Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester

Red Dragon returns to Manchester’s streets

14 October 2008

50 years ago, all of Manchester’s double deck buses looked the same with engines at the front and an open platform at the back.

In 1958 Leyland built a revolutionary new design of bus. The entrance was at the front and, with a break from tradition, the engine was at the back. These new buses were named Leyland Atlanteans.

Manchester ordered 10 of these new Atlanteans and they were some of the first to operate in the country. The Red Dragons (as they were known), were very different from the older buses with their front entrances and much larger size. They worked in the city until 1972 and although some were scrapped, a small number were exported to Queensland in Australia, where they were used on school services for a further twenty years.

However you don’t have to travel across the globe to see one of these unique early Atlanteans because a local enthusiast purchased one in 1991. The bus, Manchester fleetnumber 3629, was shipped back to Felixstowe on a Russian container ship and it has taken many years of hard work to restore it. The Greater Manchester Transport Society is hosting a special event to celebrate fifty years of the Leyland Atlantean at the Museum of Transport in Manchester over the weekend of October 18th and 19th. 3629 now carries its original Manchester livery and you will be able to ride on it at the special event. There will also be a display of rear engined buses from many of the local bus operators such as Ribble and SELNEC, as well as from further afield.

Free heritage buses will shuttle between the Museum of Transport in Boyle Street, Cheetham Hill and Manchester’s Victoria rail and Metrolink station on both days from 1000 to 1700, with other excursions happening too, and inside the Museum the memories will carry on with everything from staff outing snapshots to timetables, posters and other reminders of Manchester’s Red Dragons.

“We are really looking forward to this event” said Museum Spokesman Paul Williams. “Anyone who remembers the original Red Dragon buses has fond memories of them. There’ll be lots going on to see and do, and most of all families will get the chance to ride on the buses that you would see on the road thirty or forty years ago."

Ends

Notes to Editors

The Museum of Transport is in Boyle Street, Cheetham, Manchester and is open to the public every Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday. An admission charge applies. The Museum is a partnership between the volunteers and the Greater Manchester Transport Society and GMPTE, the public body which supports and co-ordinates public transport in Greater Manchester. Telephone 0161 205 2122 or visit www.gmts.co.uk.