Buses of my childhood. Shite ones obviously

[cms206]

I lived in a different suburb of Paisley when I was a nipper, and was treated to all manner of shite - largely minibuses operated by one of the dozens of independant operators to have graced the streets of this rank, depressing shithole.

 

The main operator, Clydeside, provided these fine specimens:

 

BSJ 925T by no low floors, on Flickr

 

Clydeside Scottish Omnibuses Ltd . 345 E345WYS . Greenock . by AndrewHA ., on Flickr

 

 

 

A random selection of other shite...

 

 

and a rake of these Ivecos; this wasn't one of them, but apparantly no photos of the Bellview examples are online.

 

D613BCK by Wigan Airways, on Flickr

 

Residents of Paisley are known as Buddies, and Bellview's fleet of Ivecos were all white with two orange stripes and orange bumpers and branded 'Bellview Buddie', with cartoons of St Mirren fans cheering with their arms round one another... apart from one, D413 FRV.

 

D413 FRV had arrived in an allover black livery, so rather than try to repaint it white like the other 20-odd Ivecos, they painted the orange stripes on it, put wee cartoon sheep on it and branded it the 'Bellview Blacksheep'.

 

Top marks for shite ingenuity...

[M'coli]

[/url]

We had these too in a deep faded red colour on the other side of the Clyde, in what I called tham as a 6-year-old at the end of the 70s, "sad" (old) and "happy" (new - as above) - it was the shape of the grille that mattered. I loved the big indicator switch on them that the driver had to turn to make it work, and the fact that the drivers seemingly had to fiddle with the wiper motors directlyto get them to function.

[Junkman]

Gräf & Stift trolleys, Rainerstraße, Salzburg, c. 1970.

 

[Junkman]

An even olderer one crossing the Nonntaler Brücke, Salzburgs Southernmost bridge across the Salzach.

 

[mercrocker]

Blimey, there are some old threads on here!    Well, as long as I am here I may as well add this......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the end of my school bus route home, I got off about four stops before the beach, some timings terminated at a farmyard a couple of miles short of here where they backed into a turning area, scattering hens everywhere.   Also, they were still Tilling Green until I was midway through secondary school.    I can still smell the interior of these Lodekkas, they were pretty musical, too.   Check out the battered roof from all those trees!    Pants & Corset used the distinctive and fantastically-named Cave-Brown-Cave interior ventilation system, hence the big vents either side of the destination boxes. 

 

 

INTERESTING* SHITE FACT - Just beyond that Vogue is the stretch of beach used for the shot of the Renault 20TS in the 1979 brochure.   In fact, the "close up" shot is taken pretty much exactly where the bus is.

 

 

 

 

[RoadworkUK]

Rather pleasingly, I own one of my old school buses.

 

 

Albeit in 1:76 scale.

 

KJD58P, ex London DMS, served with Partridge of Hadleigh when I was at high school in the 90s, prior to latter-day decapitation and London tour service. It was eventually exported Stateside - though broken for spares on arrival.

[lisbon_road]

I went to school on FRM1, the unique front entrance rear engined Routemaster.  It ran a service around Potters Bar in North London.

 

Beat that.

[TripleRich]

I went back and forth to school for 7 or 8 years on F110 NES which was based out of Bedford.  Had no idea at the time it was even remotely special and we weren’t particularly fond of it.  I remember when we started upper school on the first day were chatting about what bus we'd get now we went to a different school.  Much to our disappointment it loomed around the corner.  Turned out It did the upper school first before circling back and doing the middle school...  

 

 

 

It had a few interesting quirks.  On hills it would like the change into the next gear before immediately deciding that was a mistake and downshift again, would do that 4 or 5 times on one particular hill.  

 

 

While waiting to leave school it blew a seal and oil poured out from under it.  The driver didn't believe us and only when we dragged him back to look out the window did he switch off the engine.  

 

 

That back brakes made one hell of a noise and vibration if used while reversing.

 

 

Some drivers used the push button high and low gearing while driving.  If they did it would pop out of gear altogether sometime later usually at speed.  It wouldn’t go back in gear again until the engine was switched off and restarted.  Did that a few times.

 

 

Later on when I was in sixth form in 2009 we had it far less frequently until it disappeared altogether.  Then while in Bedford some years later I saw it in its full megadecka glory.  I believe it’s now only used for events.  Good to know that old bugger is still about.

