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Didnt know a Lancet had a V8?

 

I'd prefer the one with the last ever y-type body. Anybody know if its still going?

 

 

The Lancet came with basically whatever engine/'box you wanted, with a choice of air or leaf suspension - most of the bigger ones (Northern's six and Blackpool's four certainly) were Perkins V8/Allison auto much like the fire engines Dennis were turning out at the time; in total eighty seven Lancet chassis were produced with the following options; I'm not sure if all the combinations were actually ordered by anyone.

 

ENGINE:

 

Perkins V8-540

Leyland 402

Leyland 411T

Cummins 6BT

Perkins T6.354

Perkins 6.354

 

GEARBOX:

 

Allison MT543 auto

ZF 4HP500 auto

Eaton 5-speed manual

 

LENGTH:

 

8.5m, 10m or 11m

 

 

I only really know this stuff as I owned chassis 55 (SDA525/155) which was the last demonstrator and the highest numbered chassis bodied in the UK as a PSV; it was 10-metre D631 BPL with a Duple body and was Cummins/ZF. Two F-reg bus chassis were bodied by Wadham Stringer (chassis 53/54) and 12 were bodied as mobile libraries, the last being H792 AMM for the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

 

The Y-type Lancet was Northern's ND1, XSA 4Y; it carried the second to last Y-type body (158AYS/382/1) and was scrapped after serving with McColl, Bowling around 1993. XSA 5Y (body 159AYS/482/1) was the last Y-type and was also unique, being on a Volvo B57 chassis; it still survives with WJC Buses, Chapelhall.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Airside at John Lennon Airport, Merseycestershire.

 

gulliver.jpg

 

I make no apology for nicking this photo off the web somewhere as my own attempt came out blurred. For the avoidance of doubt, the above is one of these:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/merseyside ... 004236829/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34039033@N06/6066896962/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgeupstairs/6251108880/

 

Comedy. The sort of thing you might expect if somebody bred a single decker bus with a milkfloat.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Classic or shite? I spent today 'conducting' this at a local charity event 8)

 

7427513774_7f101d7dfe.jpg

Routemaster RM 506 at Aldridge Lions Fayre by geoffp5, on Flickr

 

No doubt about which category this falls into though :wink: Nice time-warp touch of a childrens' marching band with its own shite bus; I thought that was now only a thing of the past. :)

 

7427517444_dd170a590f.jpg

Bedford Plaxton Paramount by geoffp5, on Flickr

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The RM bus actually has a very interesting development story.

 

The Paramount is tops though, I've never actually heard a Bedford one being driven though so cant compare the sound to the lovely Gardner-Engined Tigers that used to be on the 38 from Edinburgh. Would like to hear one though!

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The RM bus actually has a very interesting development story.

 

Please don't get me started on pissing Routemasters...

 

The Paramount is tops though, I've never actually heard a Bedford one being driven though so cant compare the sound to the lovely Gardner-Engined Tigers that used to be on the 38 from Edinburgh. Would like to hear one though!

 

 

Bedford was a marque I never took to; most of these late model YNTs and YNV Venturers (the only Bedford PSV with an actual model name, IIRC) were 5.9l or 8.3l Cummins powered though Bedford's own engine was available. I only remember Bedfords as being underpowered and having wooly steering. Much preferred Ford R-series.

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Any time I hear the unique clattery sound of a Bedford, I expect to see a Strathclyde Region school bus (can't recall the bodywork maker. Boxy and utilitarian...Wright's?) and I consequently smell chlorine. Mostly 'cos we were taken to the swimming in them. The engine's the same as the TK and TL trucks, and as such needed the nuts revved off it to get 30+ schoolkids and their wet towels off up the road. From memory, the later truck versions had about 100 horse, so the bus version would've been in that ballpark.

The Ford always sounded like it was working really hard too, with quite a pronounced turbo whistle. At least in the Panorama bodied one I got to school for a short while. It was a short lived replacement for a similar aged Panorama Leopard, before the guy who did the run bought a Van Hool B10 instead.

 

In the meantime (and to distract from my drunken rambling...) have a couple of shite-ish buses.

IMAG0872.jpg

The possibly brush painted Neoplan B10 that ferried one of my kids and his classmates to rural Perthshire for 5 days of mud. I wish I'd got a pic of the Van Hool B10 that A1 Coaches had a few years ago; like this one, amusingly, every window carried an international destination, except one. So from memory, it went 'Paris, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Methil'. Fifers, eh? Whaddaya gonna do with 'em?

IMAG1121.jpg

And a shit picture of Stagecoach's Aberdeen-Edinburgh 'Panda Bus', or the Zoo Special if you will. It's on Irish plates, so I'm assuming that given Stagecoach's usual standard of shamelessness, this Neoplan's pretty damn old. Maybe one of the original Glasgow-Aberdeen express buses from the early days of the company, brought out of retirement?

I'll get a better pic, when I can remember to be at Ferrytoll at the same time as it is.

 

I have a dim view of Mr Soutar and his two-bit operation. From '85, I had to get the bus to school, and initially it was a Kelvin Scottish shite-fest. Every old clunker they didn't mind getting trashed got used - even the last Albion Viking in the fleet. Y- and M-type Leopards with manual 'boxes and no power steering, Paramount Tigers and DAF SB's in Citylink livery. MCW's, Ailsas, Fleetlines...you name it, we had them.

After the deregulation, everything went into freefall. Me and the lass from round the corner walked a fair way each day to get the owner-operator's Leopard/Ford/B10, until Soutar turned up, assured all our parents all would be well and sent out knackered RM's and Lodekka's for us to use. We had our fun taunting the drivers who couldn't handle the 'boxes on the LD's and so on, and got back to walking down to get Billy's coach again... :lol:

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I have uber-shicht memories of Stagecoaches 54 plate Neoplans on the Megabus service in 2005 when I went up to Inverness to see a now thankfully long gone ex. Drivers were arrogant rude cunts and if I wasn't so young and niave then, I'd have probs twatted him one. He used to bang on about how it cost 1/4 million quid, but I thought the quality of them was shocking. I remember the tables were so flimsy they would shake when the bus went over a bump.

 

They did however go through a phase of using a Citybus E864RCS, still with SBG stickers inside!

 

Plaxton is a nice one too, I loved the big windows on these and the wood laminate inside!

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My first Megabus trip (years ago when it did actually cost £1.50 London > Leeds) was on one of these, an ex Yorkshire Traction MCW Metroliner with a Scania engine, like this:

 

4843915235_679b5506b2_z.jpg

WJC Coaches MCW Metroliner GT400 E9WJC Airdrie 30/07/10 by David_92, on Flickr

 

Recently I've used theirs from the Rugby depot - pretty much an 100% continetal European driving contingent (very friendly though), although their new 6x2 Lolvo Plaxtons are lovely as you say. NX drivers I've found a bit arsey, their Levantes feel tacky and once my driver was pulled over for drinko drivo! :roll:

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