Buses of my childhood. Shite ones obviously

[Felly Magic]

Cor, some epic bus-chod in this thread! Thanks chaps. That boxy Bedford is awesome.

 

I may well have ridden on that Volvo Ailsa when it was part of the WMT fleet. As you say, they were epically noisy and it a bit of a design blind alley (note clever reference to another current thread) in that I can't think of many buses with the engine between the driver and the front door!

 

The lemon that was the Guy Wulfrunian. Independent air suspension at the front, disc brakes, and a bloody great Gardner 6LX hanging out front. It almost destroyed the main firm that bought them, West Riding!

[Albert Ross]

This...whatever it is..... at Windsor and Eton Central station, where I had just jumped of the 121 "bogit" from Slough.

or this Bristol VR

 

This Bristol SUL used to belong to my mate's Dad......!! Those aluminium window frames had a lot of Autosol on them! I know, because my fingers ached for fucking weeks afterwards! Worth it, at 14 years old, he got me a litle pissed afterwards!

 

And this rare Bedford OB towed the above Bristol SUL off the M4 when it coughed a little... then on we were towed by a Land Rover back to Ascot!

Edit! Turns out this is an Albion Victor..... and for all these years..... Ah well!

[dollywobbler]

Daimler tried to oust the trusty Routemaster with the Fleetline DMS. It didn't really work, though London Transport built up a fleet of over 4000. The last was delivered in 1978 but withdrawals started the following year. This is of interest to me because West Midlands Travel actually bought some of them. I remember them from my childhood because the front doors opened into the middle rather than out to the sides of the resulting space! I never worked out why...

 

And here's one with an Autoshite paint job!

 

See? Grimsby is cool.

[Wilko220]

My transport to school was courtesy of a St Albans-based firm called Thompson Travel. They are no longer in existence, following the retirement of boss Eddie Thompson, and what was their yard (on Sutton Road, near Morrisons for anyone who knows the area) is now a housing estate.

 

I've found on the internet a pic of one of the buses I used to travel on - this was actually about the newest coach in the fleet, so we didn't get it very often. We usually had a slightly earlier V-reg, with the older style Plaxton tail-lamps rather than the square variety that this one had. I suspect it is the vehicle parked next to the main one in the picture. We only got the Renault Master minibus on the other side if there was a real problem...

 

 

I remember thinking, even at the time, that the colour scheme was wonderfully shite - beige with orange writing and a red and white stripe. The true Autoshite of coach operators.

 

Anyway, the oldest bus they had, I have no photographic record of - but it was very similar to this (also a Plaxton bodied Ford).

 

 

One morning on the way to school, a small group of us were sitting on the front seats of this old jalopy, chatting to the driver - an old chap called Alan if I remember correctly. As we approached our turning off the A405 dual carriageway between St Albans and Watford, probably doing about 50, he put his foot on the brake and nothing happened. After hitting a kerb and going up on two wheels, we careered into the central reservation and hit a tree. Miraculously, no-one was seriously injured but - obviously - the bus was shagged.

 

After jumping out the rear emergency exit, we all walked the rest of the way to school and made our excuses for being late for registration. And then in the afternoon, Alan turned up in another of the fleet acting as if nothing had happened. I expect they would have been sued these days - we all just thought it was quite exciting...

[Angrydicky]

Here's the bus I remember going to school on most between 2002-2004 ish, a MK1 MCW Metrobus. Supreme had a fleet of mainly ex WMT Metrobuses.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheeky_bar ... otostream/

 

Here's one of its sister buses in service in Birmingham town centre:

 

2334 LOA 334X by onthebeast, on Flickr

[RoadworkUK]

 

 

 

How good does that Panarama look?

 

Although things have certainly been improving in the last five years, I'd say that the golden age of British coach design passed in about '80, half way through the Plaxton Supreme / Duple Dominator era.

[CreepingJesus]

 

This very one. The BxxxPKS buses used to ferry me to school for 2 years ('85-'87) until we moved house. I remember B96 and B98 being regulars (altho', if it wore a Kelvin Scottish livery at the time, I've been on it). I went a bit gooey when I spotted this one at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum the other month; my 11 year old son was with me, and he found it all very amusing. I shocked that back out of him, by telling him of the time when an acquaintance put a firework thro' this very bus. In the passenger door, out of the drivers' sliding window, and into the garden across the road.

I was glad we moved, and I had only a 5 minute walk: after deregulation, the routes were taken over by Stagecoach, who were quite a new company at the time. Gary Souter came round himself to talk to the parents, and assured them all that a quality service would continue. On Routemasters and Lodekkas, as it turned out. And every one a bag o' shite. Souter is a dick btw, at least according to my mum...

