Manchester here we come

A Blackpool built bus to Manchester specifications stands outside the Museum at a previous Festival event.

The annual Christmas Transport Festival and the Museum of Transport in Manchester is a very well attended event from previous visits - choc a bloc

with stands featuring all kinds of memorabilia and artifacts.

Rigby Road Publishing is taking a stand for the first time at this year's event on

5th and 6th December. We will have our latest titles available together with the 2016 Heritage Tram Calendar: plus information on new books scheduled for the

next twelve months and future titles focussing on different era in Blackpool's transport history.

A centrepiece will be the amazing handbuilt model of one of Blackpool's exotic 'Gondola' buses of 1935 none of which now survive. Manchester's transport operation was of course a customer of HV Burlingham which supplied both the Airport coaches in the 1950s; plus a large contract for trolleybuses and double deck rear platform buses. So there has been a tangible Blackpool connection even if it didn't involve trams. Even Salford Corporation ordered a small batch of high quality double deck buses from HV Burlingham in the early 1950s.

We do not know where our modest stand is sited and no doubt we will be well hidden in what is a very busy event - probably the most important enthusiast and collectors show of its kind in the northwest. We look forward to seeing readers of our work and those with especial interest in this part of the northwest.