Bus Shite

[Zelandeth]

I used to drive one of them, for a different company. Lovely grunty things with a four over four box. Only tri-axle 'decker I ever got sideways too

 

They sound absolutely epic at full chat when the exhaust system has fallen to bits as well...

[busmansholiday]

One of our drivers forgot to press the ferry lift button on one of these at Dover. Ripped the sump off, oil everywhere followed by a big bang. Management weren't too happy with the bill.

[Yoss]

This was parked on my delivery today. Not actually that surprising, the chap who's house it was parked outside is quite heavily involved with old Southampton buses.

They'd come to pick up some gearbox oil from him.

[busmansholiday]

You may remember my comment earlier in the thread about our Scottish holiday on ex Sheffield 874 in 1978, and photos will follow, but even before the Portsmouth trip a few of us, armed with sleeping bags to sleep on the bus overnight,  went down to the smoke on 17/18th September 1973 in a then recently acquired ex Rossie Motors Daimler CVD6 for a transport rally on Clapham Common. Sadly KWT600 is no longer with us.

 

I thought I'd post a few pics of what we found that weekend, hopefully with a bit more than just the bus in the picture.

 

Ignoring the three people and their 1970's dress sense trying to commit suicide, there's a Triumph Herald and a Mk I Zepher ruining my picture of RT1181.

 

 

RM952 in it's Dinky toys advert livery (before the days of wraps), about to be overtaken by a BeeeMMM.

 

 

Another RM, 783, and it's Esso Uniflo advert for their 10W/50 motor oil. It's sandwiched between a pair of HB Vivas and is being overtaken by a continental visiting coach.  The reg plates appear to be Portuguese, and it looks like a Salvador Caetano body but what chassis I don't know.

 

 

 

 

 

[busmansholiday]

I've been to London a few times since then so a few pictures to get you excited (!!!).

 

For the Queens Jubilee, London painted 25 Routemasters (sorry) in a silver livery.  SRM10 (RM1914) being sandwiched between an XJ6, FX4, a Grenada, a Fiat (124 ?) and an Austin 100 round the back of Buck Pal.

 

 

How many remember London Undergrounds PD3As ?

 

 

The last day of RTs, April 1979, and RT2240 somewhere near Barking (somebody on here will be able to identify this street).  According to me there's 16 cars, a Marina Van, a milk float, a caravan and a speed boat in this picture.

 

 

And just for Yoss, a year after you went to Glasgow on RML903, she visited the Tinsley Transport Museum in Sheffield.

 

 

Off to walk the dog and sort out the pictures of 874 on her travels

[busmansholiday]

Let's start with the trip to the Southsea Rally in June 1978.  We left Sheffield on the Saturday night and went via London.  First stop for a photo was outside the works of the best bus and coach builders there ever was (IMHO).

 

 

Then we drove down into the middle of the town to take a picture by that big clock. It's am and apologies, I cannot get it to be vertical.

 

 

Whilst we were blocking off the inside lane we were overtaken by a piece of modern, fuel guzzling shite, which itself was being overtaken by a Reliant Regal, a Rover P6 and an FX4.

 

 

A stereotypical British bus of the late 50's, early 60's.  Driver up front in a separate cab, engine along side him and a rear platform so you can jump on and off at traffic lights. Oh, and a Routemaster and what looks like a Datsun sneaking out of the picture.

 

 

We arrived at Southsea for the rally.  The group of passengers waiting for the open topper look suitably bemused whilst a City of Portsmouth Passenger Transport Department (to give them their correct name) nasty National sneaked into the edge of the picture.

 

 

We got back in the early hours of Monday morning, ready for work.

 

If anybodies interested I can see what was still running then and post a few.  I kept detailed records of all the colour slides I took between the first one in September 1972 (the world was in black and white before then) until I got bored doing that in November 1978.  I'd taken just over 4000 by then.

