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9 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

The one above had a body by that well known builder G C Smith.

Arrr, yes, good old GC Smith, builders of kwality* bus bodies (and mobile libraries). At least that's a bus not a coach / welfare body with the full height rear opening and no way of closing it from ground level. Fortunately somebody accidentally* set fire to our pair.

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57 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Fancy some more tomorrow? Be warned, it’ll probably contain Nationals.

Yes please. Love a National, me. I lived in a London Country area growing up. I'm always drawn to photos of any Nationals looking for Surrey reg marks to see if they're ex LCBS. 

A fair few of those ones in your post were ex-LT by the looks of it.

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This made me laugh

1592783709_nationallean.jpg.2f94a7b61cd0bd6e620a9c5152b1c7c6.jpg

It was not uncommon for Nationals to lean to one side a little (not quite as precariously as the one above) like that in service, especially the older ones.

You needed a step ladder as a passenger just to onboard  ! Why did they do this ?

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2 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

I'll end tonight with some random buses in Manchester (and Bury).

C282BBPP.thumb.jpg.751354657927b703cf45528e16a607e5.jpg

 

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Ex Southampton CityBus. Not only have they not bothered painting them, those are the original CityBus fleet number decals. Never knew where they went, or when really, I never really noticed them disappear. This was only a batch of four. After they were unable to buy any more Atlanteans they bought a single Dominator, 277 (the last Atlantean was 276) and three Olympians with slightly different bodywork, 278 - 280 for evaluation. Strangely despite the Dennis being rather troublesome they then bought the above batch of four. 

 

And the Salisbury shots look very familiar too. I seem to end up there quite regularly (was there Monday). Admittedly I usually drive, the bus service from Southampton isn't great, but there's a car park just behind the bus station so I used to walk through there a lot. It's gone now of course, like everything else. I have some pictures upstairs of the last day of the LH's at Salisbury. 

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5 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Many spare days were spent in Sheffield soaking up Northern Bus with their heady mix of REs plus the other oddities running around (Warning this is a big post).

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Loving the photodump tonight,  please could you enlighten me as to what these 4 are?  Especially the one that looks like an over inflated Freight Rover.

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3 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

I'll end tonight with some random buses in Manchester (and Bury).

C282BBPP.thumb.jpg.751354657927b703cf45528e16a607e5.jpg

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Family owned firm local to me, spent many a school trip on one of their coaches. Then diversified into buses for a while when deregulation happened. Sold the bus bit to Stagecoach in the mid '00s and went back to the core coach tours business.

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53 minutes ago, clayts450 said:

This made me laugh

1592783709_nationallean.jpg.2f94a7b61cd0bd6e620a9c5152b1c7c6.jpg

 Why did they do this ?

Lack of an anti-roll bar on the front of the earlier ones allowed them to lean at angles that would make a 2cv blush. The suspension was designed with lots of travel but later ones from around 1976 on would have an anti roll bat fitted along with dual shock absorbers at the rear. Most earlier ones had the dual rear shock mod but HHA was one that missed out for some reason. This was the second time I’d done this with a National, this is the other time:

F44ED470-7FA0-4EBA-820A-BB1E84D5E3FC.jpeg.e46c9892ae5bfb65b67560350591f8e5.jpeg

With a roll bar fitted the lean was greatly reduced but it did mean you could lift one front wheel off the ground if you parked the opposite rear wheels in a deep pothole (see photo of KHT118P in the Metrowest post).

We did have at least one ex LCBS National LPB214P but this was the time when LT were shedding Mk1 like they were going out of fashion. They were cheap, very well looked after (the ex-Bexleybus ones were a bit grotty though) and could easily be upseated although we never did apart from one after accident damage. Another good home to buy from was Ribble as although they had been worked hard, they were kept in very good order with quality rebuilds at mid life on the earlier ones. One ex-Ribble, PTF746L,  was as original spec as they came but it was like new underneath and on top and was one of the best motors we bought.

The WMT Nationals were still with WMT as we had been bought by then and we were used as a low cost unit to operate the Black country routes. Fleet strength at the end was 76 with over 50 being Nationals.

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1 hour ago, catsinthewelder said:

Loving the photodump tonight,  please could you enlighten me as to what these 4 are?  Especially the one that looks like an over inflated Freight Rover.

In order: 

1. Leyland DAB artic - using the drivetrain from a Tiger in a bespoke chassis. This was Sheffields second try at artics and was reasonably successful. One oddity was that the rear axle steered so sitting right at the back meant you got the sensation of going in the opposite direction to the rest of the bus every time you went round a corner.

2.  Renault/Dodge 50 (or was it 75? I can’t remember) with I think a Northern Counties body. Seemingly quite popular with SYT at the time as they had loads with numerous bodies.

3. leyland Leopard with Plaxton bus body. This was the second body on this chassis. The first was a Willowbrook Spacecar coach body but this was removed on this and other members of the same batch (from an NBC fleet in the south I think) and all were rebodied with this type of body for dealer Stuart Johnson. This one was sold to Compass bus who were taken over by SYPTE and so it became an odd man out in their fleet.

