Bus Shite

[Remspoor]

got a link to this the other day.

Now I have read that the buses have been temporally withdrawn. Because two have evidently caught fire, recently.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220429-paris-suspends-bolloré-electric-buses-after-two-catch-fire

[Leyland Worldmaster]

3 hours ago, Remspoor said:

got a link to this the other day.

Now I have read that the buses have been temporally withdrawn. Because two have evidently caught fire, recently.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220429-paris-suspends-bolloré-electric-buses-after-two-catch-fire

https://driventowrite.com/2021/11/27/the-appliance-of-science/#more-75777

Some good points raised in the above article! 

[busmansholiday]

19 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

The previous one looks like a Leyland Titan. This looks like it might have an AEC Regent chassis... 🤓

Certainly is, Mk III chassis with preselector gearbox, the headlights were required to be a lot closer to the edges in Aussie land than the UK, hence the odd look.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Bus chassis in Norway often came with the railway and then was driven as in the picture to the company that was  building the body . The longest of these trips could be 700km and were done all year round so needless to say this was cold in the winter and dangerous as they struggled with road grip due to lack of weight.

And is unsure when this practice ended.

[martc]

23 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Bus chassis in Norway often came with the railway and then was driven as in the picture to the company that was  building the body . The longest of these trips could be 700km and were done all year round so needless to say this was cold in the winter and dangerous as they struggled with road grip due to lack of weight.

And is unsure when this practice ended.

I don't live a million miles away from the Plaxton factory at Scarborough and you would regularly see chassis being delivered in this manner I can't remember the last time I saw this sight, perhaps 20 years ago. They are now delivered on the back of lorries.

[Yoss]

They also used to be a semi regular sight heading down to Southampton docks but, as above, I also can't remember when I last saw one. 

[RoadworkUK]

Yup, regular sight on the A14 (A45 back then), too, en route to Marshalls of Cambridge.

[Yoss]

That's got me wondering now when it stopped being a thing. Has health and safety kicked in or does it still happen and I just haven't seen them? But I used to see them a couple of times a year. Or have we stopped exporting chassis?  I hadn't even given it a thought until now.

[High Jetter]

H&S I'd guess - high risk of somebody leaping on, falling through and getting wrapped round the propshaft. Or the driver falling out...

You don't see sliding front doors on vans now either.

[martc]

Almost definitely H&S. Towards the end of my spottings the drivers wore motorbike gear - gauntlets, leathers and a helmet so you could see the creeping fear of litigation. Before then the driver had a heavy coat, mittens and a scarf. Bus chassis's to Scarborough are still a regular sight but they are always on a flat back. I suppose there's a possibility that the bare chassis are supplied in a form where they can't be self propelled. The ones on the backs of lorries are accompanied by a lot of packing cases no doubt full of mechanical gubbings. In the old days I don't recall any extra luggage (the one in the picture above is without extra boxes).

And come to think of it it was probably 35 years ago when I last saw a self propelled chassis, not 20 years as I first thought....

[Inspector Morose]

2 hours ago, Yoss said:

That's got me wondering now when it stopped being a thing. Has health and safety kicked in or does it still happen and I just haven't seen them? But I used to see them a couple of times a year. Or have we stopped exporting chassis?  I hadn't even given it a thought until now.

Most modern chassis can’t support themselves without the bodywork these days so would have to be braced up to the hilt for it to be safe to drive from Guilford to Falkirk (or wherever). So, that bracing has to be transported back for the next chassis movement which would have to be done by lorry. Not much of a logical leap to work out it’d be much easier and cheaper just to shift the whole chassis with the lorry (two on one lorry so saving a driver as well).

As production has been consolidated so much in this country, only Alexander Dennis would require chassis to be moved far anyway. Most manufacturers build the under frame in one part of the same factory as the body, if not all at the same time.

Overseas chassis come in for bodying by truck - who these days would want to drive a bare chassis for thousands of miles with nowt but a bit of plywood for protection? Plus, there’s only Plaxton building coaches nowadays so for the few chassis coming over, lorry is so much easier and cheaper.

 

Edit: I very much doubt H&S is anything to do with it more than a easy excuse for companies to stop doing anything. What they really mean is that they don’t want their arses sued by the ambulance chasers but let’s just blame H&S instead because it’s ‘always’ their fault.

[AnnoyingPentium]

7 hours ago, martc said:

I don't live a million miles away from the Plaxton factory at Scarborough and you would regularly see chassis being delivered in this manner I can't remember the last time I saw this sight, perhaps 20 years ago. They are now delivered on the back of lorries.

My Granda used to drive up lorry bodies to Greenock in a fashion like this.

[willswitchengage]

2 hours ago, Yoss said:

Or have we stopped exporting chassis?

I think a few end up in Singapore and Hong Kong with local bodywork, but I imagine hardly any these days.

Those at the end of their life still sound brilliant.

