Articulated buses, or ‘bendy buses,’ have long held a fascination for many people in the UK, in the same way that our oh-so-common double-deckers are fascinating to tourists from around the world, especially if they’re the big red London variety. Despite their use in a number of cities around the country – Aberdeen, Bath, Cardiff , Glasgow, Manchester Swansea and York come to mind – as well as on specialist routes such as at the Eden Project and airport services, they’ve never been a common type, but the trials of MAN and Leyland vehicles in Sheff ield from 1979, along with the subsequent long service of the city’s fleet of Leyland DAB ‘artics’ is always a popular and interesting topic.
Over the late May bank holiday weekend, articulated buses returned to services in Sheffield for what was ostensibly the first time since the withdrawal of the DABs by First Mainline in 1999, operating on tram replacement services, though a Citaro was used on shuttle services during an event at Chatsworth House in the nearby Peak District more recently.
Reader John Breakall got in touch with memories of the vehicles, recalling: “My late dad used to drive them, and I used to go with him on a Saturday. I used to love it, and it was nice to be able to tell my two girls about their granddad driving the buses and our time on them together. My dad was one on the first drivers to drive number 2001 in 1985 for the open day at SYT’s now-closed Greenland Road garage. He even drove one to York once, taking a group of school children to the railway museum there.”
The three bendy buses on the tram replacement were all Mercedes-Benz Citaros that were new to First York, but then went to First Aberdeen and are now owned by City Transport.
City Transport was one of a number of operators engaged on tram replacement services over the bank holiday weekend in Sheffield, the others using more conventional vehicles. Whilst there are none left in regular service, a number of articulated buses are still in use around the country, others including as cruise ship shuttles in Orkney, and as regular readers will know, others have entered preservation, including First’s Mercedes-Benz O405G and a Nottingham City Transport Wright Solar Fusion.
One of the Sheffield DABs, 2013, survives not far from its home city, preserved by the South Yorkshire Transport Trust in Rotherham, where it is almost complete and has been returned to the bright yellow livery of Mainline. New in 1985 it was one of 13 for the operator, made up of 10 standard three-door vehicles to operate the City Clipper route in Sheffield city centre, and three, including 2013, with two doors and coach seats for the former Dearneways service X91 which took them to Rotherham and on to the nearby town of Thurnscoe on a route which passed beneath a low bridge. The artics were later used to launch a new ‘Meadowhall Express’ brand when the new large out of town shopping centre at Meadowhall opened in September 1990, but by the end of the decade, with parts becoming harder to source and the low-floor revolution taking hold, their days were numbered.
