Prestige Series No.20 Midland Red

The Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company was unusual among British bus operators. Although the Company's history went back to 1904 the production of its own vehicles - rather than buying them in from separate chassis and body builders - for almost a half- century from 1923 made it perhaps unique rather than simply unusual. The homely SOS designation given to Midland Red's in- house-produced vehicles belied the advanced and efficient technical specification of a series of buses and coaches that served not only their manufacturer but also other companies within the British Electrical Traction organisation of which Midland Red was a member. The SOS was produced until 1940 and was succeeded by a new range called simply BMMO. The last BM MO-built vehicle appeared in 1970 and by then the Nottingham-based transport photographer GHF Atkins had been recording the Midland Red fleet for some four decades. This book is based around the images thus produced by Geoffrey Atkins, many of them not previously published.