The 2012 " GATHERING of LEYLANDS", 8th. July 2012 : The 2012 "Gathering of Leylands" will be held at our spiritual home, the town of Leyland. As in previous years, the Leyland Gathering will form part of The Leyland Transport Festival which is being organised over the weekend of 7-8 July 2012 through The British Commercial Vehicle Museum.

This year’s Gathering of Leylands returned to our spiritual home in Leyland and formed part of the Leyland Transport Festival held over the weekend of 7 & 8th July. We had planned to have our display in Worden Park, just outside Leyland town centre, using the whole car park for our vehicles. However, the weather this summer was very unsettled, especially in the North West but despite the heavy rain, the ground in Worden Park had stood up to the weather and the organisers of the Transport Festival had a full programme of events planned over the weekend. However, on the morning of Friday 6th there was a prolonged period of torrential rain in the Leyland area and the Park area quickly became so saturated that it was impossible to hold the events planned for the weekend. Reluctantly, the decision was taken to cancel the Leyland Transport Festival events planned in the park that required us to re-locate our display to the car park opposite the British Commercial Vehicle Museum.

There were a total of 32 vehicles on display, 11 of these were lorries and 21 buses. This year we were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Leyland Nationals and 4 restored examples attended, the variants ranging from an early Mk.1 with stainless steel bumpers in SELNEC livery to one of the later Mk.2 versions previously operated by Fishwicks, the local independent operator based in Leyland. The range of buses on display included a superbly restored Comet coach and the Titans of the 1950s to the underfloor Leopard and Atlantean designs of the 70s, to a Leyland-built Fleetline, an Olympian and a Tiger from the 1980s. The range of lorries was equally wide, ranging from a 1946 Beaver through the mouthorgan cabbed Comet, Steer and Octopus models of the 1950s, to an export-only Landmaster. The later T45 range was also represented with a lightweight Constructor 8, the military MT244 4x4 model and a 45 Series.

A selection of photographs taken at the event is shown below but we would be pleased to add your images to the page to enhance our record of the event.

A memento of the event was produced and this year we chose a replica of the silver and blue Leyland roundel used on the National and other Leyland vehicles of the same era. If any member would like to purchase this attractive badge, we still have some available – please see the sales section.