After the war, the area around Liverpool served by Ribble saw large new housing and industrial development on the outskirts of Bootle as well as in the previously rural areas of Maghull and Lydiate. The new or extended services which had to be provided soon outstripped the capacities of Bootle and Liverpool depots, the latter consisting of just 3 small sheds inherited from Collingwood Motors which could only garage very few vehicles. The new depot at Aintree was ideally situated to handle the growing demand without the problem of excessive dead mileage.

In those days the demand for peak-hour extras, with much of the fleet only required at these times, resulted in a very high proportion of split duties which were not very popular - especially with those who lived some distance away. Personally I didn't mind too much as I lived only a short walk from the depot.

Our compensation was the great variety of stage-carriage routes covered, many as duplicates for Liverpool and Bootle's routes, extending as far afield as St. Helens and Southport via Crosby in addition to our own routes, to Southport via Halsall, Ormskirk, Preston, Preston to Southport and to Chorley via Parbold on the 311 which was later extended to Blackburn. We only worked as far as Chorley where we exchanged vehicles with Blackburn or Chorley crews.

All this was quite a surprise to me after working for Liverpool Corporation on purely local routes. I had worked at Green Lane, Edge Lane, Walton, and occasionally Litherland and thus worked on joint services for both the Corporation and Ribble. Needless to say, the variety at Aintree was much appreciated, apart from the aforementioned joint routes which were detested by one and all. Fortunately most of these were worked by Bootle depot, but Ribble crews generally did not like being under the jurisdiction of Corporation inspectors, some of whom seemed to find great joy in chasing after Ribbles just to find faults.

I mentioned earlier the changeovers at Chorley, there being great anticipation on my part wondering what bus would be on the return working. It could be anything from an elderly TD4 with post-war Burlingham highbridge body (cab doors were hinged at the rear making them very awkward) to my favourite, Burlingham bodied PD2/12 number 1466 which still exists today.

Not only did AY cover stage-carriage dupes but was also responsible for most express dupes as well. Consequently routes ranged from the 12 minute 54 from Netherton to Seaforth right through to the 12 hour duty Liverpool to Torquay which duplicated the Paignton service coach worked by AW, though of course the express work was summer only. During the winter coaches were stored at AY along with extended tours coaches. Also in the summer were the various day excursions, etc., normally worked by senior drivers known as "The Top Fifteen" and rarely coming the way of those lower down the seniority list. Coach driving was known throughout the area as "Big Wheel Jobs" , some of which would usually reach drivers who had perhaps 2 years service behind them or even less during July and August. Surprisingly this was invariably on the Westlinks routes (Cheltenham - Bristol - Torquay or perhaps Glasgow, Edinburgh or Scarborough) as some of the more senior drivers wouldn't entertain such duties, opting instead for going no further than Blackpool or Morecambe.

At that time the Scarboroughs, Keswicks, etc. had a conductor on every vehicle whereas the South-West services had only one conductor who worked every vehicle in turn. Incidentally conductors on Merseyside, be they Ribble or Corporation were unusually known as guards. Did this apply elsewhere I wonder?

Being a brand-new depot, the staff had the luxury of excellent facilities, canteen etc., while the traffic and cashing-in offices plus enquiry and booking offices were equally good, and this applied also to the garage and engineering workshops.

The early (5am) standby, if not immediately required for a service, spent the first hour starting up the buses in the garage (after checking the oil, of course), and driving them to the exit door to top-up radiators, the latter job being the responsibility of the standby conductor (guard). However if he had already been required to cover a duty, the driver had to perform this task alone, a very tiring job, climbing in and out of half-cab vehicles and taking each one down the yard and walking back for the next one. Personally I made it slightly easier by drawing up to the hose-pipe and passing through the door to the opposite window, then leaning out to reach the filler-cap.

One or two guards (hopeful future drivers?) would get fed-up just filling radiators and join in the task of driving buses into - all quite unofficially of course, but with little risk of discovery as there was no night fitter at AY, any late evening emergency being covered by Bootle, which was the main Merseyside depot.

When we had the Guys, starting up on cold mornings meant keeping a finger on the starter button for about two minutes until the revs gradually built up and the garage rapidly filled with a dense fog! This also applied to some of the Leyland TD5s. During the early fifties, there was a variety of vehicles allocated to AY. I still possess all my duty diaries, right through from my service with Liverpool Corporation and Ribble, and including a spell with Crosville, then Ribble again at Liverpool depot. I had the foresight to record every vehicle I worked on and now I consider them as quite interesting archive material!

The bulk of our fleet consisted of Leyland PD1s & PD2s, both highbridge and lowbridge, for the all-day services. The PD1s could usually be found on the easy-timed routes, such as the 302 to Southport, but never on joint services. The 26xx batch of PD2s, diverted from a South African (Cape Town) order, were mainly used on the Bootle area L.C.P.T. joint services, and surprisingly on the long trunk routes, Liverpool - Preston and Preston - Southport, although they were quite spartan, with Green leather seats and retro-fitted Clayton heaters which, unlike those on the lowbridge type, were virtually useless. The 25xx lowbridge type could mainly on the Lydiate/Maghull routes but again rarely on joint services.

As mentioned earlier, much of Aintree's work was on peak-hour extras, resulting in more than half the duties being split turns. This resulted in a large allocation of elderly vehicles, mainly rebodied TD5s, both Alexander and ECW, many of the former being converted to 8-feet wide. These always seemed to me to be rather sluggish performers compared to the 7ft 6in variety. When I see the resplendent 2057 at present day rallies, it reminds me again of our own 2050, but this one had a permanent list to Port.

All our double-deckers had crash gearboxes, there being no synchromesh vehicles at all until the arrival of the new Orion bodied 1381 type. These were to oust Guy Utilities and one or two highbridge Burlinghams which disappeared soon after I started at AY.

The fleet of saloons at that time were nearly all Leyland bodied Royal Tigers, these being required for the "back road" routes to Ormskirk via Melling (301) and Skelmersdale (201) both of which, together with short workings had to pass over a weak bridge at Waddicar. The basic service, hourly, required one bus on each route but there were the above mentioned "turn-backs" mainly peak hours to such places as Hen & Chickens, Pear Tree and Derby Arms, also a spasmodic service to Melling Rock which always showed "307, blank" . 

Ribble seemed to delight in putting pub names on destination blinds without any indication of their locality. Derby Arms being a common pub name in the area, made such practices unhelpful to strangers. We had a works service to Melling B.I. cable works, where we met up with St. Helens Corporation RTs. This also had to be covered by a Royal Tiger with a more than generous standing load. Eventually the offending bridge could no longer accept even a loaded saloon and its passengers had to alight, walk across and re-board at the other side. A replacement bridge was eventually built, enabling 'deckers to take over from the Royal Tigers on the 201 & 301.

When our "new" double-deckers arrived they turned out to be two more TD5s, 1913 and 2048; which became the only ones in all day service as they were allocated for many months to the 201/301 services before eventually drifting onto duplicate work elsewhere, their places being taken by PD1s.

The only other saloons were a few pre-war examples with original bodies which rattled and squeaked, being eventually withdrawn and replaced by the very fine Burlingham 35-seat bodied PS2s, very fast and very popular. Examples allocated to AY were 237 and 244. On the coach side there were still some Duple 31-seater halfcabs and Frenchwood rebuilt examples used on the shorter excursions and express duplicates. All the others were Leyland bodied Royal Tigers plus the Burlingham Seagull bodied tour coaches.

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