Photo © Alan N Walker. Please do not re-post without permission.

Central SMT BE253, CGM753C, was a Bristol Lodekka FLF6G with ECW H38/30F body new in June 1965, only five months prior to introduction of the extended 31ft long version.
It heads for Glasgow Buchanan Street from Hamilton town centre pursued by a standard Alexander bodied Leyland Leopard with blank destination.
This is a sad case where 1974 is happier than 2016, physically not just in our memories and buses. Baird's department store closed quite recently. The excellent-looking building marked Skelton's is now the Jinks pub with the left-hand section to let. The young tree was probably a victim of road widening, EYS561L the distinctive new Ford Escort on yellow lines never made it into DVLA records. An atrocious low concrete building added over the photographer's left shoulder is already out of use, next to a still-fine stone dental surgery conversion.

The location was just marked Bus Station on my slide, the site to my right beyond the shops seems to be the same but the current version as open interchange linked to Central Station seems to have extensive layout changes, perhaps a local member can summarise. The Lodekka was withdrawn or sold for scrap in August 1980.

Photo taken by Alan Walker, Tuesday 14 May 1974, Brandon Street, Hamilton, Lanarkshire

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