Coventry Buses - past and present

Those 'H' & 'S' plates. When Sandy Lane bus garage opened in September 1954, the easiest way to split the fleet of buses between that garage and the Harnall Lane garage was to allocate those buses with an odd fleet number to the new garage in Sandy Lane, and, those with an even number to Harnall Lane. That only happened up to 1964. From 1965 onwards, new buses added to the fleet did not follow on with that. The WMPTE did reintroduce that system during the early 1980s. Derek L. Hyde became General Manager in August 1969 and it was his idea of those 'H' & 'S' plates so the inspectors in Broadgate & Pool Meadow could see at a glance from which garage a bus was allocated too. It had nothing to do with maintenance at all. One or two buses may have had them fitted in late 1969, but, it was from 1970 onwards that the whole fleet had them and all new buses joining the fleet. They were still fitted after 1974 into the WMPTE era.

Thank you 20A-Manor House for confirmation of the H & S plates. I probably wrongly used the wording linking allocation to maintenance. However, having the confirmation of why and when was interesting, Many thanks.