Nationalisation
After World War II, the new Attlee government took steps to nationalise much of the country's transport industry. As a result, in 1948 the Tilling Group sold its bus interests to the government, and Bristol Tramways became a state-owned company, under the control of the British Transport Commission.[6] Its chassis-building operation proved especially useful and, with the nationalisation of Eastern Coach Works of Lowestoft, enabled complete buses, coaches (and even some lorry tractor-units for British Road Services and two railbuses for British Railways) to be built solely for the State sector.
The new regime resulted in some rationalisation of the company's area of operations. Two other companies, Red & White and Western National, both also now state-owned, ran buses in the Stroud area of Gloucestershire, and those operations were transferred to Bristol Tramways in 1950. The company was also given control of Cheltenham District Traction, originally a Red & White operation, which ran local bus services in Cheltenham. In return, Bristol Tramways gave up its bus operations in the Forest of Dean.
The 1950s were the peak years of the company's operations. It ran over 1,200 buses in an area stretching from Hereford to Salisbury and from Oxford to Bridgwater. From 1950 (when the company acquired the independent Dundry Pioneer), until 1966 (when the Severn Bridge opened and Red & White started routes to Bristol), the company had a total monopoly of bus operations in Bristol, Bath, North Somerset and much of Gloucestershire. On 1 January 1955, the bus manufacturing operation was separated into another company, Bristol Commercial Vehicles Limited.[7][8] In 1957, Bristol Tramways finally recognised reality and changed its name to the Bristol Omnibus Company Limited.[2] The company opened Bristol bus station in Marlborough Street in 1958, and Bath bus station in Manvers Street in the same year.[9] In 1963, the company attracted national attention when its operation of a colour bar, denying employment to non-white bus crews resulted in a 60-day boycott, led by youth worker Paul Stephenson.[10] After a bitter campaign the company finally climbed down and started to employ black and Asian crews in September of that year.[11]
The 1960s and 1970s were years of declining bus usage, and the company struggled to make profits in the face of rising costs and falling revenues. Successive governments changed the structure of the state-owned bus sector. On 1 January 1963, Bristol Omnibus Company was included in the transfer of the British Transport Commission's transport assets to the state-owned Transport Holding Company, which in turn passed to the state-owned National Bus Company on 1 January 1969. In 1970, the operations of Western National in the Trowbridge area were transferred to Bristol Omnibus.