 

[Yoss]

Thanks for those, they're great. I'd like to point you towards my Background Shite thread. I don't know how to do links but it's on here somewhere. It's mainly pictures of buses but in the course of the last thirty years the cars in the background have become more interesting than the original subject of the pictures. So I thought they deserved their own thread.

 

Some of the above fit that description perfectly. At the time you're annoyed the cars got in the way. Now you're pleased they're there. At the time, you were always going for the three quarter front view with nothing else in it as the perfect shot but as my wife has pointed out, to her they all look the same, and with hindsight she is right. So now I always get the people and traffic in.

 

 

RML 903 did a lot of traveling for a few years. After the Scottish trip they fitted a high speed diff to give it a higher cruising speed. Can't remember if it was from an RMC or RCL now (all RM variants had the same gearbox but they put different diffs in to change the gearing. RCL's had the highest but also had a bigger engine to cope and could cruise easily at 60 and go a bit more if need be).

 

I did a few trips with it, one to Wythall transport museum in Birmingham, Canvey Island and one that was sold as a Christmas Mystery Tour. Turned out we never even left London but it was one of the best trips. Chiswick Works then Southall (as pictured above with your bus) which was being used to store lots of withdrawn RM's and ready them for resale, including a paint shop. Next was the LT communication centre at Baker Street, I don't think many people have been there. And finished with a Christmas lights tour. Top day out.

 

And the overall advert RM's are giving me an idea. There was a time when any self respecting bus company had an in house signwriter. Southampton certainly did. I have many pictures of them upstairs. I should go and find some.

[3VOM]

Don't know if anyone is interested but this just turned up in an email:

https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gordonbrothers/catalogue-id-gordon10034?utm_source=bs-fa-21/11/2017&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Gordon%20Brothers&utm_content=catlink

especially

https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gordonbrothers/catalogue-id-gordon10034/lot-3f86efd2-eba7-4981-8227-a82b00f9180a

[Dick Longbridge]

Yoss, thanks for sharing your well organised shenanigans on WLT 903. Is it just inverse snobbery with Routemasters on here, or is it a general thing? Personally, I love the look of them, and in the event of winning the lottery, I'd have one parked next to my Lambretta in my 2 mile long barn. More stories required!

[Vantman]

And another one---

 

[Inspector Morose]

The Routemaster "thing"

 

I can only speak from my experiences so this is not gospel just opinion. I have nothing against Routemasters at all. They are very technologically advanced and the perfect bus for the specific job they were designed for. BUT.

 

1) This was a design who's layout, when launched, was obsolete. At the same show as the launch was the first Atlantean with promises of increase capacity, better conditions for the driver (bloody quieter for a start) and the potential for future one person operation (it wasn't legal to have one man double deckers when the Atlantean was first launched) for all of its technical prowess, the basic thinking of the bus was out of date. This could be attributed by the extrodinarily long time from prototypes being built and rested and the production models being ready for production (6years IIRC)

 

2) There were other buses out there with the same features but are stunningly overlooked by the "enthusiast"Two that spring to mind are the independently sprung, integral BMMO D9 and the (slightly later) front engined, front entrance Guy Wulfrunian. Both these were as technically forward looking as the Routemaster, it he case of the D9, it was built by the operator themselves in their own purpose built bus construction and repair works. Due to the slight London bias of the world, they are sadly overlooked and ridiculed as failures(especially in the case of the Wulfrunian). Do you know how many problems they has when the Routemaster was introduced? For at least six years there was a constant battle to get the things to work as they should - frame failures, brake failures, hydraulic failures, gearbox failures - they were all sorted in the end but it was no perfect bus from the start that some would have you believe. Even then, buses in London were rebuilt at great cost every X number of years to the point of losing their identities and emerging from overhaul as another member of the batch. The continual rebuilding of the routemasters meant they were (condition wise at least) never more than 6 or so years old until the overhaul process ended in the 80s due to it being a vastly expensive exercise that was not repeated anywhere else I the country (central works and overhauling buses to a great extent was one of the first casualties of privatisation in October 1986)