 

 

 

[RayMK]

Dad was in the RAF and very few bases had a school on-site.  I was therefore transported to the local school, usually in a village, but sometimes to a nearby town.  This was long before school transport became a fleet of 4x4s.  My transport was thus a coach from a local garage or coach company.  My first coaching experience was in a Bedford O series with a sweeping back end (rather than vertical).  It had wonderful looking rich upholstery which was very itchy to young short trousered legs.    This was at RAF Little Rissington in 1955 and the journey was to Great Rissington village school - the school is still there and in use.  I can't remember the buses or coaches used at our next base, RAF Signals Command at Plantation Road, Leighton Buzzard in 1957, but I do remember witnessing a younger child on a tricycle careering out of a road near our bus queue and going under the wheels. No counselling services in those days.  Next was a reaquaintence with the venerable Bedford O series which was used to cart us from Brookside Primary School, Bicester, to Cliftonville, Margate for a week's school trip in 1959.  The driver was a young lady  (well actually as old as my mum!) who had great ambitions when it came to overtaking lorries on uphill stretches.  She lent further and further over the steering wheel, trying to will the very few BHP at her command to whisk the 'O' past an even slower lorry.  I remember the engine revving enthusiastically, gears whining and a strong smell of petrol as we raced uphill at about 10mph.  Just as an aside, the same school trip included a trip to Calais on the Royal Daffodil on a very windy day.  Great fun, though we were told not to put our fingers near the porthole/window frames because they were flexing. We discovered that they would crush boiled sweets.  No buses or coach trips at the next RAF station in 1960 - Dad chauffeured me and my brother to Abbots Anne school in his 1954 Hillman Minx.  1961 was spent at Southsea whilst Dad was at RAF Gan for a year. No dad meant no driver and we used the excellent trolley bus services to get around. 1963, at RAF Naphill, was a good time for coach trips to school at Wellesbourne Secondary, Terriers, High wycombe.  Initially we had a lovely old coach with a tail fin. It may have been an AEC with Harrington body, but I can't swear to it.  Later, we were treated to a Duple bodied Bedford and occasionally a 6 wheeler Bedford. RAF Halton in 1964 was a cycle to school posting. 1966 was RAF Bruggen, Germany and petrol powered Bedford SB buses for the drag to school at Rheindahlen.  Military spec gave us nice petrol engines again but very basic seating with a steel bar across the back of each seat, ideal for smashing your teeth when the driver performed emergency stops.  These were apparently necessary at every stop.  The drivers were German and may still have had a grudge against Brits just 21years after WW2.  Actually, I think they were just iffy drivers.

 

Mr Junkman 's trolley bus post reminded me of the German civvy buses which we saw in Monchengladbach.  They were mainly Bussing underfloor engined types, but we sometimes saw trolley buses crawling along to a nearby village with its poles stowed and an onboard donkey engine heaving it along.  I tried to find a link for more information on these, but to no avail.  

 

My favourite from the limited experience above was and is the Bedford O series.

[EssDeeWon]

As a kid I remember these ex London Transport Routemasters running route 29 which went past the end of my road, late 80s.  We had a car so didn't use the bus much but I can certainly remember going on them, probably the one pictured in circa 1988/89

 

 

This used to run along the Southend Seafront back in the day.

 

 

These were very popular around Southend and run various routes, notably the route '4 to Landwick

 

[DSdriver]

Blimey, there are some old threads on here!    Well, as long as I am here I may as well add this......

 

 

5746125654_5206a16395_b.jpg

 

 

 

 

This was the end of my school bus route home, I got off about four stops before the beach, some timings terminated at a farmyard a couple of miles short of here where they backed into a turning area, scattering hens everywhere.   Also, they were still Tilling Green until I was midway through secondary school.    I can still smell the interior of these Lodekkas, they were pretty musical, too.   Check out the battered roof from all those trees!    Pants & Corset used the distinctive and fantastically-named Cave-Brown-Cave interior ventilation system, hence the big vents either side of the destination boxes. 

 

 

INTERESTING* SHITE FACT - Just beyond that Vogue is the stretch of beach used for the shot of the Renault 20TS in the 1979 brochure.   In fact, the "close up" shot is taken pretty much exactly where the bus is.

 

 

s-l300.jpg

Did they flip the photo to make the car RHD because the far coastline looks a mirror image to your bus pic?

[Asimo]

The primary school bus was one of these Bedford Duples, run by Greens of Newent.

 

 

Maroon /cream and Diesel engined, it was driven by Mr O'nions who kept a pig. If you sat just behind the driver you were "it" and your job was to hop out of the bus and pick up any beet, potatoes, mangels etc lying in the road, which would go in the pig food bucket next to the engine cover.

 

Special school trips were always in a green, petrol engined variant like this.

 

 

It was a bit posher, with the extra windows and fancy aluminium-rail luggage racks. Don't remember the driver's name, but he had a proper quiff.

