Picture of Ribble 1393 in NBC poppy red livery c. John Law. See http://nationalbusco.fotopic.net

Ribble became part of the National Bus Company (NBC) in 1968 formed by combining BET (owners of Ribble) with the nationalised Tilling group. NBC retained Tilling’s standardisation on Bristols but allowed Leyland dominated fleets to order Leylands. Following the success of a large fleet of Bristol RE single deckers amassed from 1968, Ribble was happy to buy the double deck VR equivalent initially (like 1997) but from 1973 dual sourced with the Atlantean. Eventually 186 Atlanteans and 83 Bristol VRs were bought between 1972 and 1980 before the new Leyland Olympian was adopted as standard.

Initially NBC’s Atlantean specification featured a Park Royal body and was specified by Southdown and London Country in addition to Ribble. 104 were acquired from 1973 to 1976 before switching to the ECW body used on the VR for its 1976 to 1980 batches. 1397 was one of the last batch of Park Royal examples and was new in March 1976. It was allocated to Bootle depot - indeed most of this type were based at either Aintree or Bootle for Ribble’s Merseyside services including the well known L3 from Crosby to Liverpool. The remainder were spread around Lancashire depots. 

In September 1986, the Merseyside operations were split from Ribble into newly formed North Western and 76 Park Royal Atlanteans were transferred to the new operating subsidiary in advance of privatisation. 1397 had a narrow escape moving to Kendal depot just before the change which was a complete contrast to its former territory. It moved back to urban operations with a transfer to Lancaster in October 1987.

Withdrawal came in September 1990 and 1397 was one of the last of its type with Ribble. It remained in Lancashire however, purchased by Hyndburn Transport – the former Accrington municipal fleet – and ran in their dark blue and red livery as a replacement for newer but more expensive to run Dennis Dominators. Here it lasted less than two years before moving to East Yorkshire Motor Services for services in Hull before moving to Manchester with the associated Fingland’s fleet in 1993.

Next stop was South Wales and the school bus fleet of Edwards of Pontypridd to be exact where it ran until 2001. After a period in store it crossed the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland with Lloyd Cooke Motors as a publicity vehicle from where it was purchased for private preservation in September 2006. Shipped over via ferry from Larne to Fleetwood it has joined the LTT collection and is currently under long term restoration by Busworks.