The origins of this group can be traced back to 1973 when Doncaster Corporation Transport AEC Regent V no. 144 (TDT344) was purchased for preservation by my father Don Penney. 144 was totally restored to its original condition, and was soon joined by identical AEC Regent V TDT341, Doncaster Corpoation 141. 141 was converted into a towing vehicle and performed many years of useful service at the Sandtoft Transport centre towing trolley buses around the site. It is probably this vehicle that sparked my interest in recovery vehicles converted from old buses. Regretably both vehicles had to be sold in the mid 1980's, 141 was scrapped by Rollinsons of Barnsley in 1986. 144 was initally sold also to Rollinsons but happily it was resold to Earnside Coaches of Glenfarg near Perth in Scotland for use as a driver training vehicle. It was later rescued for further preservation by the Rother Valley Road Transport group and is currenty in storage at their premises in Derbyshire.
Fast forward to 1994 and whilst at South Yorkshire PTE's (SYPTE) Greenland Road depot trying to photograph their towing wagon M18 (BWW654B), a friendly garage fitter mentioned that there was another tow wagon up on the top bank behind the garage. This vehicle turned out to be former Doncaster Transport Leyland Titan PD3 no. 175 (475HDT) although by now it was known as SYPTE M3 (OWJ353A). M3 was the tow wagon from the then recently closed Herries Road garage in Sheffield. Although it was fairly decrepit, it was complete and originally a Doncaster vehicle, we decided to enquire to see if it was available for preservation. It was and a month later we were the new owners of it. Over the next four years it was completely restored, being repainted in 1998 in its last livery which was SYT's deregulation livery of cream, brown and red.
1999 brought the opportunity to purchase sister tow wagon M4 - OWJ354A (Doncaster 176 - 476HDT) from Mainline, as SYT had now been renamed to, at Rotherham garage. M4 joined the group in March '99.
2000 saw the fleet size double from two to four with the purchase in August of another tow wagon, former Sheffield Transport 913 (3913WE) by now Mainline M10 (OWJ357A). This vehicle was Halfway garages tow wagon and had actually been withdrawn since 1998. It was only purchased as a source of spare parts and was stored complete for two years until April 2002 when it was passed to Darren Senence and Paul Fox of Sheffield for preservation. M10 has now been fully restored to its 1978 as converted condition, painted in the original version of SYPTE livery.
Our other purchase was of former Blackpool Corporation Leyland PD3 no. 506 (HFR506E). New in 1968 506 was withdrawn in 1985 and converted into a mobile mess room for the gangs of workers who repair the Blackpool Tramway track and permanant way. It was withdrawn finally in the summer of 2000 and was actually the last PD3 owned by any desendent of Blackpool Corpoation. It was purchased by us for use as a source of spare parts and remains complete in storage.
In 2002 we were fortunate to aquire another SYPTE tow wagon in the form of M18 (BWW654B) the one we were chasing almost ten years previously! See M18's page for more.
Our preservation efforts took a turn in direction in 2003. SYPTE Dennis Dominator 2214 (NKU214X) joined the group in March of that year (more on 2214's own page). Continuing the Dominator theme into 2004 we purchased a former Fylde Borough Transport Leyland Atlantean no98 - PHG98X, which by then was masquerading as Blackpool Transport 442 (HIL5942). We swapped this with Pilkingtons of Accrington for another SYPTE Dennis Dominator no2152 (PIB8072, originally NKU152X).
2152 was purchased purely as a source of spare parts. After being cannibalised for parts it was sold for scrap in February 2005, although later that month we took delivery of another Dennis Dominator from First South Yorkshire 30420 (ex 2260) SDT260Y.
Check out the other pages on this site, Each vehicle has its own page!
