Bus Shite

[Yoss]

On 9/22/2020 at 8:49 PM, Inspector Morose said:

The prototypes seemed to have a charmed life with 2 still in existence, BCK being one of them. 

I'd love a look at the Southampton wars as that was one area that I didn't go and photograph during the 'fun' times - I concentrated on South Yorkshire with the Northern Bus REs!

I'll try and put a few pics together in the next few days. Looking back the variety was staggering compared to now (just First Bus and Blue Star/Unilink who are part of Go Ahead). Hopefully in the next week, I'm at a crucial point in the model railway which I need to finish first. 

[Eyersey1234]

I can't remember if I have posted this or not but here's our Beverley Bar bus. VKH 44 is a Willowbrook bodied AEC Regent V complete with a roof designed to fit through the Beverley Bar, the only surviving medieval gateway into Beverley. 

[Eyersey1234]

At one time most of the East Yorkshire fleet was built to fit under the Beverley Bar, the exceptions being some lowbridge buses to go under the railway bridges at Hornsea and North Cave. New roads built in the 1970s mean that buses no longer need to go through the Beverley Bar. 

[catsinthewelder]

2 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

I can't remember if I have posted this or not but here's our Beverley Bar bus. VKH 44 is a Willowbrook bodied AEC Regent V complete with a roof designed to fit through the Beverley Bar, the only surviving medieval gateway into Beverley. 

I was talking to @Mrs6C and someone else about those the other week but couldn't remember which town it was.

[Inspector Morose]

Fitting buses under bridges used to bring out the creativity of bus builders with East Yorkshire taking top marks with their insistence on a bespoke roof profile right up to the rear engined era. (By the way, that EY Regent V above is a super rare exposed radiator variant with most having ‘tin’ fronts)

They were not the only ones though with North Western having lowered and specially profiled roofs to fit under awkward bridges. Today in the era of strict standardisation most double deck buses are one of two (or possibly three at a pinch) heights - full height at 14’ 6” or thereabouts or a lower height of 13’ 8”.

Llanelli once had a peculiar problem of especially low bridges on some of its routes necessitating the need for local operator South Wales ordering a batch of low height single deckers built on double deck Regent V chassis (they were generally lower built than the single deck variant).

[LightBulbFun]

39 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Fitting buses under bridges used to bring out the creativity of bus builders with East Yorkshire taking top marks with their insistence on a bespoke roof profile right up to the rear engined era. (By the way, that EY Regent V above is a super rare exposed radiator variant with most having ‘tin’ fronts)

They were not the only ones though with North Western having lowered and specially profiled roofs to fit under awkward bridges. Today in the era of strict standardisation most double deck buses are one of two (or possibly three at a pinch) heights - full height at 14’ 6” or thereabouts or a lower height of 13’ 8”.

Llanelli once had a peculiar problem of especially low bridges on some of its routes necessitating the need for local operator South Wales ordering a batch of low height single deckers built on double deck Regent V chassis (they were generally lower built than the single deck variant).

ohh thats a funky looking thing, weird to see such a "modern" looking half cab single decker, also reminds me of the arson attack victim RM1368 which replaced RM8 as the Chiswick test vehicle

(always wondered what the interior of RM1368 looked like. did/does it have seats and lighting? I remember asking someone many years ago and they said it just had the bench seats, but thats it, but that was many years ago and just word of mouth iv never actually seen any pictures sadly)

 

[Yoss]

Southampton Corporation had trams with a roof profile to fit under the Bargate. 

Being a tram made it easier to get it right, I wonder if those East Yorkshire buses had some sort of guide because it looks like you'd only have a couple of inches either side. 

One of the above trams still exists in a shed down the docks. 

[Eyersey1234]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

Southampton Corporation had trams with a roof profile to fit under the Bargate. 

Being a tram made it easier to get it right, I wonder if those East Yorkshire buses had some sort of guide because it looks like you'd only have a couple of inches either side. 

One of the above trams still exists in a shed down the docks. 

I know it took precision driving, I would imagine there would have been some sort of reference point so the drivers knew they were lined up right. A trick the conductors used to play was dropping something to make a bang as the bus went through. 

