Allocations
4/80 New to Philadelphia depot
10/86 de-licensed{spare)
1/87 Winlaton
6/87 Percy Mane
4/89 Gateshead
7/89 Philadelphia
2/90 de-licensed
3/90 Philadelphia
6/90 Sunderland Park lane
2/97 Chester LE Street
3/99 Deptford
1/03 Gateshead Driver Training School
5/06 Withdrawn from Gateshead
26/5/06 Sold to The Northern National Restoration Group from Saltmedows Road body shop

Liveries
4/81 NBC poppy red
3/83 Tyne & Wear PTE livery
1/87 Northern red & white
3/92 Wear Busses green
10/2000 Go Wear Buses corporate livery

1980
UPT681V started life working from Sunderland’s Philadelphia depot in April 1980. As one of the second batches of National 2’s It worked many of the expresses turns that Philadelphia depot had at the time. Then in 1983 it was re pained from NBC poppy red into Tyne and Wear PTE livery and was put to work on their diagrams.

1986/7
In 1986 4681 was de-licensed and placed into a store with many other Nationals as spare. Then in 1987 it was revived and sent to Winlaton and then to Percy Maine panted now in Go-ahead Northern red and white livery. In 1989 4681 was at both Gateshead and then back to Philadelphia before having a month de-licensed. This was to be 4681’s last time de-licensed for another 15 years. Philadelphia had 4681 from 3/90 and was shared with Sunderland depot until it went to Chester LE Street in February 1997.

1996
Throughout the service life of 4681, it received only one major modification. The fitting of a Volvo engine and a Voth automatic gearbox. This was done at Hargreaves of Stockton in 1996. All the National 2’s had this modification done. This was done to lengthen the service life of the National 2 fleet enabling the fleet of easy access busses to become available. Although they did hang on for a long time after the introduction of the “low Floor” busses.

1999
In 1999 the first “Super depot” was constructed on wasteland at Deptford district in Sunderland. 4681 was transferred to Deptford in March 1999. This would be the last depot that 4681 would run as a PCV. 1997 was the start of Go Northeast’s Easy Access drive. The National’s day’s as front line bus was numbered.

2003

The training school based at Gateshead was allocated in 4681 in March 2003. To comply with training regulations' all but 2 rows of the saloon seats were removed and a seat was fitted next to the driver’s cab for the instructor to sit. This would give us a big job of refitting the seats later. In 2005 the Driving School was overrun with work so 4681 was shipped over to Instep Training in Ireland to assess Polish drivers for GNE so becoming the only GO Northeast bus to travel over and then return from Ireland.

2006 - Restoration
Early in 2006, we had started negotiations with GNE to save 4681. It was the only first batch National left in service with GNE at this time. Trying to secure a National 2 for preservation from GNE had been successful with FTN 700W (4700) being sold to Andrew Sewell and Ian Robinson. However, our dealing’s were on than we thought we had lost 4681 to the scrap man. Then it went to Ireland. Finally, on its return, 4681 was withdrawn and taken to Salt Meadow’s body repair shop. Hear all the company markings were removed. We set the date to collected 4681 for the 26th of May 2006 after agreeing on the sale price of £782+ VAT with GNE.

Most of the National fleet had the interior modernized when the Volvo engine was fitted. This meant that they lost the trademark “pod” as the heating system as changed. The floors were changed along with the handrails and seats. The step was changed to incorporate a lower step for easy access to conforming with the DIPTAK spec ordered by NEXUS. 4681 was one of the very few that did not receive the body “mods” and was left nearly in original condition. This was to be one of the very reasons that we wanted it and it was by now the only first batch National 2’s left in service with GNE. The National 2’s that had been given the full mid-life overhaul had so much work done to them that it would have been impossible to put back to original condition.

The first job that we undertook was to find a donor National that would give us the parts we needed to put 4681 back to when it was first in service in 1980. A line coaches from Pelaw Gateshead kindly donated us ex-United APT 117W (3117). We collected 3117 in January 2006. When we got it up to Saltersgate we began to strip it almost straight away. By November 2006 it was reduced to a shell as we needed almost everything it had on. All National’s cannot be saved as I had found out before when I tried to rescue UPT 666V. APT had a fracture in the chassis over a critical point above the rear wheel arches that extended the full width of the bus as 4666 had. The 0.680 engine and the phunosiclick gearbox will be fitted to 4681 once they are restored.

Our challenge was to restore a Leyland National 2 to a period almost 30 years ago using the materials that were used in its construction at the Leyland National plant in Workington Cumbria. The first thing that we did was to remove the nonoriginal rear panel work. When this was removed we found that years of tail swing damage had destroyed the rear pillar’s. This meant having to fit new ones that we got from Saltmedows or having to make new ones from scratch. The rear structure had also suffered heavily over the years with water corroding the rear steelwork which meant that it had to be removed and replaced. The Volvo engine will be removed along with the voith gearbox as they are non-original components. The refitting of the original equipment will be a long hard job.

Another development was in August 2006 the first preserved GNE National 2 shared the same home as 4681. 4700 stayed at Saltersgate when Craig was co-owner with Andrew Sewell for a time. This being the first time 2 preserved ex GNE National 2’s had shared the same home. This is when the Northern National Restoration Group was formed to Pool parts and equipment at one storage shed. Unfortunately, it was not to be for 4700 with Andrew and Ian friendship coming to an end. Ian leaving Andrew in sole charge of a bus that he could not drive or affords due to health problems. 4700 was sold to Chris Atkinson in February 2007 for restoration and preservation than on to Astly Coaches of Seaton Delivel for further service. By March 2008 4700 had moved again down to the southern end of the country.

The need for spare parts was recognized from the very start of the project. The part’s that GNE depot store’s still had were tendered for and taken to Saltersgate. The central stores at Saltmedows were helpful in allowing us to buy spares directly from them along with body panels and structural assembly that they still had. A line also donated a lot of parts that they did not need. When 4681’s restoration began we felt that we needed to get more equipment to allow us to make the work as easy as possible.

Go Northeast very kindly made available all the seats that were covered in NBC moquette fabric and many more parts that I had made them aware of and were off busses that GNE no longer had. The main item that they donated was a 10 tone hydraulic table lift. Once repaired this table was to become one of the main pieces of equipment that we have got. Not only will it remove the Volvo engine and fit the 0.680 it doubled as a work platform that allowed Barry to repair the cove panels and remove and fit side panels above the height of the windows.

4681 moved to our new depot in 2020 where work will continue, we hope to get 4681 on the road by 2023. The day of the move was captured, see the video.