Cleveland Transit

The bus services that had been controlled by Teesside Municipal Transport passed into the control of the Langbaurgh, Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees joint committeein 1974 and took on the new identity of Cleveland Transit. Hartlepool elected to continue on its own.

The new authority was soon looking to extend its influence in the county and when the East Cleveland operator, Saltburn Motor Services, came on the market it was bought. Its twenty-two vehicles and depots and services in East Cleveland were assimilated into the system.

Five depots were now operated, Stockton, Middlesbrough, South Bank, Guisborough and Saltburn.

These two ex-Saltburn depots were eventually closed in 1981 and 1982 respectively and the stock moved to South Bank.

The steady fall in passenger numbers continued, for a variety of reasons. Industrial decline meant that many fewer working journeys were taking place and the very rapid growth in personal car ownership took its toll. The operations were quite heavily subsidised by the local authorities, to enable services to be maintained.

New vehicle policy continued much as under T.M.T. but more coach bodied single-deck Leylands were bought and used on some of the longer routes. Double-deckers continued to be Daimler Fleetlines but now with normal height, single door Northern Counties bodies. As Fleetline production was being wound down in 1977, a batch of Bristol VRTs was obtained; these were relatively rare in municipal fleets.

As an economy measure South Bank depot, which had been the home of the "Trackless" till 1971, was closed in 1985 to be followed in 1988 by Middlesbrough. Stockton, with its modern facilities was able to cope with the engineering requirements of a shrinking fleet.

Bus service de-regulation came in October 1986 and the picture on Teesside changed almost overnight. Small independent operators, such as Beeston and Escort in Middlesbrough and Robson and Delta in Stockton, came on the scene but the main opposition came from United and the County Durham operator Trimdon Motor Services. It launched a subsidiary, to run services in the Stockton area, under the title Teesside Motor Services. Both of these companyies were subsequently bought by the holding company of United in 1990.

This was to herald a decade of intense competition with Transit launching a short lived intensive network of services in East Cleveland, particularly in the Redcar area which had long been a United stronghold. The Cleveland Coaches arm of Transit was expanded as a low cost operator spawning a Tees Valley operation in competition with independent operator, Leven Valley. Other anti-competition services was introduced under Hardwick Bus and 'ctl' fleet names.

National government was decreeing that bus services operated by local authorities should be sold off, and on May 1st 1991 a management-employee buy out was successfully carried out and Transit was no more, thus ending seventy years of municipal services on Teesside.


Ian Wilson

Coaches were painted in orange and jasmine . The logo was subsequently altered so that only the word Transit appeared in script between the arrowheads.

The 1988 livery was a much lighter shade of green with white window pans and roof and a yellow mid-panel relief for double-deckers. The single deck bus livery had more of the yellow on the lower panels, with green skirts and bumpers and a white roof. The logo was now a simpler text 'Transit' with an underscore. The single-deck coach fleet was finished in orange and cream and bore a script, 'Cleveland Coaches'.

The Tees Valley livery was identical to the Transit version but maroon was applied instead of green and a script 'Tees Valley' applied.