[LC Torana]

When I started high school in 1975, the route bus was 24-carat rolled-gold sh!te.

 

Feast your eyes on the Bedford SB7.  Ancient and wheezy even by 1975 standards.

 

 

 

EVERYTHING rattled.  The window fittings, the lever-operated door, the cash register, the gearstick, even the bl**dy seats.

 

 

The curved-window ones like above seemed relatively modern.  Some had the flat windows and seemed to have come, to my childish eyes, to have come out of the ark:

[mercrocker]

Did they flip the photo to make the car RHD because the far coastline looks a mirror image to your bus pic?

 

Photos aren't flipped although may possibly have involved retouching of the car.   The full length R20 shot is taken facing east (i.e. photographers back towards the bus) with the tide receded, the closer image is taken facing west (photographer facing other way).   The opposing coast is that of the Isle of Wight so the horizon reverts to open sea at either end....  

 

In the 1979 Renault all-model brochure the cheaper 20TL is photographed further west along the mainland coast at the much more exclusive Buckler's Hard on the Beaulieu River. 

There are some other locations possibly local to here as well but I cannot positively identify them as they are a bit generic.   I assume this all arose because of Renaults being imported through nearby Southampton at the time (I well remember seeing rows of Dauphines up to their brake drums in salt water!   

 

The main beach photo must have involved the local council to allow access as you cannot normally get that far down....

[DSdriver]

The primary school bus was one of these Bedford Duples, run by Greens of Newent.

 

red.JPG

 

Maroon /cream and Diesel engined, it was driven by Mr O'nions who kept a pig. If you sat just behind the driver you were "it" and your job was to hop out of the bus and pick up any beet, potatoes, mangels etc lying in the road, which would go in the pig food bucket next to the engine cover.

 

Special school trips were always in a green, petrol engined variant like this.

 

Green.JPG

 

It was a bit posher, with the extra windows and fancy aluminium-rail luggage racks. Don't remember the driver's name, but he had a proper quiff.

They were using this type of thing on Guernsey years after their sell by date. I presume because they were compact enough to get past other vehicles in the lanes.

[Roverageous]

I grew up near Hull, and as such we had the pleasure of Peter Shipp's finest. It's all much more recent than every one else on this thread, however I can offer an amazing coincidence during this story.

 

I attended a college with a fair old bus ride each day - operated by EYMS. A variety of busses were used but the two that were used more than any other were Bus 600 (wore the plate A10 EYD later N660 BRH) which was my favourite (an Alexander Royale bodied Olympian with coach seats) and R782 SOY (an Olympian which spent more time spewing water / oil out than being a bus).

 

A few years after I finished college I was poking around the EYMS website and noticed that A10 EYD had been transferred to an open top bus which was to operate Scarborough seafront, and bus 600 had been put back on to its original plate (N660 BRH). A few months later I noticed this bus as being 'delicensed' on EYMS website and later was sold to 'Direct Coach Sales Ltd'. Sad.

 

In 2015 I then moved to Aylesbury with work and as I was driving past one of the local grammar schools I noticed a big white Olympian. It's only N660 BRH! Now used by DRS / Motts on school contracts but undoubtedly in its twilight years

 

 

[0ldCh0d]

This is a good thread. These were the very buses that ferried us to high school....This is not my picture, credit to the owner.

 

[Norbert]

A while back, Felly Magic (I think, posted a picture of this:

 

 

And said it was in a heritage livery.

 

"How can that be heritage - surely that's just what buses look like round there?" I thought.... and then realised it's over 20 years since I lived in Norfolk full-time, and even longer since I was a regular bus user round there.

When I was a kid - and even now, to be honest - when I think 'Bus' the image in my head is an Eastern Counties Bristol VR with ECW bodywork, in either NBC or early deregulation liveries, like so:

 

 

 

I've undoubtedly ridden on the lower one - in that pic the blinds are set for my bus home from Norwich.

 

During the middle of the day, or when things were slack, or the VRs were so full that a duplicate was needed, usually we'd get a Leyland National:

 

 

These caused me endless consternation on shopping trips with the less-than-tolerant Ma_Norbert as one always seemed to roar past just as she was saying something....

 

"OK, you can go and look in the bookshop, but make sure you meet me at [ROOOOOAR] before [ROOOOOAR] O'clock. Got that?"

 

"Er.... pardon?"

 

[sound of Ma_Norbert exploding - which was even louder than a Mk1 National]

 

Special mention must go to the beigetastic later post-deregulation livery:

 

 

As well as the 1980s attempt by a VR to start the Norwich Underground:

 

 

[standard Norwich claim] My dad drove past that spot shortly before the hole appeared. [/standard Norwich claim]

[martc]

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.