Hadn't known the trams in Southampton had special roofs, I wonder how many other places had vehicles specifically designed to fit somewhere 

[Inspector Morose]

2 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

I wonder how many other places had vehicles specifically designed to fit somewhere 

Well, off the top of my head, there were the Bedford VALs that were built to fit under a canal bridge in Durham Massey.

 

They were replaced by ECW bodied Bristol REs with a special roof profile.

WMPTE standard Fleetlines were not 14’6” high but built to a special height of 14’2” so they could fit under a number of slightly too low bridges in Birmingham. When the bus grant was introduced they had to lobby the government to  have this special height written into the eligibility specifications for the grant so they could qualify for it.

[martc]

[quicksilver]

22 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

What have I seen this morning?

It was reversing out of a driveway in a village near Milton Keynes. I stopped to look properly but it ran away in the opposite direction and I did not have time to chase it.

I'm sure that's featured here before. If so, it's an early 60s Ford Duple Yeoman that's been knocking around north Bucks as a caravan for years. Extremely rare now and it must be one of only a handful of roadworthy examples.

[busmansholiday]

Don't forget that "Tracky" (aka Yorkshire Traction) bought the only low hight Metrobuses because of the low bridges around here. 

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, quicksilver said:

I'm sure that's featured here before. If so, it's an early 60s Ford Duple Yeoman that's been knocking around north Bucks as a caravan for years. Extremely rare now and it must be one of only a handful of roadworthy examples.

That looks like the type, but I never saw the front.

[Yoss]

On 9/21/2020 at 10:16 PM, Inspector Morose said:

Hang on. T1131? That was prototype No.5 (originally BCK706R)!

I found the bugger. It was exactly where I thought it would be when I was looking for it the other day, except it wasn't there then! 

It has very small Solent Blue Line stickers either side of the Leyland badge. Anyway, more Southampton bus wars to follow, as requested. 

[ETCHY]

29 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I found the bugger. It was exactly where I thought it would be when I was looking for it the other day, except it wasn't there then! 

It has very small Solent Blue Line stickers either side of the Leyland badge. Anyway, more Southampton bus wars to follow, as requested. 

Those look very similar to Fishwicks of Leylands colours.

[Yoss]

Yes, it is. The bus was owned by Ensigns at the time, I think they were just loaning it out before they sold it back to London Buses. 

[ETCHY]

53 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Yes, it is. The bus was owned by Ensigns at the time, I think they were just loaning it out before they sold it back to London Buses. 

Cool. I've ridden on many a Fishwicks (probably been on that one).

They always had Leyland's back in the day as they were based in the same town.

Another independent that's now sadly gone.

 

[Yoss]

I never managed a ride on the Titan, it only seemed to be around for a couple of weeks. We are a long way from Leyland but Southampton City Transport was a very keen Leyland operator. It's why all our Routemasters had Leyland engines and before they arrived the fleet was about 98% Atlantean. 

[Yoss]

On 9/22/2020 at 8:49 PM, Inspector Morose said:

The prototypes seemed to have a charmed life with 2 still in existence, BCK being one of them. 

I'd love a look at the Southampton wars as that was one area that I didn't go and photograph during the 'fun' times - I concentrated on South Yorkshire with the Northern Bus REs!

Due to popular demand (one person mentioned it) here's some southampton bus wars stuff. 

Before it all kicked off Southampton looked like this. 

Or this if they had received the new livery. 

There were three Olympians and one Dominator all with East Lancs bodywork on evaluation simply because they couldn't buy Atlanteans any more, if they could they would have carried on doing so. 

The outer suburban stuff was in the hands of Hampshire Bus who had just been split from Hants and Dorset (the other half becoming Wilts and Dorset but they play no part in this story). The one exception was the route 18 which for some historic reasons I don't recall was run by Hampshire Bus between the city and Thornhill. These looked like this. 

So the Routemasters weren't the first interlopers from London in the city. Now CityBus had their own route to Thornhill but it went a different way and the two ran for decades alongside with no problems. 

So when we mention Southampton bus wars this is what most people think of. 

But concurrent with all this, Hampshire Bus, now owned by Stagecoach, were having their own ideas. Stagecoach were obviously masters of going in and undercutting and driving the opposition out of business. So when this lot turned up at Barton Park, their Eastleigh depot, we thought for a little while that we were going to have a full Glasgow style RM on RM competition. 