 

3) They lasted on the roads longer because the monolithic London Transport could afford to run and crew them. Other corporations and companies would have loved to be able to keep running their Titans, Lodekkas or Regents but the harsh economic favpcts were that they couldn't afford the luxury of crew operation any longer, especially as at the time the government were pushing the purchase of new one person operation buses with the aid of the new bus grant. The stipulations that came with the grant meant a certain sixpence and layout was all that could be bought, no front engines there. Only London Transport was large enough to be able to stick two fingers up and keep the Routemasters going but even they succumbed to one man operation eventually.

 

So the above shows that they were good but not the holy grail that some would lead you to believe. So why are there so many preserved then? Well that leads me to my major gripe.

 

4) The preservationists. There are times when I used to go to rallies in the past and I was sure that of the 2760 London Routemaster built, over 3000 had been preserved. It was, at the time the easy way into bus ownership, the MGB of the bus world. They were the final chance for folks to buy a "proper" front engined bus as there was, and still is, a huge amount of snobbery between front engined bus owners and the ones who tried to preserve early rear engined buses. Because of this there is a huge chunk of the bus era missing, namely the first generation rear engined buses from the early 60s until recently when people have woken up to find non left and are left to rescue and restore complete hulks back to their former glory. The great swathes of routemasters in preservation has ousted the unusual, the oddballs, the unique. when was the last time you saw a Gilford at a rally? There are quite a number (relatively) preserved but they have either succumbed to being hidden away or worse, scrapped when no other buyer could be found yet prospective purchasers went for the Routemaster as the safe easy option of bus preservation. So the world is left with a skewed view of bus and coach operation with people being led to believe that the Routemaster was the only and best bus around. If only they knew what we have lost because of it.

 

So, in conclusion, snobbery? No, not really. The bus turned out okay in the end and it was the right tool for the job at the time. I've driven my fair share of them and TBH, Ive driven better buses of the same era. But don't get me started on (some, I'm not talking about you Yoss) the owners.

[CreepingJesus]

The Westcars one reminds of how Brian Soutar turned up at a meeting at my secondary school (as after deregulation, the school service had gone to shit) promising the earth, and sent us RMs and Lodekkas that were lucky to get to the end of the road...

[cms206]

Yoss, thanks for sharing your well organised shenanigans on WLT 903. Is it just inverse snobbery with Routemasters on here, or is it a general thing? Personally, I love the look of them, and in the event of winning the lottery, I'd have one parked next to my Lambretta in my 2 mile long barn. More stories required!

 

I'm one of the vocal naysayers of Routemasters. I do not and never have understood the appeal, even before I drove (several) examples of the breed. To me they were outdated when they hit the road and quite tremendously ugly to look at. Having driven various examples - from memory the only engine option I've not driven was Scania - they're difficult to get into, harder still to get out of, when you do manage to wedge yourself in you can't see where you're going and due to the shape of the cab, you can't see where you've been either. That's before you spend a shift chasing the steering column round the cab.

 

The whole "Ohhhh but they lasted sixty years in service! They must be fabulous!" shite can be summed up by the phrase "Trigger's broom". I reckon there's probably a good few Routemasters out there preserved now which have had, at some point, every single engine option fitted, likewise for gearboxes. If they'd lasted more or less as intended then that would have been impressive, but the fact of the matter is that anything'll last sixty years if you've replaced the engine, gearbox, axles, refurbished the body numerous times, replaced all the windows,, repanelled it, refloored it... most of the Routemasters preserved now don't even have their original bodywork. 

 

 

Routemasters are my least favourite vehicle to drive out of all of the vehicles I have driven, even beating the Optare Solo - only just mind - but that's only because I like talking to people, so as a result not being a halfcab the Solo gains half a point.

[Vin]

It's interesting, regarding mention of the Routemaster being an example of 'Trigger's broom'. There is a a BTF film called 'Overhaul' from 1957, that has probably been posted before.