 

Shorley shum mishtake - the door should read "Junaj esperantistoj klubo Bromley Kent Anglio".

[quicksilver]

I never had the delightful* experience of travelling to school by bus but I did spend a lot of time watching them and that's where my interest in buses started. There was so much variety back then and most operators seemed to use whatever was available - one day could be an ancient double-decker, the next a nearly-new tour coach on the same service.

 

Langston & Tasker were always a favourite with their old Bedfords and Fords that had been around forever. This was the oldest and they'd owned it since 1979.

 

Then one day they shocked me by turning up with this. A brand new coach (the first for 25 years) in a brand new livery, and it was on school work right from the day it was delivered!

 

Lanes seemed to have exotic tastes - they had a Setra, a Merc 0303, three Neoplan Transliners and one of the uber-rare Volvo C10Ms. Marshalls could turn out with anything from a Bristol VR to one of these Ivecos - when they were delivered Mr Marshall was adamant they were only for best and wouldn't be used for schools but within two weeks one had done a schoolrun.

Marshalls are still around and mostly use Volvo Olympians now but one of their fancy Ayats Bravo double-deck coaches was out this afternoon.

 

Then there was Jeffs, who ran the town service that passed my house, usually with a pair of these

Occasionally a Transit or Sherpa would turn up instead and for a while they used this exotic beast, an Indcar Maxim

Sadly Jeffs are no longer with us. They were bought out by the Bowen Group, who went bust in 2012. Jeffs were rescued by the infamous King Long, who let them go bust again a couple of years later with no hope of recovery. Nowadays the town service is run by Redline with a Mini Pointer Dart low-floor crap.

[Grundig]

 

Bristol RE's & Leyland Nationals that ran on a dedicated road network (Busway)

 

Plenty more info & images -  http://transport-illustrated.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/runcorn-in-eighties.html

 

 

[Junkman]

One of my school buses was a Neoplan Hamburg:

 

 

Another one was a Setra S12:

 

 

 

And then there were always these:

 

 

MAN Metrobus, standard ware of Munich's public transport system.
There is only one left nowadays. One!

[Six-cylinder]

In about 1971 I went on a school trip to Switzerland and we we taken around on this bus.

[Snipes]

I also didn't get the bus to school as I was always within walking distance but I use to get the Maynes and GM (later Stagecoach) services between Manchester and Ashton-Under-Lyne. Maynes run 231-235 went past my street but the GM/Stagecoach 216 and 236/237 required an additional 15-20 minute walk. They ran down the same road for a few miles and I had to try and hot swap if I were on a 216/236/237 and we passed one of the Maynes buses.

 

-Littlemoss, my home village!

 

-these had the best seats. Old-school benches you could spread out on.

 

-mostly replaced by these which had those awful molded plastic individual seats.

The Maynes' depot was on the same road. The bus would usually stop for a driver change which added another 10 minutes to the journey. They pulled out of the bus business when the owned died and the company moved exclusively to coaches. 

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/end-of-the-mayne-line-940887

 

 

 

 

Of course, the Metro-link trams run the route alongside Stagecoach buses and it's all un-recognizable.  I use to hate getting the bus - it's funny how you can become nostalgic over just about anything.

[Pillock]

Leyland Nationals, from Trent. Every single day on the way to college (I was within walking distance to school). This was 1995 and they were getting seriously tired, but Trent seemingly hadn't put any money into that area for many years. In fact if you caught a bus from Mansfield Bus Station to Nottingham Victoria the entire journey could be out of 1978.

 

From

 

On

 

To

 

 

On the way back from college, we'd probably get a Bristol VR

 

 

(memories include the incredibly hot and smelly rear seat in the lower saloon, and the horrific way the whole bus juddered when braking in reverse)

 

although they were filtering down some slightly newer Olympians from somewhere too

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

From 1975 until 1981 I attended Ysgol Gyfun Aberaeron which you may have guessed is in mid-Wales .

As my parents were feckless hippies I lived in a few different places, but always went to school on one of Crosvilles finest.

 

75-77 was always one of these, probably because although ancient, even then ,they were small enough to fit down the single lane tracks that laughingly passed as roads in the back of beyond that I lived.

Later I lived in the teeming metropolis of New Quay which meant more kids and a main road route, hence these did service. That white one had massive skylights that you could post briefcases through-probably.

This thing arrived in about 79 and was immediately christened ' The Prison Bus' due to all the bars inside, which were good for tying kids to using there own ties and belts.

[83C]

In the late 1990's I travelled to secondary school on a variety of ageing Bedfords, Leylands and Fords owned by Stretton Travel, a small independent operator in Shropshire.

