1974 And A New LCT Employee

[D A Young]

The 44 (now 91 more or less) was an early cross-suburban bus route first thought of seriously about 1923 but not implemented at the time because there were weren't any buses to run it.Once these arrived, the new Stanningley-York Road bus service, via Chapel Allerton and Harehills began in March 1925 and with subsequent extensions became Stanningley-Halton Moor. It was numbered 44 in the July 1937 numbering of Leeds municipal bus services and was extended from Stanningley up the hill into Pudsey during PTE times (possibly in LCT times earlier, after the Farsley and District buses ceased in 1968?), though I can't remember when. During 1949 I went to school on Stainbeck Lane and I remember one snowy day when the buses could barely make it uphill-the passengers had got out and were walking or helping to push the bus. I believe the more usual trick was to divert the 44 bus to run further along Stainbeck Road to Scott Hall Road, on SHR towards the city to the Stainbeck Lane roundabout, then pick up the correct route along Stainbeck Lane to Harrogate Road, but personally I never saw it.I don't know what happened in the reverse direction, but I can't believe a 44 Stanningley bus would be allowed to descend Stainbeck Lane in snow or ice (or indeed Harehills Lane or Kirkstall Lane), with or without passengers. It surely could not be safe, with or without grit/salt on the road surface.This was/is a route with several fierce gradients, but surely Stainbeck Lane was/is the worst only by a small margin. How on earth did the tiny little Guy single deckers with which the route opened, cope with the gradients even in the best weather, never mind the ice and snow?A. D. Young