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Citybus red and cream, Ulsterbus was blue and cream. Both mixed and matched fleets but had their own individual seating layouts so his had to be changed if the bus swapped fleets.

They also had the last RE of all, BXI 2580 (although not the highest chassis number it was the last one built) that entered service in 1986 after a period in store being new in 1984.

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22 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

You seriously telling me you chose a pile of shite of a Mk 1B Leyland Nastywagon over that two stoke Fodern.  Christ there's no helping some people ( but then you did say you liked P*cers).

 

PS, Alexander RE looks like Citybus, Ulsterbus were blue and white IIRC.

 

Like is the wrong word. It's more of a grim fascination. 

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23 hours ago, 108 said:

That Bristol RE looks like Citybus. Didn’t Ulsterbus use Maroon and Cream?  I might be wrong. 

I’ll quote myself here because I was looking at a pic of a maroon bus but managed to mention the wrong colour in my reply. *

 

* note to self: Don’t reply on the internet after a few pints of Uncle Arthur’s medicine. 

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1 minute ago, 108 said:

I’ll quote myself here because I was looking at a pic of a maroon bus but managed to mention the wrong colour in my reply. *

 

* note to self: Don’t reply on the internet after a few pints of Uncle Arthur’s medicine. 

Actually, Belfast Corporation, the predecessor to Citybus were maroon and cream.

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I didn't actually realise that buses could be interesting until I found myself on page 18 of this thread and still going. Actually I did enjoy the London Transport museum, I like those old AEC Regents, simply because they're the iconic London bus to me. Nice to see the odd Midland FRed West bus from my childhood too.

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In middle school I won third prize in a Lego building competition (voted for by fellow class mates) for my interpretation of a Southampton Atlantean and Hants & Dorset National. Of course the only thing that made it a National was the pod on the back (these were the days, late 70's, when Lego was Lego, none of these fancy shaped bits you get these days). But it was enough for my almost entirely non bus crank classmates to recognise it as the buses they saw around them. 

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9 hours ago, Bag'O'Spanners said:

MK1 National with a smoky 510, high back blue coach seats, luggage racks in London Country livery with the old style flat tail pipe....... Bus heaven to me.

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk
 

Can't remember the last time I saw a National (of any version) with the correct old side pipe in front of the offside rear wheel...always bugs me when I see an early one with the exhaust coming out the back.

...Though having seen the routing of the earlier one I'm not surprised!

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53 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Can't remember the last time I saw a National (of any version) with the correct old side pipe in front of the offside rear wheel...always bugs me when I see an early one with the exhaust coming out the back.

...Though having seen the routing of the earlier one I'm not surprised!

You obviously never used to have to scour the byways and highways for complete National exhaust systems (from turbo, silencer, fish tail, the lot). In their infinite wisdom, Leyland thought that two mounting points along with the structural integrity of the turbo itself was enough to suspend all of that silencer and pipework (and bloody heavy it all was too).

The “pipe out the back” solution cut the weight of the exhaust by two thirds and was suspended by one cotton reel  rubber mounting rather more successfully than Leyland's effort.

Oh and the side exhaust was a pain in the arse for maintenance too as it had to be dropped off the bus every time the gearbox had to be changed. Also any excess ATF running out of the filler when topping up said gearbox (engine running and in neutral to make sure the fluid flywheel is filled too dontyaknow) sat in a pool on top of the fishtail where it was gently roasted by escaping exhaust gasses.

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The best bit about Nastywagons, apart from seeing them in scrap yards, was watching drivers getting a passenger to sit in the cab and turn the ignition key  whilst they went around kicking all the panels until the interlock on the one that was causing it not to start finally gave in.

By the time I got to drive them in the late 70's, these had been removed, for somewhat obvious reasons.

 

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2 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

The best bit about Nastywagons, apart from seeing them in scrap yards, was watching drivers getting a passenger to sit in the cab and turn the ignition key  whilst they went around kicking all the panels until the interlock on the one that was causing it not to start finally gave in.

By the time I got to drive them in the late 70's, these had been removed, for somewhat obvious reasons.