 

Although the buses are not Routemasters, it still fully illustrates the process posters have discussed...

 

[busmansholiday]

I have to say I agree with FPB7 and his comments above. When I first got into bus preservation in the early 70's the basic 'want' of a preservationist was to purchase the oldest vehicle they could find from their favourite fleet. By this era most operators were getting rid of outdated front engined, rear entrance vehicles and replacing them with one man operated buses. These were the obvious choices for people who had grown up with rear entrance buses. The first generation rear engined deckers were generally despised by even people like me and were not at the time they were getting withdrawn thought of as being worthy of saving. How times change.

 

As the 70's rolled on, more people became interested and London was the last stronghold of these types of vehicles. When the RT's went at the end of the decade it just left the Routemaster for people to long for. By then all the early 60's stuff had been scrapped. When I purchased my first Reliance, it was the oldest one I could find, but single deck wise things are different as underfloor engined vehicles were the norm in the late 50's.

 

As for London, the world revolves around it doesn't it?. No money to electrify the railway to Leicester and Sheffield but money to build another underground line can easily be found. Same with the Routemaster. When London found out it couldn't overall it's modern DMS class Fleetlines how it wanted to it promptly sold them claiming they were unreliable. Yet their own figures showed they were more reliable than the Routemaster.

I remember going on a trip around Chesterfield Transport just after they had bought some. Speaking with their engineers they had bought both runners and scrap ones. Looking at one of the ones they pointed out as being scrap we asked what was wrong with it. Nothing, other than the a half shaft failure was the reply. It was soon in service. It's not changed much either in my opinion. When Ken was mayor he set about buying up all the existing Routemasters and putting them back in service. Then Boris got rid of them and the artic's and had a bespoke Decker designed. Sod all use anywhere but London but I bet almost every one gets preserved in the future.

 

I like Routemasters, don't get me wrong and if I had the money, space and a Mrs that allowed me to have one I would. But I'd want either a proper one like Yoss, with an original engine, not a modern Scania, Iveco or Cummings in there or one of the Sri Lankan ones, where they threw away the greasy bits and stuffed an Indian built engine and manual box in. It would seriously piss off the snobby, up their own arse preservationists that exist in the bus as well as car world, but it would be fun.

 

Rant over.

[quicksilver]

Agree 100% with the Routemaster comments. Not only are there too many but they're nearly all the same and finished in boring old London Transport red. As if there weren't enough in this country already a whole load have been repatriated from Canada and Europe and there are many much more interesting things that could have been imported instead. People have spent fortunes turning converted ones back into buses too, which seems a waste of effort to me.

 

Look at what we've lost in favour of all these Routemasters. The Duple Trooper for instance, the mainstay of small coach operators in the sixties. Now there are two left, neither of which are ever likely to be restored, and its big sister the Mariner/Marauder is completely extinct. Only recently the very last surviving Duple Calypso got the chop after its storage was lost and no one showed any interest in saving it.

[Noel Tidybeard]

so basically all routemaster are OMGRINGERS

[Dick Longbridge]

Well that told me!

Interestingly reading that the early rear engined buses haven't really survived due to OMG Routemaster though. I don't profess to know much about buses, and like Routemasters purely because they look, to me, 'just right'. The bigger picture regarding driving conditions, non-original parts, outdated concept before it hit the road and so on, doesn't change the opinion of a novice such as myself. Interesting all the same, though. Sad times that some worthy contenders are no longer around to fight their corner any more, however.

I'll finish my breakfast monologue by saying I also like the Harrington Legionnaire from TIJ. Now I do know that they are a very endangered species. Tell me they weren't a bit average, and generally unloved by hardcore bus and coach fanatics?!

 

Oh, and just to add... I'm glad this thread exists. I wouldn't have foreseen myself in being interested in reading about buses, to be honest.

How wrong I was...