4. Dennis Domino/Optare. Dennis’ first attempt at a midibus chassis and a little too over engineered for the job. Basically it was a Dominator double deck chassis narrowed and shortened to midi size and powered by a transverse Perkins engine driving through a Maxwell gearbox. Only SYPTE and Greater Manchester ever bought them. The body was the first products by Optare after the original Roe had been closed down by Leyland. The design was so that as many body parts could be exchanged with other vehicles in the fleet. Practical? Yes but pretty? Well, maybe not.

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1 hour ago, Inspector Morose said:

Lack of an anti-roll bar on the front of the earlier ones allowed them to lean at angles that would make a 2cv blush. The suspension was designed with lots of travel but later ones from around 1976 on would have an anti roll bat fitted along with dual shock absorbers at the rear. Most earlier ones had the dual rear shock mod but HHA was one that missed out for some reason. This was the second time I’d done this with a National, this is the other time:

F44ED470-7FA0-4EBA-820A-BB1E84D5E3FC.jpeg.e46c9892ae5bfb65b67560350591f8e5.jpeg

With a roll bar fitted the lean was greatly reduced but it did mean you could lift one front wheel off the ground if you parked the opposite rear wheels in a deep pothole (see photo of KHT118P in the Metrowest post).

We did have at least one ex LCBS National LPB214P but this was the time when LT were shedding Mk1 like they were going out of fashion. They were cheap, very well looked after (the ex-Bexleybus ones were a bit grotty though) and could easily be upseated although we never did apart from one after accident damage. Another good home to buy from was Ribble as although they had been worked hard, they were kept in very good order with quality rebuilds at mid life on the earlier ones. One ex-Ribble, PTF746L,  was as original spec as they came but it was like new underneath and on top and was one of the best motors we bought.

The WMT Nationals were still with WMT as we had been bought by then and we were used as a low cost unit to operate the Black country routes. Fleet strength at the end was 76 with over 50 being Nationals.

I know a certain Olympian which will do that when parked when it feels like it due to one of the levelling valve bodies having gone porous!  It's 50/50 whether she does it - but means in the museum that you have to be bloody careful when you park her up in the shed to make sure you leave a good couple of extra feet to either side in case she decides to have a lean...especially after the repaint was done!

Decided to have a really bad day for it one day when there was a show on and she was out on display...I kept going out and starting her back up every couple of hours and getting things levelled again when the lean got to looking too obvious.  Haven't seen the bus since 2014, so they might have fixed it by now...

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12 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Both Leyland Swifts. The more Dart looking one was one of two (that I know of) Wright Handibus bodies delivered to Stevensons - supreme collector and operator of the bus worlds waifs and strays.

Stevensons had four - J31/2 SFA and J34/6 SRF.

Never understood why they were even built considering that in 1992 Wright were still building the arguably better* looking Consort on Swifts and Roadrunners.

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9 hours ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Regarding the one a teacher parked into their own car thanks to the dogleg gearbox, it looked exactly like this :

Dodge (Renault) PSV 50 G10 G13 S56 S66 etc

That could even be the one, yellow Rochdale council livery, ambulance on the top.   We had that for a period inbetween various other rentals before we got a puke green P reg LDV.

I couldn't place the bodybuilder on that but it's apparantly Customline; has the look of a weird Keillor/Leicester Carriage Builders crossbreed.

Was it owned by the school or by the council? I might be able to pin down which one it was.

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Western Scottish ordered six Volvo Citybuses for delivery in 1987, though in the event two were diverted to Fife Scottish as their E909/10 KSG. E864-867 RCS were delivered to Western and carried a multitude of liveries; they worked hard and eventually ended up being some of the earliest Megabus deckers on the network.

Some photos of their earlier days; they were renumbered early on from V164-167 to V964-967.

V164 BBS 12-2-88.jpg

V165 BBS 5-7-89.jpg

V166 Sandgate 9-8-89.jpg

V167 BBS 17-2-89.jpg

V866 BBS 12-2-88.jpg

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17 minutes ago, Volksy said:

I do love the MetroLiner, do any of these still exist?

I'm sure others will be better placed to answer that question than me but the chances are very few still exist. As a Soft Southerner I'd be interested to know how many of those Alexander bodied Leopards are still knocking about. They really are handsome buses in all their forms. 

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Metroliners. Mmm

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I think Ensigns have a couple of them in their storage facility - the majority of them were bought by them and converted to open top due to them being able to seat huge numbers upstairs. I think there might be one closed top left but I haven't heard of it in a while so even that one might have gone now. @cms206 over to you?

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The re-body, once a regular occurrence in the industry where a change of circumstances or a severe accident that leaves a body not fit for intended use on top of sound chassis and mechanicals. Sometimes even the mechanical components were either upgraded or re-arranged at will.

