Central SMT

Had Central been a subsidiary of the National Bus Company in England & Wales, it would probably have had a mostly-National single-deck fleet throughout much of the 1970s. In the event, of course, the Scottish Bus Group was slow to adopt the type. A batch was bought by Eastern Scottish in 1977 for service in Monklands, as one way out of the difficult vehicle shortages in that fleet at the time. The experience proved to be a good one, however, and soon Nationals were being ordered in quantity throughout most of the SBG.

Central's first Nationals arrived in 1978 and were put to work on Hamilton town services. Two years later, the MkII models arrived, sounding not dissimilar to the much more common Central Leopards. On acquisition of Airdrie depot from Eastern Scottish in 1985, further MkI and MkII Nationals joined the fleet. The MkII Nationals were lost en masse to Kelvin Scottish soon after de-regulation, to assist that company's struggling efforts to fend off competition in Glasgow.

Central's Nationals wore some notable liveries. The standard scheme was a pleasant red and cream combination, lighter than similar schemes elsewhere in the SBG due to Central's practice of using cream window surrounds. Some Nationals - the first batch of MkIIs in particular - arrived in a drab allover red, relieved only by an artificial-looking cream panel to hold the fleetname. N25 (MDS858V) also carried an experimental half-and-half red and cream (or possibly white!) scheme.

Two other very notable Central Nationals were N51 (GSX864T) and N54 (GSX867T). These ex-Eastern Scottish buses started life at Baxter's Victoria Depot in Airdrie, but never wore Baxter's traditional blue and grey colours. (Like all Eastern Scottish Nationals, they were green and cream.) In Central's final days, following a disastrous industrial relations problem and with the impending merger with Kelvin as a prelude to privatisation, the company tried out local identities as a means of winning back lost custom. One of these identities was Monklands Bus, a throwback to Baxter's days, being very similar to that company's double-deck livery. N51 and N54 carried these colours in 1989.