In 1948 Bristol Commercial Vehicles had been nationalised as part of the Tilling Group. Thanks to a Conservative-sponsored amendment to the Transport Act 1947 (designed to make sure British Railways' locomotive and rolling stock works did not compete with the private-sector) Bristol found itself legally unable to accept orders for its bus chassis outside fleets wholly owned by the British Transport Commission, a situation which lasted until 1965.
One of the most loyal Bristol customers up to 1948 had been the North Western Road Car Company of Stockport, who had until 1941 been jointly owned by Tilling and British Electric Traction (BET), after 1941 it was transferred to BET control. After the North Western's last Bristols were delivered in 1950, the company took Leyland Titans and Royal Tigers for a year or so, but the heavy weight, high fuel consumption, poor braking performance and high purchase cost of the Royal Tiger led North Western's management to seek an equivalent to the nationalised sector's Bristol LS bus, with lightweight construction and a Gardner engine horizontally oriented and mounted underfloor. Not impressed by the heavyweight Gardner-engined Guy Arab and Daimler Freeline they approached Atkinson asking for a bus to their specification. This was called the Atkinson Alpha, the first entering service in August 1951. The Alpha range featured a horizontal Gardner engine (four, five and six-cylinder versions were offered), a choice of constant mesh and synchromesh gearboxes from David Brown, and either a lightweight or medium-weight frame. As events turned out, after the initial two batches for North Western in 1953/54 – the first of which were rare rear-entrance underfloor-engined buses – the senior management of the BET group removed Atkinson, Guy and Daimler from their list of preferred suppliers. Around the same time, Leyland dropped the purchase price of the Tiger Cub. North Western then took Tiger Cubs and AEC Reliances for their single-deck needs for the rest of the 1950s.
Atkinson's management then decided that although Daimler and Guy were publicly offering Gardner-engined double-deckers, and some influential (mainly Scottish) customers could purchase AEC Regents with that make of engine, they would also enter this market. Thus at the 1954 Earls' Court Commercial Motor Show two Atkinson double-deck buses were exhibited: one was a chassis, the other carried a 60-seat centre-entrance double-deck body by Northern Counties to the order of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport (and Electricity) Board. This bus (UMA370) is preserved by the Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester and is also of interest as the first double-deck bus with an electrically controlled direct-acting epicyclic gearbox, this Self-Changing Gears (SCG) unit was fitted by Atkinson after delivery but before entry into service as the SHMD board's drivers (who were used to pre-selective transmissions on the fleets' standard Daimlers) did not want to use the originally installed David Brown constant-mesh unit. The un-bodied exhibition chassis, which featured semi-automatic transmission, was dismantled around the same time. No further Atkinson double-deck bus chassis were built.
It is unclear whether Atkinson's early lead in two-pedal bus transmissions has anything to do with the minority shareholding (around 15%) that Leyland Motors held in Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd until the firm was taken over by Seddon. Leyland were, by 1954, part owners of SCG but the 1954 PDR1 prototype had the direct air-operated Pneumocyclic transmission at the time. Neither Guy nor Daimler had a two-pedal transmission and AEC had only just exhibited theirs on the prototype AEC Routemaster.
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As well as an underfloor engined single-deck and a front-engined double-deck, Atkinson also produced a front-engined single-deck bus chassis, this being to a similar layout to the Bedford SB but of more durable construction. It sold well to Atkinson export markets, mainly in the Sterling zone, and an example survives as a mobile home in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom sales of this Atkinson bus amounted to three: one batch of two for a municipal operator and a further frustrated export chassis.
Norman Morton, the General Manager of Sunderland Corporation Transport from 1953 to 1968, looked for efficiency-savings wherever they could be found. He had a route with a peak vehicle requirement of two, and a peak load of just over 40 which was being run by a pair of 32-seat 1950 Guy Arab III half-cab single deckers due for overhaul. Initially he approached Guy with the replacement specification, but they said they were not prepared to build a mere two buses to his detailed requirements, so he went to Atkinson. Sunderland 30-1 (GGR230-1) were the result, bodied in 1958 by Charles H Roe to FB41F layout and 8 ft wide by 30 ft long box-dimensions; they had constant-mesh gearboxes and four-cylinder 80 bhp Gardner 4LW engines. The route was a 'limited-stop' taking workmen from their homes to the docks and back again. The route was not hilly and the stops were few. The bodywork was utilitarian and the livery was mainly drab mid-green with cream window surrounds. The 41 seats were well-shaped and well padded and the wide double-stream entrance-exit just aft of the front wheels was covered by four-leaf double jack-knife doors.
Shortly afterwards a frustrated export chassis, to a shorter wheelbase and 27 ft 6in overall length, was bodied by Plaxton to its then-new Highway outline at the orders of a Wakefield dealer, Comberhill Motors who registered it as NHL127 and sold it to Simpson of Rosehearty.
After North Western were discouraged by the British Electric Traction group from purchasing Atkinson Alphas the company sought sales in the independent market, producing lightweight bus and coach demonstrators. A large independent which did buy some was Lancashire United Transport and SHMD bought some Alphas to go with their double-decker. The most successful fruit of Atkinson's bus-sales effort was with Venture Transport (Newcastle) Limited, of Consett, County Durham. Between 1946 and 1948 Venture had replaced the majority of its pre-war fleet with 35-seat Willowbrook-bodied Daimler CVD6's. No further buses were bought by Venture over the next half decade. In 1954 Atkinson lent Venture TTC882, a HV Burlingham bodied 44-seat bus which met with the approval of Venture's management and orders ensued for twenty-four vehicles delivered in three batches from 1955 to 1957 with differently styled B45F or DP41F Willowbrook bodies. Over the rest of the 1950s small numbers of Alphas were sold to other independent operators.
The Alpha continued to be listed without sales into the 1960s but a final home market order came from Sunderland Corporation in 1962 for 1963/64 delivery. The three buses concerned looked like buses from a different age to previous Atkinsons as they carried Marshall bodies of 33 ft length and 8 ft 2 ½ in width to the then-new BET-group outline, with double curvature front and rear screens and peaked roof-domes at either end. They were finished in a mainly cream version of the Sunderland livery and were to B45D layout. Like Doncaster Corporation's slightly later Leyland Royal Tiger Cubs they were purposely designed for the 'intermediate' length and had a wheelbase of 18 ft. They were numbered 46-48 and registered WBR246-8. The first initially was fitted with a constant mesh gearbox, but was swiftly refitted with a direct-air operated Self-Changing Gears unit, featuring a Leyland style 'pedestal' gear change with which the other two were built. Sunderland 48 was the last Atkinson PSV constructed and is preserved, as is no.46. Ironically, the last Seddon PSV design, the Pennine 7, had much more in common with the Alpha than with most previous Seddon bus chassis. However, these three buses had the unusual combination of vacuum-assisted brakes and air-operated Self-Changing Gears gearbox.