I miss the sound of those MCW's, quite gruff and not at all polite. There were one or two running around Fife until the late 90's in Stagecoach colours. They only marginally outlasted the early Ailsa Volvos they were still running. What I never understood about the A-V's was why they needed mega revs to get them to go backwards, and even then only at a crawl.

@Trig: the gear lever on the side of the column, was for the 'Self-Changing Gears' semi-automatic 'box. No clutch pedal, just select 1st gear and squeeze the throttle. Altho' I'm sure a driver of a Fleetline showed me 'pulling away in 4th', which activated fully auto mode. I'd love a chance to drive one...

EDIT: Like this?

[Felly Magic]

The Voith DiWA *51 3 speed in Metrolumps..It is actually the torque converter acting in reverse on them which gives the reverse 'gear'. Every bus I've driven with that box is the same, be it in Olympians, Metrobuses, Scanias, DAF's...

[CreepingJesus]

The Voith DiWA *51 3 speed in Metrolumps..It is actually the torque converter acting in reverse on them which gives the reverse 'gear'. Every bus I've driven with that box is the same, be it in Olympians, Metrobuses, Scanias, DAF's...

 

Cheers, that answers the time I was on the platform of an A-V reversing out of a stance in Kirkcaldy bus station. I was sure it was the torque converter warning light which came up on the dashboard, when there wasn't any rearward motion at all. Cue much driver swearing, and button bashing. All that resulted was that the bus was jammed hard up against the railing in front, with no reverse! Time to call the tow truck...

[trigger]

When i left school and started my first job in the local garage the local kids were going to school in a Bedford OB with Duple coachwork similar to this one.

 

I wish i was a kid back in your day Brian, Those old Bedford were classy old things, we have a bus museum here in Ipswich so it's not uncommon to see an old bus still driving about around town.

 

A few years ago the port i work at had a "fun day" where they offered employees friends and family the chance of a bus trip to the port and around the quay in one of the vintage buses, I got to go for a ride in this old 1949 Bristol, It was great fun going down the A14 at about 40 mph watching steam and bubbles coming out of the radiator cap.

 

 

I really must make the effort to visit the museum one day, Especially as it's only up the road from me. The websites here with details of all the exhibits they have http://www.ipswichtransportmuseum.co.uk/index.html

[RoadworkUK]

I really must make the effort to visit the museum one day, Especially as it's only up the road from me. The websites here with details of all the exhibits they have http://www.ipswichtransportmuseum.co.uk/index.html

 

New Years Eastern region Shiters Road Trip?

[Lord Sterling]

2334 LOA 334X by onthebeast, on Flickr

 

When I first moved to Birmingham they were still running these Busses in the same colours, in fact they were still running them until around 2007/2008. I seem to remember thinking that they were a bit old, the engines were chuggin so much that I often wondered if we were actually going to break down. Alas we never did.

[trigger]

New Years Eastern region Shiters Road Trip?

 

Sounds good to me!, I'm not sure it's a whole day event though, maybe a hour or so?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Haha, my bus experiences as a child have been traumatically shite.

 

A minibus not unlike this (well, a yellow one) is what used to ferry me to/from elementary school.

 

During my last couple of years at elementary school, it was replaced by a more modern expression of shitehood, an equally yellow example of this.

 

Thankfully, I went on to walk to high school.

 

Public transport in Thessalonika in the late 80s/early 90s was mostly carried out by Volvos like this. Coachbuilt in Greece:

and a bendy version

 

and there were a few of these still about (horrible stuff), also locally made bodies.

 

I was making regular trips to athens to see my grandparents. I usually flew there and stayed with my grandma who had no car of her own, therefore I also got to enjoy the delights of Hungarian bus-shite.

[Captain Mainwaring]

Leyland Atlantean Roe Jumbos were the mainstay for my school buses at one point, then it went over to MCW Metrolumps, then to various local cowboy ops, using quality tat such as aged Leopard coaches

 

 

Scholes! That's round the corner from me...there's a good chance I've been on that bus.

 

Very happy memories of these noisy, smelly old things. Used to catch these at the bottom of the village to the top where school was, costing a princely 10p. Plenty of Olympians as well. I remember being pretty miffed when they got shut of them all and replaced 'em with Wright Renown bodied Volvo B10s.

 

Two or three of the Olympians lasted until very recently in school contract work. Keighley & District still run a few of them I think.

