Bus Shite

[Christine]

Monocoach 

[danthecapriman]

Never seen these before,

Presumably some sort of exhibition vehicle? 
Looks pretty good in that colour scheme though. I wonder if they were sold and reused or scrapped.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

5 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Never seen these before,

Presumably some sort of exhibition vehicle? 
Looks pretty good in that colour scheme though. I wonder if they were sold and reused or scrapped.

I wonder if it was converted from one of the old Midland Bank Nationals?

Also, I wonder what happened to the Scottish Prison Service Nationals- pictures of these appeared in Doug Jack's The Leyland Bus Mk2.

[Yoss]

6 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Never seen these before,

Presumably some sort of exhibition vehicle? 
Looks pretty good in that colour scheme though. I wonder if they were sold and reused or scrapped.

Well that's obviously taken at a bus rally so it must have survived at least for a while, although of course being a National there is no guarantee as the rust takes hold in the frame. 

[lisbon_road]

2 hours ago, Yoss said:

Well that's obviously taken at a bus rally so it must have survived at least for a while, although of course being a National there is no guarantee as the rust takes hold in the frame. 

Tax due 2002 but still on DVLA register.  It might be somewhere.  

[danthecapriman]

Just found another photo of it.

Reading the description on Flickr, it had some serious work and money spent on it including a kitchen, fully furnished office and even its own onboard generator set! 
It seems to have had a very easy life too, sitting in a heated garage until a fast response was needed. I don’t think rust would be an issue with this one! 
Still no idea what happened to it though.

[danthecapriman]

2 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Just found another photo of it.

Reading the description on Flickr, it had some serious work and money spent on it including a kitchen, fully furnished office and even its own onboard generator set! 
It seems to have had a very easy life too, sitting in a heated garage until a fast response was needed. I don’t think rust would be an issue with this one! 
Still no idea what happened to it though.

Here it is in its previous owners livery.

The conversion, apparently, was to a mobile incident response unit.

[SunnySouth]

On 28/06/2025 at 21:25, Yoss said:

I certainly wouldn't put it on ebay if only because I can't be arsed with that sort of thing any more. I buy stuff off it but never sell! 

On a more serious note it looks like a nice thing to have so I would probably keep it. I still know a few people in Routemaster circles who might appreciate it but I don't see them that often

I once found this lot in a skip on my delivery. Best thing I've ever found in a skip. No use to me at all but they look nice so I kept them. 

Mrs Yoss thinks I'm a hoarder. 

Don’t ever throw that lot away! Train stuff will always have a value, worst case donate it to a heritage railway if the need to get rid ever arises!

[lisbon_road]

38 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Just found another photo of it.

Reading the description on Flickr, it had some serious work and money spent on it including a kitchen, fully furnished office and even its own onboard generator set! 
It seems to have had a very easy life too, sitting in a heated garage until a fast response was needed. I don’t think rust would be an issue with this one! 
Still no idea what happened to it though.

Looks like this was originally a Northern General National which then passed to Alder Valley and then to British Gas, who according to a note on the internet, fitted it out but never used it as intended.  Whilst it may well not have gone rusty during its time with BG, a long life in the North East is unlikely to have been kind to it.  Who knows?  

[danthecapriman]

38 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

Looks like this was originally a Northern General National which then passed to Alder Valley and then to British Gas, who according to a note on the internet, fitted it out but never used it as intended.  Whilst it may well not have gone rusty during its time with BG, a long life in the North East is unlikely to have been kind to it.  Who knows?  

Seems to have been converted around 1988/89 ish, so it’d already had a good decade in use as a bus, so it’d already certainly wouldn’t have been in pristine condition, especially from use in the heathen north! 
The photo of it in a show apparently was its first outing after conversion which was September 89. 
It’s incredibly really they spent so much time and effort on building it for it to just sit unused for most of its life.

Still, it’d be a fantastic thing to find! Imagine if it’s been sat in a barn somewhere ever since. 
Weird that it’s just not showing anything on DVLA since 2002 though. Even if it was exported it’d say that on the system.

[Snipes]

Have they built anything like that more recently?

[danthecapriman]

4 minutes ago, Snipes said:

Have they built anything like that more recently?

I’d be very surprised. 
Usually when companies go private all that sort of thing stops and they just go with ‘off the shelf’ vehicles and equipment. Most of it is on lease deals too so it gets issued out to a driver new, gets run for the lease period then gets returned for a new equivalent. Not many companies keep their own vehicles for long nowadays.

[Yoss]

8 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

Don’t ever throw that lot away! Train stuff will always have a value, worst case donate it to a heritage railway if the need to get rid ever arises!

I never would. I may not have made it clear quite how happy I was when I found them. 

The Leyland books are for the O680 engine. I owned an O600 at the time, which is essentially the same thing, and whilst I never needed any engine work it was nice to be able to see how it all worked. 

