Photo © John Stringer. Please do not re-post without permission.

West Yorkshire PTE (Calderdale District) 3231, OCP231, a Leyland Leopard L2 with Weymann B44F body, new to Halifax JOC (231) in 1961; on the right is 3268, DJX143D, a Leyland Leopard L2 with Willowbrook B41F body, new to HJOC (268) in 1966.
It had been intended to purchase sixteen L-type Leopards with Weymann B34D+standees bodies - eight each for the Corporation and the Joint Committee - for delivery in 1962. However the notion of standee buses was rather a revolutionary idea to the members of the Corporation's Transport Committee, who insisted that just one to that specification be tried out first before committing themselves. Consequently 231 arrived in 1961 in that form but after being tried out briefly on a variety of routes met unanimous opposition from all quarters, then for a short time tended to live a shadowy life banished to work the Field Lane and Oaklands local routes in Brighouse. It was based on an L2 coach chassis and aside from its body layout was extremely unpopular with the drivers, being said to have a very difficult gearbox. It may well have been that it had the GB83 gearbox with synchromesh on just third and fourth gears - something that would have proved a pain on Halifax's hilly routes, whereas all their other Leylands had stuck with the original GB63 box with synchromesh also on 2nd. It was soon returned to Weymann's to be rebuilt to B42F layout and the sixteen Leopards that followed in 1962 with PJX registrations were to be the same, though these were all based on the L1 bus chassis and featured the usual easier gearbox. 231's gearbox must have been changed similarly at some point, as certainly by the time I got to drive it it was no different from the others. The seating was later increased to B44F by the removal of the front nearside luggage pen. Photographs of 231 with two doors are very scarce (the local newspaper photographed it and there's one in the John Cockshott archive). After repainting in 'Metro' livery it could always be recognised from the others by virtue of the rear window surrounds being in buttermilk rather than green.
3268 had started out as DP41F, but in PTE days had been rebuilt as a bus, the 'Hilditch Special' front roof dome with protruding destination box being replaced by a standard BET-style peaked dome and the luggage boot and internal racks removed.
Here both have run in off service and are parked just inside the doorway for refuelling, poking out on to the pavement since at the time the fuel pumps were just inside the doorway - a most inconvenient situation since at busy run-in times buses had to left parked in the surrounding roads, or often were left in the middle of what was a Y-shaped junction at this point.

Photo taken by John Stringer, June 1977, WYPTE (Calderdale) Elmwood Garage, Halifax

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