But it never happened. The buses were painted at Barton Park but then disappeared off elsewhere in to the Stagecoach fleet. 

 

But what did happen we never saw coming. So what is that thing? 

 

Find out in the next post... 

[Yoss]

It's an ex South Yorkshire Volvo Ailsa of course! Why pick these? No one will ever know. Surely VRs would make more sense as Hampshire bus staff would be more familiar with them. 

CityBus responded with the route 23 so they were fighting Blue Line on one front and Hampshire Bus on the other, all three companies employing conductors to try and get an edge. 

Here's RM 1543 in the same spot, note matching Chevette. 

And also bonus Escort Huntsman, a real rarity even then. 

A few more of the Volvos:

This one never quite got finished. In the company of the mobile shop, flat screen LH that drove out and parked here every day. 

And here's a line of the Ailsas with a VW camper with a convertible Olympian roof added. Seems like a good idea, gives you a ready made awning when you get to the campsite. Wilts and Dorset had several of these convertible Olympians for the Bournemouth to Swanage route. 

This whole operation was quite short lived, as was the CityBus 23, for reasons that will become apparent soon as I haven't even got to Blue Line yet. 

[Yoss]

Here's another long forgotten oddity. A Mayburys Coaches DMS. 

Which shared the bus station with these. 

Not quite identical but certainly similar enough to make you look twice. Mayburys had their own livery (I pinched this pic off the Internet, all others are my own) but even this looked like they ran out of paint before they got to top deck. 

I'm not quite sure what the deal was here. They ran from Southampton to Lymington but I can't remember if it was in competition or just sub contracted from Hampshire Bus who also ran on the same route. Searching the Internet (briefly) leaves me none the wiser. They had some Nationals too. They went largely ignored at the time, there was so much other stuff going on and I never went on them but I was going to work on Hampshire Bus DMSs at the time so they weren't really a novelty. Imagine a DMS on a nice semi rural route like that now, I feel I should have paid them more attention. 

 

 

Edit:

Just noticed these DMSs are the same age as the South Yorkshire Ailsas. Those Ailsas still look modern now, the DMS doesn't. 

[Inspector Morose]

Ah, the Hampshire Bus Ailsas. I’ve a vague recollection that the VOSA man down there didn’t like them and started prohibiting them on insufficient gangway width by the centre doors, even though South Yorkshire had been running them for over 10 years by then. They looked (and still,do) superb and modern but their tubular frames rotted quicker than a Matra in a saltbath. 

[quicksilver]

Recent discussion of Routemasters losing their registrations reminded me of a local firm called VL Test Systems, who I had a vague recollection used some ex-RM plates. I was right as one of them turned up today, so here's RM202, the RM now standing for Renault Midlum.

The real RM202 became GAS 341 with London Central in 2002 and is taxed so it's still out there somewhere.

[willswitchengage]

23 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Recent discussion of Routemasters losing their registrations reminded me of a local firm called VL Test Systems, who I had a vague recollection used some ex-RM plates. I was right as one of them turned up today, so here's a Renault Midlum masquerading as RM202.

The real RM202 became GAS 341 with London Central in 2002 and is taxed so it's still out there somewhere.

Incidentally the fancy new (and very good) B5LH things in London all use the 4-pot Midlum engine. They sound good and work flawlessly as far as I can tell as a passenger.

[Eyersey1234]

1 hour ago, quicksilver said:

Recent discussion of Routemasters losing their registrations reminded me of a local firm called VL Test Systems, who I had a vague recollection used some ex-RM plates. I was right as one of them turned up today, so here's a Renault Midlum masquerading as RM202.

The real RM202 became GAS 341 with London Central in 2002 and is taxed so it's still out there somewhere.

I wonder if the RMs lost their plates because the plates were worth more than the bus. Southern Vectis reregistered some Lodekkas in about 2002 before sale for that reason, so MDL 952/3/5 got BAS registrations

[busmansholiday]

On 9/27/2020 at 2:52 PM, Yoss said:

It's an ex South Yorkshire Volvo Ailsa of course! Why pick these? No one will ever know.