[Yoss]

Okay so now the views of an actual Routemaster owner.

 

Actually I agree with quite a lot of what's been said above. There probably are too many preserved and at bus rallies I tend to ignore them too. A quick note of which ones are there to see if it's anyone I know but that's about it. The refurbs don't interest me at all.

 

I've been involved with mine since 1986 and owned it twice for about 18 of those years. We first met on the last night of RM's on route 68. Me and Barry came out of the Wellington pub at Waterloo about 9.30 and stood at the northbound bus stop. As it was the last night most of the conductors had gone sick and the few buses that did turn up were already one man buses. After about an hour we were on the verge of giving up and getting the train back to Southampton (22.52 being the time of the 'down mails' , class 73 hauled travelling post office with a couple of passenger coaches on the back, our regular train home) when RM 2037 went past southbound. We legged it across the road and jumped on. It already had a few cranks on and it turned out this was going to be last one so we stayed on and ended up at Norwood Garage at 2am.

 

Six months later it turned up in Southampton. Southampton Citybus bought all Leyland engined examples as the rest of the fleet was Atlanteans so they had lots of experience with them. The RM's stayed here only until January 89. Me and Barry wrote to Citybus asking if it would be possible to have RM 2037 on the very last bus and surprisingly they did (they actually wrote back saying they couldn't guarantee it but I'm pretty sure it wasn't coincidence that it happened).

 

The last bus turned out to be an eight bus convoy. RM 820 & 2059 ran in front as duplicates, then 2037 as the last service bus followed by two preserved RM's a Southampton Regent V, oddly a Cardiff Regent V and one of Citybus's brand new dual purpose Olympians! We got back to the garage at about 8.30pm. Now most people who lived in Southampton just went home but me and Barry cadged a ride on RM2116 back to Tilbury Docks where it lived at the time just for the hell of it. Got there about 2am and Trevor dropped us off in Palmers Green in his Escort Huntsman to catch a night bus into town and get the first train home. That's a proper night out.

 

Anyway it was on this trip that Graham and Trevor convinced us Routemaster ownership was possible and not at all crazy. By the way, me and Barry were twenty at the time and niether of us could drive but two months later RM2037 was ours along with Ernie mentioned in the post above.

 

We had it for six years before we ran out of money (mainly because me and Barry had learnt to drive and kept spending our money on Austin 3-Litres) and we sold it to Reading Mainline who put it back in service for another five years. It then got sold back into preservation and I kept in touch with the owner. He was involved with Cobham museum and also owned a couple of RTs an RF and an AEC Matador. Then in 2006 he decided to emigrate and sell most of his buses and I managed to convince him that I would be the right person to sell me my own bus back to.

 

So back to some of the points above. Yes there are lots of RM's preserved. Partly this is because they survived so long that when LT started mass withdrawals lots of people who remebered them when they were younger were old enough to have enough disposable income to give it a go. Most buses of that era didn't last long enough for that to happen. And whilst a lot of older buses may have been more deserving you can't force someone to buy something that they don't want. If somebody wants an RM you can't force them to buy a Bristol RE.

 

 

The Triggers Broom thing. You say it like it's a bad thing. Of course a sixty year old bus will have had most of it changed. And the Routemasters were designed to have have stuff changed quickly. If an engine develops a problem it makes sense to swap the engine completely and get back on the road, then fix that engine and have it ready for another bus. And I know the overhaul system was rather extravagant and only London could afford it but it was bloody good while it lasted! Yes, technically it was ringing on a massive scale, my bus has carried the identity RM 2037 since 1984 though it carries body 1980 and A and B frames 1981 so technically it's RM 1980.5 but I can't put ALD980.5B on the number plate.

 

BUT! The real reason they've lasted is their aluminium frames. The Triggers Broom concept is all well and good but you have to have something to bolt the bits back on to. Most other buses have aluminium panels screwed onto steel or wooden frames. I really admire people who take these on. There's several buses in our yard where people have removed panels and the found there's nothing underneath to bolt them back onto. I've taken panels off my bus and what's underneath still looks brand new.

