The Last Nationals
Written by Marcus Green
4681 in its Wear Buses days copyright Brian Carter
By the spring of 2003, Go North East’s Leyland National Mk2s had entered what would be their final year of revenue-earning service. This article hopes to piece together the last fleet movements involving the Nationals using the fleet archive listed in the ‘Enthusiast Area’ on the Go North East website. Withdrawals which may have taken place within the stated timeframe but are not explicitly referenced within the archive will be omitted. Every transfer will be denoted by the fleet number being in italics and each withdrawal will be denoted by the fleet number being in bold.
The first half of 2003 suggests that Nationals were moved around largely to plug gaps and replace less reliable/economically viable siblings. In January, 4681, 4706 and 4707 were transferred to the driver training fleet at Sunderland Road to enable the disposal of older training vehicles. In February, 4704 was transferred from Sunderland Road to Winlaton, and 4695 was disposed of at the end of the month. This was followed by the transfer of Nexus contract boards in March which saw 4699 move from Sunderland Road to Chester-le-Street alongside Metrobuses 3634, 3762 and 3765 - the lattermost being dedicated to scholars boards and sporting the iconic early 2000s school bus livery. Further contract work changes saw 4703 transfer from Sunderland Road to Chester-le-Street in May. Another change in May 2003 was the reinstatement of previously-withdrawn 4679 at Deptford and the withdrawal of 4701 there in its place. 4679 found itself moving to Washington just a month later to replace 4677 which was withdrawn.
Fleet changes during the latter half of 2003 saw much more advanced removals from the fleet. Changes to school contracts in September enabled the withdrawal of 4663 and 4694, the former being sold to Ensign. 4671, 4683 and 4685 were subsequently moved from Deptford to Washington, and 4678, 4679, 4680, 4684, 4688 and 4708 were withdrawn on the 31st October. Those six were disposed of one week thereafter on 7th November. In early December 2003, 4685 was withdrawn, and 4686, 4697, 4709, 4712 and 4714 were withdrawn on 29th December 2003 in line with peak vehicle requirement reductions. This appears to have left 4668-70/72/83/91/99 and 4700/02/03/05/13/15/19/20/21 still in revenue-earning service at the turn of 2004.
From this point, it seems Nationals were no longer transferred between depots – aside from for reinstatement – and were generally withdrawn in groups in line with major fleet alterations. By this stage, many Nationals were allocated to less laborious and profitable duties such as the 809 service at Chester-le-Street between there and the Metrocentre and the similar 183 service at Washington. The first withdrawals of 2004 took place with effect from 12th January. Movements that followed the arrival of 53-plate Mini Pointer Darts 554-572 at South Shields and 573/574 at Chester-le-Street enabled the displacement of six further Nationals, five of which bore Go Coastline fleet vinyls: 4668, 4669 and 4691 from South Shields and 4670 and 4702 from Percy Main. An additional withdrawal was 4705 from Chester-le-Street, the last example to still carry the rear roof pod to accommodate the air conditioning and heating systems.
Three further withdrawals are listed on the 30th January – 4699 and 4719 from Chester-le-Street and 4720 from Stanley – the latter being the last of the type standing at Stanley, a depot synonymous with the Nationals since their very introduction. Three weeks later on the 20th February, 4719 was reinstated at Chester-le-Street, presumably to cover for the loss of 4703, which is listed as withdrawn a week later on the 27th February. On the 30th April 2004, fleet-wide service changes which saw movements take place between most depots saw the final six Nationals be removed from revenue-earning service. These included: 4672 and 4715, both of which were allocated to Sunderland Road and still bearing Go Gateshead fleet names; 4683 from Washington, the only National to make it into 2004 still sporting Go Wear Buses vinyls; 4700, wearing the by now near-extinct Go Coastline fleet names, from Percy Main; then 4719 and 4721 from Chester-le-Street, the former of which bore a mix of Go Northern and Go North East fleet names, the latter bearing just Go Northern vinyls.
This marks the end of Nationals being used for service work within the Go North East fleet.