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Ah yes, Stevensons. Constant winners of the "we'll run anything" competition in the midlands. Deregulation saw them expand from a relatively small concern based around Burton upon Trent to a huge operator covering from the Black country up as far as the outskirts of Manchester. Browbeaten by a pincer movement by WMT and Drawlane owned Midland Red North (How strange that the MDs of both companies at the time regularly played golf together) saw them being sold to Drawlane, later British Bus, later Arriva.

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But you've come here for Nationals, right?
Oh allright then, have a few WMT ones to tide you over.

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OOX818R was a weird one. Yes it's a WMT National running for WMT however at this point in its life it had been sold from WMT to an operator in Dumfries after the '86 deregulation cull of excess fleet, sold back to an operator in Birmingham in 1991 who used this bus in competition with its original owner. That operator was bought by WMT in 1992 and OOX was then refurbished and re-entered the main fleet at Yardley Wood.

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There were plenty of Nationals around where I lived. Perfect for independents, they were cheap, relatively easy to maintain and standard enough to make it look like you knew what you were doing as a company. The Birmingham Coach Company was another big user of Nationals.

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BCC was eventually bought out by Go-Ahead along with a few other operators. Due to various 'issues' Go-ahead sold this concern to the Dunn family and Diamond bus was born.

 

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19 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Lack of an anti-roll bar on the front of the earlier ones allowed them to lean at angles that would make a 2cv blush. The suspension was designed with lots of travel but later ones from around 1976 on would have an anti roll bat fitted along with dual shock absorbers at the rear. Most earlier ones had the dual rear shock mod but HHA was one that missed out for some reason. This was the second time I’d done this with a National, this is the other time:

F44ED470-7FA0-4EBA-820A-BB1E84D5E3FC.jpeg.e46c9892ae5bfb65b67560350591f8e5.jpeg

With a roll bar fitted the lean was greatly reduced but it did mean you could lift one front wheel off the ground if you parked the opposite rear wheels in a deep pothole (see photo of KHT118P in the Metrowest post).

We did have at least one ex LCBS National LPB214P but this was the time when LT were shedding Mk1 like they were going out of fashion. They were cheap, very well looked after (the ex-Bexleybus ones were a bit grotty though) and could easily be upseated although we never did apart from one after accident damage. Another good home to buy from was Ribble as although they had been worked hard, they were kept in very good order with quality rebuilds at mid life on the earlier ones. One ex-Ribble, PTF746L,  was as original spec as they came but it was like new underneath and on top and was one of the best motors we bought.

The WMT Nationals were still with WMT as we had been bought by then and we were used as a low cost unit to operate the Black country routes. Fleet strength at the end was 76 with over 50 being Nationals.

Great pics of Nationals leaning over !

I always thought the Mk1 National was one fabulous looking bus.
I used to love riding on the Mk1's  John Fishwicks had, thundering along  making a hell of a din on some of the faster stretches on the way home (especially good on a winters night with that excellent diffused lighting they had). I wasn't too keen in winter when your feet used to freeze, but even so it was always a treat to see one coming up the road towards the bus stop.

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Poking around Gaydon one day I stumbled across this rather odd National. UTJ595M was an odd beast indeed as this was the Business Commuter in all of its glory. 

In March 1973, Leyland had this special 11.3-metre National built for a transport symposium in April 1973 held at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, under the theme 'Moving People in Cities'. This National ( chassis number 00498) was built as a standard express (i.e uprated engine and high ratio rear axle) National at the Lillyhall factory but no seats were fitted, it then went to a company called Clements of Bromsgrove who specialised in the construction of exhibition displays and fitted it out over four weeks with 22 seats, with eight luxurious high backed seats in the front section, four on each side of the gangway , the seats could swivel and be locked in a forward position, at the side of each seat was a work station. Also at the front of the bus were an electric typewriter, photocopier, telephone, mailbox and a Phillips video recorder, there was also seating at the front for two secretaries. At the rear was a lounge area were hot and cold drinks would be served. Other features of this National included curtains made from  woven fibreglass cloth. The idea behind the Business Commuter was that it would pick up a group of executives each morning on a regular circuit, alerting each to the imminent arrival of the bus by a paging system. Once they were all on board the bus would run directly to the city centre.

The Business Commuter National was only going to be used for the transport symposium and then afterwards it would be converted to be a normal fully seated National, the powers to be decided to keep the Business Commuter National as an executive coach for collecting V.I.P. guests, and for appearances at special events and Motor Shows. It even made a guest appearance on Blue Peter and Tomorrow's World. Only the National Bus Company placed an order for a single Business Commuter as nobody else could see the point of buying one. For the same price a coach could be built to the same specification to do the same role and look a loot less like a converted bus. UTJ was prepared for the order but was found to be overweight on the rear axle due to that large pod containing the air conditioning and hot water tanks for the servery.

After Leyland finished with UTJ, it passed to the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland, who passed it onto the Motor Museum at Gaydon. Gaydon later shoved it into the corner of a field where it lay deteriorating inside and out until it was saved for a restoration that that really needn't have been needed if the museum had looked after it a little better.

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