They were available and cheap.

Back then the South Yorkshire PTE (which had been formed from Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham Corporation Transport Departments, plus subsequently many independent operators), was replacing many time expired vehicles. They had fallen into hot water with the purchase of four Metropolitan deckers (MCW bodied Scanias) a few years earlier because they weren't British* and shipped them out to Donny to avoid the Sheffield based press. With the Ailsas, and the fact they were built in Scotland, they had less problems. They actually wanted Fleetlines, but strikes at BL and shite quality persuaded them to buy Alexander bodied Ailsas after using the demo. Except Alexander couldn't deliver in time and as Sheffield had used a McArdle bodied Atlantean demo the dye was set. The first one, 369, was built by VanHool  then shipped to Ireland to show them what to do.

"Ailsa, the £70000 Super Bus" or something similar was the headline on the Sheffield Star when the first arrived IIRC.

Except the Unions refused to work them one man in Sheffield, Rotherham's Unions wouldn't touch them with a barge pole and Donny were basically told if they wanted any new buses every again it was these and they WOULD work them one man.

There were a fair few problems, noise, alternators driven off the output of the gearbox, front axle weights and wear (surprise surprise, the Wulfronian suffered that), corrosion around the rear wheel arches and sub frames,and things weren't good in the body department in general.

A Mk II (number 430) was built, but most rumours say that was because it fell off the crane at the docks. Ultimately, as only Donny would work them one man, and that was obviously not going to last, they sold them off when sufficient new vehicles, Dennis Dominators and Atlanteans were available.

[Inspector Morose]

Ailsas were an acquired taste all right. We ran an ex WMPTE example and as I was the one who bought it (we had a capacity issue on one route and where else could you find a 79 seater cheap?) I was the one who had to look after it. 
It was like a deltic - great at what they do but the mk1s did demand constant attention. King pins? They need changing every year. Front brakes would be down to the rivets after about 6 weeks while the rears you had to strip down at MoT time to make sure the anchor pins didn’t seize. While we’re at the rear, that axle, Jesus it was a chronically bad piece of kit (Hamworthy, I’m looking at you here) wear was inevitable and when you could turn the prop a third of the way round without anything happening you knew it was time for replacement. Oh, and dont get me started on non-handed hub nuts. Yes the nearside was designed to unscrew itself if the underspecced locking device failed leading to the rear hub, drum and two large tyres making a bid for freedom out the side of the bus in one lump.

There were some very good design features though. The radiator was able to swing out of the way to get at the front of the engine (to get to the power steering pump and the sort). The engine itself was mounted on angled brackets so engine changes were a piece of piss as the lot would slide along the chassis rails once disconnected.  The bits that did fail were designed to be easily changed as well - the flywheel was one of the easiest I had to change. 

Drivers were told not to idle in gear, not to save the (another easily changed unit) fluid flywheel or the gearbox but as the alternator was driven from the input shaft to the remote mounted gearbox, when a gear is selected it stopped charging! The characteristic whistle of the Mk1 was from the use of a toothed belt to drive the alternator and this was later changed to a poly V. You still had to remove a propshaft in the event of belt failure though. I learned quickly to add a few more spare belts and securely attach them to the grease shield so changing a belt was a simple procedure.

The Mk2 was a vast improvement with many of the issues that the earlier ones were plagued with had been resolved with the Mk3 being the bus it should have been in the first place and a real alternative to the Olympian with it being miles ahead of the the older generation stuff that was still being produced by the big boys.

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, Inspector Morose said:

 You still had to remove a propshaft in the event of belt failure though. I learned quickly to add a few more spare belts and securely attach them to the grease shield so changing a belt was a simple procedure.

 

That's an old Routemaster trick. The hydraulic brake pump and air compressor are belt driven from a pulley where the carden shaft enters the front of the gearbox. I had a couple of spare belts safely cable tied to bits of the underframe of mine. 

[jon.k]

That's interesting stuff above, Busman and Inspector, thank you for the insights.

[Rover414]

This joined my small set of buses last week. New to Merseybus, later with Arriva Merseyside, South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach and lastly Stagecoach West. Picked it up from Stroud and drove it back to Liverpool, never missed a beat.