 

 

ACH 933A, a Ford R1014 with a Duple Dominant II body.

 

 

TJT 205R, a grant spec Bedford YMT with Plaxton Supreme Express bodywork. Apparently this one had been re-engined with a Cummins lump.

 

 

KWS 298X, a DAF MB200 with Plaxton Supreme bodywork.

 

Then this turned up:

 

 

JUG 191Y was a Leyland Tiger with Duple Carribean bodywork. Despite only being a few years newer than the Fords and Bedfords we were used to this was almost like having something new and modern. After a few months it got repainted into standard fleet colours, much to our dismay:

 

 

It was followed by this:

 

 

B247 KUX was another DAF MB200 but this time with the even more exotic Caetano Algarve body. I haven't been able to find much about the early history of this vehicle but the registration suggests it had been a local vehicle from new (UX being a Shrewsbury-issued mark).

 

I think someone earlier in the thread mentioned the TOF-S batch of Nationals at Midland Red North - they were regulars on the 19 from Bayston Hill into Shrewsbury:

 

 

Shrewsbury had a fair allocation of Nationals, a few were always memorable though, including GMB 383T (fleet no. 883) an ex-Crosville example fitted with a poorly silenced Gardner 6HLXCT - compared to the relatively high-pitched scream of a 510 the Gardner lump in 883 sounded evil - a deep gurgling lump that could be heard long before it was seen.

 

We'd also get the occasional Leyland Tiger, including one numbered 1725 occasionally...

[wuvvum]

A while back, Felly Magic (I think, posted a picture of this:

 

ECOC heritage.JPG

 

And said it was in a heritage livery.

 

"How can that be heritage - surely that's just what buses look like round there?" I thought.... and then realised it's over 20 years since I lived in Norfolk full-time, and even longer since I was a regular bus user round there.

When I was a kid - and even now, to be honest - when I think 'Bus' the image in my head is an Eastern Counties Bristol VR with ECW bodywork, in either NBC or early deregulation liveries, like so:

 

ecoc vr nbc.JPG

 

ecoc vr dereg.JPG

 

I've undoubtedly ridden on the lower one - in that pic the blinds are set for my bus home from Norwich.

 

During the middle of the day, or when things were slack, or the VRs were so full that a duplicate was needed, usually we'd get a Leyland National:

 

ecoc national.JPG

 

These caused me endless consternation on shopping trips with the less-than-tolerant Ma_Norbert as one always seemed to roar past just as she was saying something....

 

"OK, you can go and look in the bookshop, but make sure you meet me at [ROOOOOAR] before [ROOOOOAR] O'clock. Got that?"

 

"Er.... pardon?"

 

[sound of Ma_Norbert exploding - which was even louder than a Mk1 National]

 

Special mention must go to the beigetastic later post-deregulation livery:

 

ecoc vr beige.JPG

 

As well as the 1980s attempt by a VR to start the Norwich Underground:

 

ecoc down a hole.JPG

 

[standard Norwich claim] My dad drove past that spot shortly before the hole appeared. [/standard Norwich claim]

When I first moved to Norwich in '97 most of the double deckers were still VRs in that cream livery - although the single deckers were all Dennis Darts by then (and Merc T2s, including a couple of Mk1s still crawling around).

 

Then in 2001 I moved to Coltishall, and the buses from there were a variety of Sanders' battered old heaps - two multi-coloured Olympians, one which had a 4-speed 'box and ran out of revs at 40, one with a 5-speeder which would do 50 as long as there wasn't a headwind, a couple of manual T2s, and a Van Hool-bodied Bedford coach which actually looked quite modern but was powered* by a 500 non-turbo and wouldn't pull 6th gear into a stiff breeze.  Sanders have gone all modern and boring now, although they do have a couple of 3-axle double deckers which are the biggest buses around here (plus a similarly-sized 2-axle bus with an absurdly long wheelbase).

 

 

And their in-house recovery truck is still thunderously shite.

 

 

When I first moved out to where I am now (nearly 9 years ago now - bugger me!), one of the independents (I think it was Neaves) was running one of those rebodied Leyland Nationals (I forget the name of them).  I used to love it when that thing would pull up - firstly it absolutely flew, and secondly it made the best noise of evar.  Now long gone sadly.

[83C]

That'd be an East Lancs Greenway. Basically a National with new front panels, side panels and windows. Midland Red had a pair in Shrewsbury, PUK 637R & PUK 652R.

 

[cms206]

Gardner Nationals you say... seven filthy minutes...

 

https://youtu.be/Hfnnbr4CeTg

 

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