The Paxman Ventura was used in a few early BR diesels but more importantly it was the predecessor of the Valenta which went on to power the HSTs so really did have a massive impact on the British railway scene. And the little book on the far right has English Electric stamped on it. My heart jumped when I saw that in the skip. Although it says Air Ministry Contract on it the English Electric 16 csvt went on to power the Class 40s and 50s, the latter of which, in my mind, is the ultimate in railway diesel traction. So no I won't be throwing them away. 

[cms206]

22 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Also, I wonder what happened to the Scottish Prison Service Nationals- pictures of these appeared in Doug Jack's The Leyland Bus Mk2.

The Mk2 - C974 PFS from memory - was converted to a normal bus and I think ended it's days with Happy Als.

The Mk1s - ASC 139/40S - were both still taxed until *very* recently but both actually passed to John Morrow Coaches, Clydebank for spares in 1992.

[cms206]

In other news, London has been a burocratic fuckup so far 😂

Finally got to drive yesterday - electric Enviro 400 'Ee99' for an hour's driving assesment out of Camberwell - before being passed over to Commercial today for induction at 10am... and by 2pm I'd been given my first set of jobs.

Today's first chariot, and my first solo drive for Go Ahead London, was Enviro 200 'SE208' from Stockwell over to River Road in Barking... 

... with 'LT486' returning the opposite way; this swap took over five hours with horrific traffic. I was never type trained for LTs at Stagecoach East London, but apparantly we don't hold much with that at commercial so after type training myself we set off with a pre-cracked screen.

 

Next was Bexleyheath to collect Enviro E400 'E190'; no pics as BX was in full flow with buses returning by the time I got there at 10pm. Duly dropped this at River Road for the final move of the night, new BYD integral 'EBD12' from River Road to Camberwell.

EBD12 was not at River Road.

Waited over an hour for someone to run it back to the garage... they look like a Temu Enviro 400MMC but they really seem well put together, certainly leagues ahead of the ADL bodied BYDs and much, much nicer to drive.

Dropped off at Camberwell for 0050, on an N68 at 0115ish and back to this stay's digs for 0230.

 

Tomorrow I am allegedly on the N15 out of Henley Road, Sunday rail replacement Tunbridge Wells to Battle with a single decker out of New Cross, then five days on Wimbledon; next weekend looks like Central Line replacement out Loughton way, then probably three days of bus moves before I head north on the 16th.

[busmansholiday]

22 hours ago, Snipes said:

Have they built anything like that more recently?

A few fire brigades and BBC Radio stations had East Lancs bodied Darts built to be mobile command centres / studios. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

A few fire brigades and BBC Radio stations had East Lancs bodied Darts built to be mobile command centres / studios. 

A mate of mine sent a pic of an Optare Solo type thing operated by LFB for LFB things!

A surprising choice given their legendary* reliability*...

[willswitchengage]

Explain this one... Spanish registered lorry carrying RHD Scania coach chassis out of the UK 🤔

I like the driver's chair

[martc]

Is it on it's way to 

1 hour ago, willswitchengage said:

Explain this one... Spanish registered lorry carrying RHD Scania coach chassis out of the UK 🤔

 

Could it have been imported here for a UK body builder, the order cancelled and then sent on to a Spanish body builder and will be returned back here* once built?

*or some other RHD country

[willswitchengage]

Irizar etc will make their vehicles in Iberia but why would it come via the UK? I would have thought they'd be ro-rod from Sweden or Poland or wherever the chassis are made. Odd.

[cms206]

16 hours ago, cms206 said:

Tomorrow I am allegedly on the N15 out of Henley Road...

... awoken by a call this morning; this turned into EN32 from River Road major unit centre to Morden Wharf...

... and EN11 on the Wimbledon - Morden shuttle until midnight.

[LightBulbFun]

22 hours ago, cms206 said:

... with 'LT486' returning the opposite way; this swap took over five hours with horrific traffic. I was never type trained for LTs at Stagecoach East London, but apparantly we don't hold much with that at commercial so after type training myself we set off with a pre-cracked screen.

so what are they like to drive then? anything notable, or are all modern buses the same sort of thing?

given how much of a song and dance there was around them (and how to me as a rabid original Routemaster fan, they where a massive disappointment) I feel compelled that I should ask  

[Inspector Morose]

On 03/07/2025 at 04:10, Leyland Worldmaster said:

I wonder if it was converted from one of the old Midland Bank Nationals?

Also, I wonder what happened to the Scottish Prison Service Nationals- pictures of these appeared in Doug Jack's The Leyland Bus Mk2.

There were two Midland Bank Nationals, GHV611N and JYO75N that ran were converted from new and ran until the late 80s. JYO was then bought by Yeates the dealers and rebuilt as a Volvo re-power demonstrator before being sold to the Birmingham Coach Company. You could always recognise JYO as it was never repainted and ran in an all over red livery. There was rumours that it was bought for preservation but no sight or sound of it comes up in recent times so who knows? GHV seems to have disappeared sometime around 1990 so it was more than likely broken up for spares around that time.

