborough Street Bus Station was a coaching hub with Reliance 541CFJ heading off to Blackpool. A Southdown Duple Commander bodied Leopard waits in the background whilst Bristol's country bus fleet is much in evidence.
 
This Cavalier was new to Devon General's Grey Cars fleet in 1964 a 3 (3RDV). With the establishment of the National Bus Company and consequent reorganisation, the Grey Car operations were merged with Greenslades. Fleets across the west - Bristol Greyhound, Royal Blue, Red & White, Black & White amongst them - adopted a new unified white livery each with an individual colour band with Macrogamma Bold fleetnames, all a prelude to the National Express identity. Greenslades got turquoise as its colour and 3RDV, now numbered 433, is seen in Maidenhead Bus Station in 1974 on a Royal Blue working.
 
Greenslades was primarily a tour operator and in 1971 they received an allocation of Plaxton Panorama Elite bodied Bristol RELH coaches for this work. The Elite coaches were frequent visitors to the The Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern when on tour. Note the coach doors fitted to these NBC supplied coaches.
 
Amongst the last coaches ordered without undue corporate interference was NFJ621G, the middle of a batch of five delievered in 1969. By then Brighton based Harringtons had passed into history so bodies from Blackpool based Duple (Northern) were ordered. The coach is also at Malvern's Abbey Hotel in 1971 whilst on a Scottish tour.
 
By the mid seventies the identity of Greenslades was fast disappearing into a sea of NATIONAL white as can be seen in this view of the depot in Exeter taken from the Great Western Plymouth bound railway line.
South West England
Greenslades
Page 2