New To: Nottingham City Transport

Chassis: Leyland Atlantean AN68/1R 8100387

Body: Northern Counties 2078 H47/31D 

 History

Delivered in September 1981 to Nottingham City Transport as part of a batch of 20 similar vehicles, 433 is fitted with a Northern Counties Double Deck body, seating a total of 78 passengers, 47 upstairs and 31 downstairs. It was one of the penultimate batch of Atlanteans supplied to NCT.

It is built to what is known as the “Nottingham Standard” design, which gave Nottingham’s buses a distinctive look for many years. The Nottingham Standard included many features such as, an angled destination allowing it to be viewed easier, higher internal ceilings, a front bumper to reduce accident damage, curved upper deck front windows, curved windscreens and a standardisation of parts between different vehicles for ease of maintenance.

The bus was repainted twice during its time with NCT, once in 1985 and then in November 1989. Withdrawn in December 1998 the bus spent four months in store at Gotham Depot prior to purchase by Wellglade subsidiary Kinchbus in March 1999 for operation on school services in the Loughborough area. Here it was operated for two and a half years. Throughout this period it carried Kinchbus names and NCT livery. The bus then passed to Paul S.Winson Coaches of Loughborough, who operated it from August 2001 till July 2002. 

433 was acquired by Nottingham Heritage Vehicles in July 2002. It stood from September 2002 until April 2007 when restoration started. All the outer panels were removed to enable the framework to be inspected. Unfortunately the steel former anchored to the ’T’ section framework was found to be rotten throughout the vehicle. This led to the pillars below the upper deck floor rail being replaced with new sections. Once completed all the inner panels were treated with anti-rust coatings and new outer panels fitted.

All the lower deck window pans have been removed leading to three being replaced due to aluminum corrosion. By August 2007 the bus was starting to look a little healthier with all the between deck panels refitted and the lower saloon structural work completed.

All remaining panels were replaced, two new entrance steps created from framework upwards, the interior panels at the rear removed and replaced with those from 432 & the nearside roof reskinned to replace those panels that lost their battle with the trees. Unfortunately this proved to be every bay! We have replaced the step nosing on the entrance steps, fitted better door brushes, rubbed down the entire vehicle and finally prepared it for its test and subsequent trip to the painters. It was decided to have this vehicle brush painted. All the windows were removed and they were refitted with new rubber extrusions once the paint had been applied.

Interestingly, despite having operated for three bus companies, 433 has only ever run in Nottingham livery, having not been painted since 1989 before we repainted it.

Relevance To The Collection

This is another example of the Nottingham Standard bus, and 433 represents one of the last styles of the Leyland Atlantean supplied to NCT.