 

So I like lots of other buses but I'd never be brave enough to take one on. And I'm too lazy for all the problems that will inevitably arise. Plus of course I helped shape my own bus's history so to me it's not just another RM even if all the other RM's at rallies are.

 

 

Oh and by the way, I couldn't agree more about BMMO D9s.

[Felly Magic]

Anywhere else, the RMs would have been gone in the 1970s, but LT were allowed to spend taxpayers money without a care, a relative was a fitter from the 70s-90s, and he told me about how they would waste cash, and the DMS suffered from 'not invented here' syndrome, and simple things like gearbox filters weren't changed often enough, with expensive consequences. TfL are still carrying on the attitude from the 70s of wasting public money, with wasteful buses that are about as much use as a chocolate teapot, the Borismaster is turning out to be a real disasterwagon, with the hybrid drive failing, and yet more reports of DAF wide open throttle failures, yet another clip has surfaced of one out of control hitting vehicles, but TfL keep trying to sweep these faults under the carpet, plus MPG isn't much better than a Trident, and they will end up clogging up yards very soon when dealers cannot sell them, as unlike most buses, you cannot easily provincialise them with a quick single door conversion. LT's practice at Chiswick & Aldenham would now be highly illegal, and every bus would have to leave bearing a Q plate, I'd love this to be retrograde applied. I've experienced working with Fiat repowered examples, and talk about a lash up conversion, the only way to shut em off was turning the fuel tap under the bonnet, and the steering shake on all 5 above 25 mph was alarming, heaters left a lot to be desired too. When it came to disposal, no bugger wanted them back then, the market was saturated, all 5 failed to sell at ADT, and it took months to sell em all, 3 ended up overseas, and I did feel sorry for the poor sods who bought them as they were FUBAR

[cms206]

Fair play Yoss man! I can see your points but I just hate the sodding things. Still, it'd be a boring world if we all liked the same things and 2037 means something to you so alls the better.

 

I had about 13 buses at one point, bought my first at 18. Never again.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[CreepingJesus]

What was that rare one you stuck on FB recently Andy? I lost a good few hours looking it up...!

[cobblers]

It's interesting, regarding mention of the Routemaster being an example of 'Trigger's broom'. There is a a BTF film called 'Overhaul' from 1957, that has probably been posted before.

 

Although the buses are not Routemasters, it still fully illustrates the process posters have discussed...

 

That was bloody fantastic to watch, I never realised the scale of the operation.

[Yoss]

Hello Felly. Not a fan then? I can't quite tell as you seem to be sitting on the fence a bit.

 

Never mind, each to their own and all that. But I have to pick you up on a couple of points. Firstly trying to pick faults in a design based on some abused refurbs doesn't really hold water. The Ivecos were widely regarded as the worst of the re engined RM's, so the worst of a bad bunch. Steering shake? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I tend to cruise at about 40mph and it creeps up towards 45 if I'm not paying attention and I have no steering shake. I've driven a few others, all original unrefurbished buses with AEC or Leyland engines and never experienced it. I know the high speed Routemasters had a damper fitted to the steering column but as they used to run at 65mph that seems only sensible. I suggest next time you try getting your wheels balanced.

 

Heaters? Mine is brilliant. So good in fact that I can't turn it off. There is a slidey knob that says hot and cold but it just comes out hot wherever you put it. Not really a problem on an open platform bus with opening windows. Better that than the other way around.

 

And I'm not sure why we're bringing Boris Buses into the argument. They are nothing to do with real RM's. But whilst we're on the subject. They are purely political machines. When Ken was mayor, firstly he started buying back proper Routemasters with the famous 'only a dehumanised moron would get rid of Routemasters' speech then very suddenly changed his mind (with a bit of a push from Peter Hendy) and started getting rid of them. Boris saw an opportunity here and promised to build a 'new Routemaster'. It worked, Boris won, so then he had to go ahead with it. Though what we got isn't what the people voted for. Most, and now all, were run without conductors and the platform doors shut which was the reason people wanted them.