 

Oh no they bloody hadn’t! They weren’t long for the world as soon as I got my hands on them though. Bet most didn't know about the engine compartment lights that just happened to be complete early Lucas oblong units that used to sell great guns when salvaged, cleaned up and sold for ££££ to preservationists.

To be fair, half the issue was the poxy Fiberglass replacement panels that the cheapskate operators used to buy in. They flexed like holy buggery and it was no wonder that the microswitches never worked properly. Don't get me started on folks (preservationists, I'm looking at you here too) using fiberglass panels on structural areas, held in with ordinary rivets. For christ sake, you wouldn't replace your sills with fiberglass replacements and expect your car to hold together, would you?

I could go on (and on).

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1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

The best bit about Nastywagons, apart from seeing them in scrap yards, was watching drivers getting a passenger to sit in the cab and turn the ignition key  whilst they went around kicking all the panels until the interlock on the one that was causing it not to start finally gave in.

By the time I got to drive them in the late 70's, these had been removed, for somewhat obvious reasons.

 

This got me once up at Alford one day.

Engine started first touch and idling nicely...if rapidly filling the shed with dense blue smoke...but no throttle.  Idle is too low to kick the alternator into charge or get any air up.  Accelerator pedal does nothing.

Cue fifteen minutes of crawling all over the bus before randomly flailing around and pushing every damn button I could find.  Opening the centre door (which I just had enough air for) and closing it again suddenly got me a working throttle pedal.

Leyland in their infinite wisdom decided to fit two door closure switches...one for the warning light on the dash and one for the throttle interlock.  The one for the warning light is the one which is turned off first...I said some choice things about the designer of the electrical system at that point!

I then exited the storage shed and disappeared off down the road in a huge cloud of blue smoke.  That thankfully does stop once warmed up, drives nicely too. 

 

Never realised the original exhaust system was so poorly supported!  I do remember it weighing a goddamn ton when I had to shift one for a friend though!

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Air operated throttles, that's a great idea, provided that the bus you're got has air in it when you start it.

As you have said, any interlock, or even just a dead bus, can take a very long time before you can actually drive it. One of the joys* of modern, rear engined vehicles, and designers who wouldn't know a bus if it ran them down !

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1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

The best bit about Nastywagons, apart from seeing them in scrap yards, was watching drivers getting a passenger to sit in the cab and turn the ignition key  whilst they went around kicking all the panels until the interlock on the one that was causing it not to start finally gave in.

By the time I got to drive them in the late 70's, these had been removed, for somewhat obvious reasons.

 

What’s an interlock, please?

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From my background, rail... Interlocks are series of switches/relays/contactors to close safety circuits that then allow something else to operate. I.e. if the train door interlocks don't close, the train won't allow tractive effort (powered movement).

Back on Nationals, the noise of the things used to scare the Christ out of me as a child.. became a morbid curiosity and then a fascination.

Did I confess I'm a sad bugger yet?


Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

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Same with buses, all the opening panels on a National had them. If a panel wasn't closed correctly, or quite often, the switch wasn't adjusted correctly, the engine wouldn't start.

Doors open, no throttle, so no movement.

Interlocks are common in modern industry, usually for safety related reasons.

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Ah interlocked engine covers.  

I worked on helping the Designer of a redesigned bracket for a thrust reverser on a jet engine, to understand his tolerance stack ups.

The reason for the need for the design.  All locks in place, all safe. Warning comes up whilst taxi ing to say the engine covers are open.  Plane and 350 passengers straight back to terminal building and £££££££ in compensation. 

The cause. The original design it was impossible to move the sensor closer and the tolerances and the movement and vibration meant that a sensor that could just see the closed lock one minute, might not see it the next.  

 

 

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11 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

Air operated throttles, that's a great idea, provided that the bus you're got has air in it when you start it.

As you have said, any interlock, or even just a dead bus, can take a very long time before you can actually drive it. One of the joys* of modern, rear engined vehicles, and designers who wouldn't know a bus if it ran them down !

Could be worse...it could be the arcane ritual of pressing and holding buttons in the correct sequence you need to go through to start a bloody Optare Solo...

Not sure if the current ones are the same, but I remember being rather baffled by a couple of early ones.

