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Before and after here! First the Leyland PD3, Tyneside No. 49, is seen travelling east at New
Bridge Street in early 1970. This service was a jointly operated with Tyneside PTE on a five minute frequency between Croft Street and Wallsend, with alternate buses operated by Tyneside
going onwards to North Shields.
Tyneside was wholly owned by Northern General Transport since 1936, being then Tyneside
Tramways.
During 1972 this Metropolitan Cammell Weymann body was butchered at Bensham central works,
with some suspicious Park Royal bits added, and the Leyland chassis had an Atlantean style Wilson pneumo-epicyclic semi automatic transmission added. The driver's position was moved back so
that this monstrosity could be one person operated.
Here it is seen navigating the road works during the creation of the Central Motorway at New
Bridge Street in August 1972. It was numbered 3000 in the NGT fleet. After an initial flurry of activity it lay idle except for emergency outings from the end of 1972 and its disposal and
scrapping in October 1978. The experiment was a consummate disaster.
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