 

But anyway that's not the issue here. Have a look at this picture.

Two buses that to the untrained eye look very similar. Both from 1964, both have the classic AEC grille, both roughly the same shape. But I can't stress enough how different they are under the skin. There's one of the Southampton Regents being slowly restored in the yard and I take my hat off to the guys but there's not much of it left under the panels. The floor is simply a bit of plywood over a steel frame with a thin sheet of the flooring material stuck on top. There wasn't much of either left. Both the steel and plywood had rotted away. The Routemaster has an aluminium floor on an aluminium frame with a much thicker Treadmaster flooring stuck on top all of which will outlive all of us. A Routemaster has no separate chassis but an immensely strong aluminium framed body. Most of you will know this, I'm just adding it for the casual observers here who don't. THIS, and again, can't say this enough, is why there are so many left.

 

Then there's maintenance. Look again at the picture. It's not the best angle for the Regent but the RM bonnet is a lot bigger, comes a lot further down. Not only that, the whole grille and wing come off with just five bolts and a plug for the lights. The bonnet needs the removal of two split pins. And they're all fibreglass so even the wing is light enough to be removed by me on my own. It just hangs off the front bulkhead which is possible because of the immensely strong aluminium body.

 

The Regent has a small side opening bonnet. Access is much poorer and I've no idea how you get the engine out because it won't fit through that hole.

 

Aaahh, Aldenham **wistful sigh**

 

That's a great film. Despite what Felly says it's a real shame we lost that. It's a massive factory that made buses better, what's not to like, unless it's not your buses it's making better of course. So it cost a lot of money. So what. The government waste millions of pounds on everything they do every day, at least this was doing something good. And though you don't like it London will always have loads more money to spend on transport, Crossrail, Crossrail 2, Thameslink etc...

 

And when I say massive, I found this picture I took of a scale model of the place at Acton depot.

Those little rectangular things you can barely see are buses to scale. Every Routemaster went through here every five years roughly and came out as a new bus (see above video) so for the first 25 years of their lives no RM was more than five years old. Not only that, it gave jobs to hundreds of people, and proper skilled jobs at that.

 

And also, if they had decided by the 1990s that they needed new engines then Aldenham and Chiswick would have tested them properly and made sure they worked with the rest of the bus and Felly wouldn't have had to deal with those shitty Ivecos.

 

I could go on but I need to go out.

[catsinthewelder]

While I'm not a big Routemaster fan I would love to see all of the countrys buses being built properly and then rebuilt in a facility like that.  That film shows what a properly civilised society can achieve rather than the shonkey shite we have to put up with in the 21st century.  I don't care which numberplate they bolt on afterwards.

[Pillock]

That video is amazing! Like you say Yoss, the amount of skill in those workers was incredible. 

 

And yes, it was huge. There's an entire industrial estate on the site now...

 

[Inspector Morose]

I remember the experimental department of LT did the early re-engine experiments on RMs. The original choice was, erm, interesting. Among the contenders were the DAF 1160, the Ashok Leyland 680 copy and a polish 680 copy along with the usual suspects from IVECO and Cummins. The one wonderful thing about the IVECO conversion was that the fuel pump was on the wrong side of the engine meaning that you couldn't get at the sodding img when in the bus. Quality*.

 

The FRM. Now there's an intriguing machine if there ever was one. Built using 60% of standard routemaster parts, it had some neat touches such as a totally seperate engine and transmission meaning no need to disturb one when removing the other. LTs engineers again chased their own personal holy grail of a combined heating and cooling system with this bus - the "radiators" we're at the rear of the bus, ducted and with hydraulic fans that could either blow hot air from them into the saloon or suck warm air from the saloon and out of the bus. Very clever and it definitely worked better than their other tries (RTC1, an experimental STL and one or two others) but LT went over confident and removed all opening windows on the bus. When it caught fire the fire brigade had to smash the windows to let smoke out. When rebuilt, hey presto, opening windows are back again!