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2 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

Same with buses, all the opening panels on a National had them. If a panel wasn't closed correctly, or quite often, the switch wasn't adjusted correctly, the engine wouldn't start.

 

the London Transport Daimler fleetlines had them too

which caused all sorts of issues as the bus body flexed under load apparently!

to quote ians bus stop :) 

"Microswitches for detecting the closure of doors failed - or the doors failed to close properly as the buses flexed under load - so buses couldn't be put into gear. There were, not surprisingly, stress problems around the great big hole in the middle of the side of the bus (the exit doorway)."

(on that note has anyone here ever been driving a bus where the body just suddenly collapses around you due to some structural member/bodge failing?)

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2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

the London Transport Daimler fleetlines had them too

which caused all sorts of issues as the bus body flexed under load apparently!

to quote ians bus stop :) 

"Microswitches for detecting the closure of doors failed - or the doors failed to close properly as the buses flexed under load - so buses couldn't be put into gear. There were, not surprisingly, stress problems around the great big hole in the middle of the side of the bus (the exit doorway)."

(on that note has anyone here ever been driving a bus where the body just suddenly collapses around you due to some structural member/bodge failing?)

Yeah, complete wibble. Buses do flex - they're designed to do it (the tale of the Strachans bus bodies on Daimler Roadliners is one of either absolute genius or “fuck me, they’re doing what?!) 

The two panels either side of the big hole in the centre? They're stressed bulkheads to take up the loads caused by the hole. It’ll still move but not to the extent that doors wont shut enough to turn a correctly adjusted microswitch off - for a start, they're positioned on the door ram plate so it’d take a colossal amount of movement for those to be out of alignment. Reality - they broke, they were badly fitted at time of building or were badly adjusted when replaced. 

What bodybuilders failed to realise early on in the rear engined revolution was that chassis flexed differently to front engined stuff. They built very strong boxes on top of the chassis and tied them down well but when the chassis flexed, the bodies broke up around various points - ECW was usually in the roof just above the front wheels MCW was near the rear wheels in the roof and side stress panels etc etc and most split in the roof above the centre exit doors as the bulkheads either side acted as very useful and strong fulcrums for the rest of the body to pivot around.

 

I sort of had a bus body collapse on me due to a failing structural member. The member in question was a cast iron pillar that was holding a wooden roof up in the garage. I managed to punt said pillar out, causing the roof to come down and crush the bus I was in, losing the top deck rear structure. Yeah, I managed to write off a bus garage. Not a great claim to fame but impressive all the same.

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3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

 

(on that note has anyone here ever been driving a bus where the body just suddenly collapses around you due to some structural member/bodge failing?)

The Southampton Atlanteans and their East Lancs bodywork were very flexible particularly near the end (we managed to hang on to them til 2005). 

If you sat upstairs at the front you could see the front windows, the pillars and the bulkhead all moving independently of each other. Later on big sections of sheet aluminium appeared joining the bulkhead to the bit just below the window. Just riveted on. Then there were these ally strips that were attatched (riveted again) to the bar of the window frame just under the sliding windows, bent round the pillar and attatched to the adjacent window. 

Best of all though, you know those bars they fit to the upstairs front to deflect tree strikes? Southampton CityBus made some out of old Lynx handrails (they had that diamond pattern in them). One end was fitted under the upstairs front window and the top was bent round and attatched somehow just behind the fibreglass dome. But I'm sure they were there to hold the bus together because they were only fitted to the buses with repairs* inside too. And I don't think they could care less if a tree beat the shit out of the fibreglass domes because plenty did and they didn't fit these bars to all the buses. 

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The upper deck on buses was very lightly built as a rule, East Lancs doubly so. The body from just below the upper deck windows upwards is really just a lightweight box, just enough to keep the rain off (although with East Lancs and some others I could mention, they weren't too good at that either) - there was no real strength to this bit at all. After a good number of years pounding up and down the streets connected to great lumps of solid steel they used to call springs in those days, it's no wonder things used to get a little "floppy".