 

[willswitchengage]

On 4/28/2022 at 10:22 PM, Leyland Worldmaster said:

How 'retro' is this moquette ! 🤩

I remember that being on everything in the late 90s. Loved it.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

This is an excellent resource for Leyland Motors and Leyland Bus stuff. Lots of beautiful Technical Drawings as well. 

http://www.naimad.co.uk/jmswarbrick/michael/Life Story/outlineworkinglife.html

[Metal Guru]

2 hours ago, High Jetter said:

H&S I'd guess - high risk of somebody leaping on, falling through and getting wrapped round the propshaft. Or the driver falling out...

You don't see sliding front doors on vans now either.

I can only recall the Bedford CA with sliding front doors. What else had them?

[MorrisItalSLX]

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

I can only recall the Bedford CA with sliding front doors. What else had them?

Ford Transit Mk1/2 & Bedford CF

[High Jetter]

Also Thames trader. Bedford CF. Any UPS van. Prob others

 

[puddlethumper]

Post office Sherpas had em.

[High Jetter]

4 minutes ago, puddlethumper said:

Post office Sherpas had em.

Yup, also campers. Really, any Sherpa. 

[Metal Guru]

3 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Yup, also campers. Really, any Sherpa. 

OK , I remember some of them now. Memory slightly biased because my Dad had a CA. However apart from a few modified examples of campers or ice cream vans that just used the front end up to the windscreen, all CAs had the sliding door, whereas most Transits for example didn’t.

[martc]

When I was in the cubs the pack had a grey Bedford CA minibus with sliding doors. A very knackered CA; it would be driven, full of cubs, with both sliding doors open to keep the engine cool. It would struggle on steep hills. On one occasion they tried reversing it up a hill, full of cubs, but it ran out of puff halfway up and rolled back down. For further steep hills we all had to get out and follow it on foot whilst it struggled up empty.

No cubs, kittens or nuns were harmed.

It looked like this, but our driver was a little older and could reach the pedals.

And on the general topic of sliding doors - I'll stick me neck out and say they were an option on every van* sold in the UK into at least the '70's.

*excluding car derived ones.

[busmansholiday]

11 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Most modern chassis can’t support themselves without the bodywork these days so would have to be braced up to the hilt for it to be safe to drive from Guilford to Falkirk (or wherever)

I believe they have now ceased Dennis bus chassis production at Guildford and they are assembled fully at Falkirk. Scarborough seems to be the electric bus production centre as well as coaches, the mechanicals for these all coming from abroad. BBC (Bamford Bus Co, ak Wrights) in northen ireland generally build on Volvo chassis but they are shipped in and the indian lot at Sherburn (was Optare) are the only other UK full size bus builders and theirs are all fully integral so no chsssis.

Everything else comes fully built and finished from the rest of the planet, Europe, middle east and China.

[willswitchengage]

Not sure if Convoys got them too but the little pilot was poss the last factory build.

[Metal Guru]

1 hour ago, martc said:

When I was in the cubs the pack had a grey Bedford CA minibus with sliding doors. A very knackered CA; it would be driven, full of cubs, with both sliding doors open to keep the engine cool. It would struggle on steep hills. On one occasion they tried reversing it up a hill, full of cubs, but it ran out of puff halfway up and rolled back down. For further steep hills we all had to get out and follow it on foot whilst it struggled up empty.

No cubs, kittens or nuns were harmed.

It looked like this, but our driver was a little older and could reach the pedals.

And on the general topic of sliding doors - I'll stick me neck out and say they were an option on every van* sold in the UK into at least the '70's.

*excluding car derived ones.

The Scouts I went to had one too. They always had the door open but my Dad would never allow it in his.

They only had 50ish bhp new, but ours coped with a family of 7 , camping gear and dog going from SE England to the North of Scotland. It struggled a bit when we got a caravan too.

[Yoss]

On 5/5/2022 at 11:32 PM, puddlethumper said:

Post office Sherpas had em.

In the days before shared vans, i.e. two people in a Pug Partner, one driver would service about six to eight foot deliveries taking extra bags out to a pre designated bag drop. On one of my old deliveries it was at a dry cleaners. If I got there before my driver he would just push my bags out of the open sliding door on to the pavement without stopping. Used to love driving around with the doors open. 

 

On 5/6/2022 at 8:34 AM, willswitchengage said:

Not sure if Convoys got them too but the little pilot was poss the last factory build.

That's great, we never had any anywhere near that new. My last Sherpa was Y833TDA but that had conventional doors. The last I remember us having were M or N reg. 

[wesacosa]

I found my old Atlantean boot badge buried in my dad's loft for 20 odd years. I used to have it attached to my wardrobe door when I was a kid

[Yoss]

24 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

I found my old Atlantean boot badge buried in my dad's loft for 20 odd years. I used to have it attached to my wardrobe door when I was a kid

That is bloody lovely. 

[artdjones]

A friend of mine used to drive one of these for Initial. He borrowed it once (with permission)  and was driving along with the doors open  with me and another lad standing in the left hand footwell  with the door open. The other guy had his hand resting on the A pillar and missed finger amputation by a millisecond when we had to stop abruptly.

[wesacosa]

55 minutes ago, Yoss said:

That is bloody lovely. 

Cheers. The blue paint was in bad shape when I got it so stupidly I painted it myself with some Humbrol paint I had kicking around from my model kits, and didn't do a great job. obviously I wish I'd left it alone now!