The whole project was cancelled by AEC while FRM1 was being built and parts had been made for the second (for Sheffield). It was deduced that there was no market for what was a technologically advanced bus for its time, AEC learning from past experience (it must be remembered that the Routemaster was offered on the open market and only found one other buyer - Northern General who took 50 and even then built to a slightly reduced specification). The similar but low height AEC Bridgemaster was also too advanced for the market and found few buyers and was replaced by the far simpler Renown and so AEC pulled the plug on the project. Good it may have been but it wasn't what the market wanted, they wanted relatively simple machines like the re-engineered Atlantean PDR1/1 if they had to and secretly many a general manager still wanted Titans, Regents and the like.

The Fleetline by Daimler was still in competition with the Atlantean at the time and offered many advantages over the Leyland. It could be built to a low height, the driveline was better packaged (apart from the utterly hopeless trailing link) so component life was longer and it could be bought with a Gardner engine - the bus engineers friend.

 

All quite interesting and AEC definitely was quite the experimenter (side engined, front entrance double decker using an nine that rotated the other way round and built in 1932 anyone?) I've a lot of time for the products of Southall as they produced some very refined products but did make some complete howlers (AEC 505 - when it worked it was very very good but really did suffer from the old K series syndrome or the Regent iv that failed to find a single buyer). I digress.

 

Yoss, using your analogy shouldn't there should be a shed load of Alexander bodied buses preserved as they were built using aluminium frames. Of all the piss taking, I still wouldn't mind a rip in yours one day, just for comparison purposes you understand!

[Yoss]

Yes I remember the four re-engined prototypes and I remember being really disappointed when they didn't go with the Daf or Ashok. We decided they just picked the cheapest option (though how much could an Indian built Leyland be). This was just opinion, not based on any evidence but the eleven London Buses districts were on the verge of being privatised and the route tendering process had no quality control at the time and London Buses were losing routes to people like Boroline using ex Nottingham Atlanteans and Grey Green with elderly Ailsas so it's not unreasonable to assume they were going for the cheapest option. It was a very interesting time to be a bus enthusiast but it was doing nothing for the service.

 

The Daf bus still exists, RM 545, and it sounds fantastic. Not just louder than the Leyland but a really deep booming noise. Lovely.

 

I did not know that about Alexander buses but it makes sense what with them being built in Scotland. Steel frames wouldn't last five minutes up there. And as you say rather disproves my theory. In 2001 I was busless and getting the urge again. I found RM 2213 for sale in Glasgow. It was in an old bus garage in Bridgeton almost within sight of Celtic Park. That place was full of Scottish Alexander bodied stuff. Is it still there? Someone here must know.

[Inspector Morose]

Buses were far more interesting in the 80's and 90's. Even Routemasters

[cms206]

It does indeed Yoss, the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust; at the time I suspect it would still have been the Glasgow Bus Museum.

 

I still have no idea where the idea that steel frames don't last in Scotland comes from, it's neglect that kills things - the most rotten cars I ever owned spent their entire lives in Nottingham and Liverpool respectively. We ran Paramounts and Supremes for years and rot wasn't an issue on them either, even the Paramount we got from Shetland.

 

My earlier bus driving career was on a varied mix of Mercedes 709Ds, Dennis Dart SLFs, Volvo B10Ms and a solitary Optare Vecta-bodied MAN, though I did stints on other odds and sods (Varios, Solos, Metroriders, all manner of shite) before returning to private hire full time.

 

Stage carriage still appeals but I know how rare a 6-pot Mini Pointer Dart is to find now, and the likelyhood of bagging a 12 hour shift in a manual Merc 709D is virtually nil so...

 

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