The ex-Northern General National sports some of their normal modifications to the front. Normally to access the towing eye at the front, four screws would allow for the centre of the front bumper to be removed, with the panel above it either shifted or removed also so that a pin could be dropped in to secure the tow bar. Beside that, the auxiliary air line could be connected to keep the air hungry National fed and keep its brakes off and suspension inflated. All rather simple and took all of a couple of minuted to achieve ( slight tangent here but the bumper centre section was originally on a parallelogram hinge and could be simply unclipped and swung out of the way but that set up only lasted for a few early buses before being replaced by the simpler screw attachment).

No Northern obviously couldn’t stand having to spend a couple of minutes unscrewing the bumper so cut holes in the panels so that the towing eye, the air line and space for the towing pin could be got at without the accessed without removing anything, thereby saving masses of time in the event of a recovery.  Some other Nationals were disfigured even more with a large hole cut into the front panel, covered by a flap. This was to allow a large pipe to be fitted to blow warm air into the bus at the garage so that extra fuel would not have to be needed in warming the interiors of the bus up. Apart from looking hideous, the flap covering the hole wasn’t a great seal and so all of that nice warm air would be pushed back out of the bus by the howling, freezing cold gale that came under and around the flap as the bus moved along. 
 

Northern had one of those chief engineers who thought they always knew better and so constantly moved, changed or rebuilt buses to try and achieve, what they thought, were improvements. Don’t got me wrong, some of his ideas were very good - the phase 2 National came about from Northern’s rebuilding of a National to get better weight distribution, but none of their ideas would be what you would call aesthetically pleasing (Wearsider and Tynesider rebuilds, anyone?). The Rebuilt National (MCN840L) was hideous in the same way it was brilliant with its half width heater pod on the roof to the rebuilding of the lower back end to allow for a bigger advert space on the engine cover, losing the rear bumpers at the same time.

[cms206]

9 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

so what are they like to drive then? anything notable, or are all modern buses the same sort of thing?

given how much of a song and dance there was around them (and how to me as a rabid original Routemaster fan, they where a massive disappointment) I feel compelled that I should ask  

I won't lie here Dez... I was thoroughly impressed. Decent cab layout, excellent visibility and they actually feel solid; I remember a few 8 and N8 drivers saying they felt really heavy - they do, they really feel planted - but the controls and whatnot are light and easy to use. Not had one in service yet but I was genuinely quite impressed.

Either that or they are terrible, but I'm used to driving absolutely pumped Optare Solos now... ?! 😂

[MT606]

just been into my local antiques gaff n noticed alot of the following, all different interesting liveries.....

 

 

 

 

[Tenmil Socket]

5 minutes ago, MT606 said:

just been into my local antiques gaff n noticed alot of the following, all different interesting liveries.....

 

 

 

 

How much were the Ford Sierra’s?

 

[MT606]

50 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

How much were the Ford Sierra’s?

 

didn't look I'm afraid.....

 

[quicksilver]

Bus chaos in Milton Keynes this weekend for Grand Prix shuttles with hundreds of double-deckers drafted in from all over the country. Mostly modern stuff but one of the stewards told me to go to a nearby car park and that's where I found the star of the show.

That's a 30-year old ex Hong Kong Olympian run by an operator from Newcastle and the driver said it took eight hours to get down here. You'll note it still has its HK blinds and 'racecourse' is the closest to its actual destination. 

The same firm also had three of these bendy Citaros, the only single-deckers involved.

And this one isn't what it seems. What looks like a London rail replacement bus is actually an F1 shuttle from an operator in York.

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

4 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Bus chaos in Milton Keynes this weekend for Grand Prix shuttles with hundreds of double-deckers drafted in from all over the country. Mostly modern stuff but one of the stewards told me to go to a nearby car park and that's where I found the star of the show.

That's a 30-year old ex Hong Kong Olympian run by an operator from Newcastle and the driver said it took eight hours to get down here. You'll note it still has its HK blinds and 'racecourse' is the closest to its actual destination. 

The same firm also had three of these bendy Citaros, the only single-deckers involved.

And this one isn't what it seems. What looks like a London rail replacement bus is actually an F1 shuttle from an operator in York.

 

Lovely ol' Leyland! Must be one of the last built at Workington, innit! 

[Zelandeth]

4 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Bus chaos in Milton Keynes this weekend for Grand Prix shuttles with hundreds of double-deckers drafted in from all over the country. Mostly modern stuff but one of the stewards told me to go to a nearby car park and that's where I found the star of the show.

That's a 30-year old ex Hong Kong Olympian run by an operator from Newcastle and the driver said it took eight hours to get down here. You'll note it still has its HK blinds and 'racecourse' is the closest to its actual destination. 

The same firm also had three of these bendy Citaros, the only single-deckers involved.

And this one isn't what it seems. What looks like a London rail replacement bus is actually an F1 shuttle from an operator in York.

 

Pretty sure that's one of the bendies that was in service in Aberdeen until pretty recently - that looks like First Aberdeen Red Line (service 1 & 2) livery too which adds to my suspicions.