Sunday 7 December 1986 – In July 1985 the Yelloway business which had been managed by the Allen family for more than 50 years was sold to a new owner. Changes ensued which might have portrayed an air of an optimistic future that sadly was not going to be.

The new owner was Carlton PSV (ATL Holdings), the UK Neoplan dealership and a number of secondhand Neoplan vehicles were transferred to Yelloway which, on the face of it, might have inspired a confident future. However, the new owner chose to hand over the Yelloway long distance coach services to National Express for which Yelloway then became a contracted operator.

PSR 793Y, a Neoplan Skyliner N116, was seen parked in Milton Street, Rochdale near the Garage/Coach Station at Weir Street.

A National Express paper label in the upper windscreen reads ‘520 Bradford’. The orange and red board in the lower windscreen (colours long used by the old company for its paper destination labels) contains the sunrise motif with the words ‘National Express Service’ followed by a service number written on a piece of paper.

It was probably new to Stagecoach, Perth in late 1982/early 1983 for operation on the deregulated coach services from Scotland to London.

(My research shows Stagecoach had five ‘Y’ registration Skyliners registered NES 481/2Y, NSP 823Y and MVL 607/8Y. A number of the coaches in the Stagecoach fleet later received dateless registrations and when the vehicles were sold they were re-registered with registrations that were different to those originally carried).