[DSdriver]

Guernsey used to be a great place for old buses. Because all the new ones were XXL size and too big for the tiny lanes. They seem to have got rid of them now which is rather a shame, I'm sure they could have made a TV series about a classic bus driving detective there that would have diverted all the tourists away from Jersey.

[Felly Magic]

 

Scholes! That's round the corner from me...there's a good chance I've been on that bus.

 

Very happy memories of these noisy, smelly old things. Used to catch these at the bottom of the village to the top where school was, costing a princely 10p. Plenty of Olympians as well. I remember being pretty miffed when they got shut of them all and replaced 'em with Wright Renown bodied Volvo B10s.

 

Two or three of the Olympians lasted until very recently in school contract work. Keighley & District still run a few of them I think.

 

This is Scholes in East Leeds though, not the one near Helifax. Olympians still do schools for First Bradford. If I remember right, the L82 was from Carr Manor high to Scholes, via Roundhay

[MK5 Escort]

Fortunately, I never has to take the school bus because other than my last year of schooling, I always lived within a 15/20 minute walk.

 

During my last year, I'd get a lift in with my dad to a friends house and walk from there. At the end of the day walk the near mile and a half every day, in all weathers, to my father's works where in the car until he’d finished at the end of the day. I still considered that was a better option than taking the bus.

 

Anyway, most school buses from memory were Red and Yellow liveried (near enough identical to this Leyland) Bristol VR’s of late seventies vintage. They looked presentable enough on the outside but a few friends who I knew used them said they were unbelievably scruffy on the inside and there was one particular bus where few would sit upstairs during wet weather as it leaked.

 

Away from School, the Dennis Dart with the plaxton body were the mainstay of the fleet. Mainly J*** SEH, L and M plates which graced our roads from the early nineties through the early noughties. I have lots of happy memories of these and travelled on pretty much all of them. I can still hear the tone of the engine in my head to this day and they had uprated sculpted seats which came with fixed headrests in a rather fetching grey draylon with red stripes - not the usual flat bench types. They're all gone now . The J's and L's for sure...

[Captain Mainwaring]

Olympians still do schools for First Bradford.

 

Where? Haven't seen one for ages, and assumed they'd all been KO'd.

[Felly Magic]

Mainly the ex London vehicles with Irish plates now. One of the P reg ex Glasgow Olympians was spotted in full service at the weekend in Leeds of all places. I actually am responsible for saving one of the native Optare Olys, and a friend of mine owns several ex PTE buses as toys, who runs his own bus co in Tockwith/Harrogate

[binhoker668]

These were my childhood buses - Absolutely cracking machines, both to look at and to ride in. They also served me well as crashpads when I was too drunk to go back to my parents house. Buses were parked at the end of our street, and the emergency front door release gave access to an incredibly comfy backseat for the night. I also spent a very uncomfortable (yet free) journey from Whitehead to Carrickfergus in the rear luggage compartment once.

Still my favourite bus of all time!

 

Sadly after many years they were replaced by these rather boxy and average things...

 

I still have a pipe dream of owning my own Leyland Leopard in full original 'Norn Iron' livery from the 70s. Just for my own transport and daily fun!

[roc24vIII]

They replaced all the regular buses here these here in the 80's, they ran hundreds of them, different colours for different routes.

 

All scrapped in the 90s, back to regular buses again now.

 

 

[TagoraGL]

Not from my childhood, I just thought it deserved a wider audience.

 

HARDINGS OF BAGBOROUGH NEAR TAUNTON by BRUEIAN, on Flickr

[Felly Magic]

Oh no a CF 350 Plaxton Mini Supreme! Comically overtall & wide body, and patheicically slow!

[DSdriver]

I used to catch one of these from Bromley South to my senior school at Keston when I was not using my pushbike

The London Transport RLH specially designed for routes with low bridges.

[Father Ted]

These things used to carry me to school and back and were ace for hanging off the back of and jumping off before they stopped.

 

Before I got a car, these used to ferry me to college.

[stoterstangen90]

[DSdriver]

All this has reminded me that when I was at school we had an Esperanto club and I went on a trip to a convention in Norwich. I did a quick google and came up with this

This is the bus we went in, owned by my schoolteacher Les Hartridge. The Morris J was cream over green with bench seats along the sides. Very comfy.

[Felly Magic]

They replaced all the regular buses here these here in the 80's, they ran hundreds of them, different colours for different routes.

 

All scrapped in the 90s, back to regular buses again now.

 

 

 

There are at least 2 of these Devon general breadvans preserved! Hovistastic!

[dollywobbler]

Loving the Dutch Volvos. That first one is insane. Most bus builders put the wipers above or below the windscreen rather than straight through it!