Leyland Royal Tiger

Mexborough & Swinton Leyland Royal Tiger

Bus enthusiasts in South Yorkshire will be particularly pleased to see this refreshing release of the Leyland Royal Tiger coach, decorated in the colour scheme of bright leaf green and cream of the Mexborough & Swinton Traction Co. Ltd.

The company, founded in October 1912, was based in Rawmarsh near Rotherham in the then West Riding of Yorkshire and they introduced the Leyland Tigers towards the end of their highly successful trolleybus era in the early 1950s. The company went on right until the late 1960s, developing a close relationship with Yorkshire Traction, which they then became part of before both were consumed into the National Bus Company in 1969.

The Leyland Royal Tigers, used by many of the major bus companies were manufactured between 1950 and 1954 and featured an underfloor engine on a heavyweight bus or coach chassis.

Here we see our coach, registered LUF 637, off to Wembley under Private Hire. The post-war colour scheme superseded the original brown and red corporate colour scheme and looks very cheerful, especially with the wealth of chrome and the gold company lettering along the sides. The green masking extends to the wheel centres too, while the interior seating is moulded in tan.

Note too, the famous Leyland Royal Tiger leaping out of the badge under the windscreen.

With the vehicle’s statutory 30 mph speed limit in place, as printed on the side of the bus, it would have taken quite a while to get to Wembley down the old Great North Road but who knows, there may have been a football match at the end of it!