East Lancs were the masters of structural inadequacy. I remember heading into the garage where we took our M.o.T tests that just happened to have some East Lancs deckers in brand new. For some reason they didn't want the coach seats fitted from the factory and were in the process of replacing them with normal bus seats upstairs. The state of play was that all of the seats on the upper deck had been removed when an engineer took me upstairs and proceeded to show me how you could flex the entire upper body on this brand new bus. Yup, that's right. The upper deck seats were structural to the bus. East Lancs - Great bunch of lads.

 

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Tales of integrity No. 2

Strachans built a number of bodies on vehicles around the 1960s including early versions of the first generation, rear engined single deck buses. London Transport had some and strangely, these bodies fared much better at avoiding the catastrophic structural failures that beset other manufacturers products. How they did it, I never worked out whether they were bloody clever or off their trolleys so to speak.
I believe they worked out that the first generation rear engined, single deck chassis flexed like nothing ever seen before - whether they tested one before bodying or whether a delivery driver told them when they brought one along, who knows. Their solution was wonderfully simple. They didn't attach the body to the chassis from the point of the rear wheels rearward! Yup, the body just rested on "pads" made of packing material and so when the chassis flexed, the body wasn't put under undue stress, causing the cracking up of other bodies.

This brainwave made sure that Strachans bodies on rear engined, single deck buses used to resist breaking up better than the rest. But it didn't make them better as they had another trick up their sleeve, one that confounded me to this day. 
Bus bodies are made of framework, consisting of an upright (tied to a chassis outrigger in some way) at each side of the bus that was connected by an inverted U of framework that served the double purpose of supporting the roof and connecting the two uprights together. A number of these 'hoops' were placed along the chassis to create bays (about one window width long) and are then tied together with other, horizontal bits of frame, all making a rather strong box as to hang the bits of body onto. 

Strachans didn't. They had uprights in the usual place but instead of joining them with the roof sticks to make that strong hoop shape, they ran a horizontal frame along the top to tie the upright together there. The roof sticks (still awake at the back?) were then mounted in between the uprights, on this horizontal frame. The result? a very flexible bus body. Was it done on purpose? Who knows now but I heard takes of their double deck bodied being built in a similar manner so I think it was just a case of "that's how we do it here". The massive benefit was that the body 'gave' with the flexing of the chassis - on purpose or not, it worked.

Sadly Strachans bodies were rather poorly built using not great materials (tales of their use of fish glue used for sticking down the lino onto the floor - every time one got wet it stunk the whole bus out with the smell of rotting fish) so many who ventured to buy one or more of their products seldom came back but I do think they could have taught the likes of Met Cam et al one or two things about thinking outside of the box when it came to body design!

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Tales of integrity - today.

This is being converted to a mobile advertising display (one of those electronic ones).

Spent a bit of time with them explaining structural design of buses, including chassis design , not to mention heights.

Yes, the top deck is currently held up with those wooden props.

IMG_20190722_115931.thumb.jpg.8fa6829944190edd3dd5ab3289a08b4a.jpg

There's an equally big hole on the other side.

 

I will add, that once the screen is in there, structural bits are to be added before it travels around the country.

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Seem to recall issues with the single deck Northern Counties Paladine having issues with there being sufficient body flex to allow the huge single piece windscreen to pop out - why the vast majority seemed to have had a two piece affair fitted during their lives.

May have the model in my head wrong...these things anyhow (the one on the left of the image below).  Also has a place in my memory of being *the* bus in Bluebird's fleet which most effectively eluded all of my attempts to get a decent photo of it.

892779653_Screenshot_20190725_172556_org.mozilla.firefox2.thumb.jpg.d8a7f240cfa2ca0e76dd09335287ab64.jpg

I don't think I ever actually travelled on one despite commuting by bus between Inverurie and Aberdeen for several years and being involved in public transport for eight years.

Never got a shot of a B10M PS either, travelled on them probably hundreds of times though.

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5 minutes ago, lanciamatt said:

Leyland nationals are bus porn to me too, I love em, never drove one but can remember them well into my early 20s in Barnsley, all I recal still had the 510,which to me sounds awesome, I used to catch the 279 bus run by Barnsley and District, this nearly always was a mk1,. 

Don't remind me of these, I drove for Aldham, next door neighbours at Low Valley.......

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