Search results for ""author cliff beeton""

The railways around Stoke-on-Trent have always tended to be overlooked by enthusiasts as they turned their attention to the more glamorous and much busier activities around neighbouring Crewe, but interesting traffic can still be found in the area. Freight has always played its part with the local collieries supplying coal to the power stations and the Shelton Iron & Steel works receiving and dispatching finished products. The local pottery industry also received china clay by rail. Passenger trains were found in the form of local trains to Derby and Crewe and expresses to London, Manchester and the Midlands and the West Country, supplemented at holiday times by specials to Blackpool and North Wales. In the last few decades freight traffic has declined, but with the new Land Recovery site at Pinnox Sidings and the Electromotive locomotive repair works at the former Railfreight depot at Longport the variety has recently increased again. Privatisation has brought a multitude of different

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In this book, Cliff Beeton looks at the plethora of independent operators that have, alongside PMT, provided bus services in and around Stoke. Operators featured here include Berresfords, Stoniers and Turners, who were later swallowed up by the ever-expanding PMT, and the likes of Procters, Pooles Coachways and Stevensons, who eventually fell by the wayside or were sold to larger groups. Local coach operators like Bakers of Biddulph, Copelands, Scraggs, Ladyline and Stanways expanded into buses after deregulation, alongside new starters like Knotty Bus, Wardle Transport, D&G Bus, RML Travel, Midland Classic, Stantons of Stoke, and Select Bus Services. These all added further variety to the local bus scene. With previously unpublished images throughout, this book celebrates the variety of buses in and around the city.

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