Bus Shite

[cms206]

13 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

I understand it's the communications vehicle in the nuclear convoy that moves the warheads to / from Faslane (I've seen it a couple of times, and there's a blue one as well).

Not seen the blue one but the green one did take me by surprise. No picture due to the... err... sensitive area it was parked in.

[quicksilver]

16 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

I understand it's the communications vehicle in the nuclear convoy that moves the warheads to / from Faslane (I've seen it a couple of times, and there's a blue one as well).

I've seen pics of the green Irizar, all blacked out with a load of comms equipment on the roof. Looks very odd seeing a luxury coach in olive drab with military plates. While on the subject of the nuclear convoys, has anyone else noticed all the Mercedes trucks are missing the three-pointed star? Apparently it's because Merc were happy to get the contract but didn't want to be associated with nuclear warfare.

[RoadworkUK]

Had to investigate that Irizar and I must say that livery is quite fetching. When first mentioned I thought we were talking about something of Schools Contract vintage, but it seems not.

[cms206]

1 hour ago, RoadworkUK said:

Had to investigate that Irizar and I must say that livery is quite fetching. When first mentioned I thought we were talking about something of Schools Contract vintage, but it seems not.

The one I saw was on silver & black plates I'm sure; I assume there are a few.

[martc]

Haymarket Bus Station, NuT, 1990.

[martc]

Rotherham Library & Arts Centre, built in the early 1970s, now demolished (could also go in the Architectureshite thread).

[willswitchengage]

5 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Had to investigate that Irizar and I must say that livery is quite fetching. When first mentioned I thought we were talking about something of Schools Contract vintage, but it seems not.

The military numberplate and what I assume are CCTV and comms equipment on the roof are clues.

Plenty of open source information about what I understand this is associated with. I also live just down the road from where they travel to and from.

https://www.nukewatch.org.uk/convoys/how-to-spot-a-convoy/

[busmansholiday]

[Eyersey1234]

A few recent garage shots of East Yorkshire's buses.  797, 96 and 388/91

[quicksilver]

This made an appearance today, ex London Transport RF280 and now part of a local private collection. Probably on a shakedown run after enforced inactivity last year.

That was a good spot but was eclipsed just seconds later when this beast came trundling the other way. It's a Leyland Cub with a Wadham Stringer body, never especially common and surely extremely rare now.

 

[busmansholiday]

19 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

never especially common and surely extremely rare now.

Fortunately, they are wank to drive and the two we had were deliberately fired, much to the delight of all the drivers.

[High Jetter]

That RF looks superb!

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Check this out! Full on Leyland Tiger (B43) Body-off Restoration! 

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3930388757055259&id=538227292938106&set=a.568829439877891&source=48&refid=13&__tn__=%2B>

😎😎😎

[willswitchengage]

Proof that targeted advertising is all-knowing, Facebook sending me new bus adverts.

I really liked the Omnicity, especially the nicer-sounding original 6-cyl version. Looked like a pleasant place to be a driver and the fisher price interior must have appealed to operators. It felt very 'continental' i.e. bare bones as opposed to the British way of trying to make everything feel premium. The slightly rounded shape look neat too, not just a boring old box. Go abroad though and you'll be hard pressed still to find anything that isn't MAN or Merc.

[Inspector Morose]

Don't forget that they stopped making the Omnicity in 2012 so most in Europe will have been withdrawn or are about to be.

I like 'em but apparently some operators didn't get on with them at all. My favorites?

The idea of these honking great things tooling around Herefordshire fills me with glee - thinking about it, I must go and phot them before they go as well.
The above shot also shows the weakness of the frame with the 'Scania sag' present and correct at the rear.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

*Bus spotter alert*

The bus in the picture above is actually an Omnilink. They're quite different mechanically; from memory they use a larger engine and the driveline is longitudal and not transverse like the Omnicity. 

The bodywork is also taller to clear the vertical engine. This can be seen by the taller windscreen and taller windows. 

I know the two generations of Omnicity very well. The first 12m bus I drove was a then new Metrobus example that I took to North Weald back in 2004.

I was surprised at the amount of rattles and squeaks and the relatively poor primary ride. 

The second generation (with the 5 pot lump) was slightly better but both had a pronounced sag within months of service. I observed broken and loose structural fixings around the window frames presumably caused by all the flexing and vibration... 

The Mercedes Citaro mobile bbq bus felt much better to drive when not self-immolating. More solid; smoother and refined. 

Incidentally, Metrobus Crawley had some unique short Omnicity variants delivered about eleven years ago. 

Funny little things! Well worth preserving as I'm sure you'll not see any others! 👍 👍 👍 😎 😎 😎 

 

Pictures soon. Busy day and running late! 🤦‍♂️ 

[Inspector Morose]

Meh, Omni - whatever. In 2004 I was still putting odd engines in Nationals. Newer stuff never really tickled my radar.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

3 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Meh, Omni - whatever. In 2004 I was still putting odd engines in Nationals. Newer stuff never really tickled my radar.

Chase Bus Services? I made sure I travelled on a few Nationals back in 2004 when visiting friends in the area. 

Glad I did! 

TBF I had to learn a bit about the Omnicity and others as I was an Instructor and regularly type trained staff on these... 👍 👍 👍 

[Inspector Morose]

Yeah, at the height, we’d managed to lick just about every shortcoming of the things so we turned to making them better. Well different anyway.

Running with and without turbos, running one with a supercharger from a Commer TS3 (sounded like a good idea but really wasn’t), different fuel pumps including our own creations based upon bits and pieces from other engines, different horizontal engines (the wonderful 0680 conversions), vertical engine, you name it, we had a play at it.

One that didn’t see the road as such was an Allison behind a normally aspirated 0500. Bloody brilliant on pick up but it couldn’t rev enough to engage top. We couldn’t get the uprated springs for the pump or that would have hit the road in service too. Instead we put the box behind a vertical 420 and ran that. I think that one still exists somewhere along with the second of the short 0680 conversions..

[Inspector Morose]

Thinking of engine conversions, I think this one beats them all.

Thats a Daimler Roadliner. Originally fitted with either a Cummins V6 or Perkins V8 engine and semi automatic gearbox. This one was later fitted with a TS3 engine and manual six speed gearbox. Apparently it wasn’t quick but was okay for what it needed to do (schools mainly).

[chaseracer]

Exhaust on the nearside...? 😉

[willswitchengage]

9 hours ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

The bus in the picture above is actually an Omnilink. They're quite different mechanically; from memory they use a larger engine and the driveline is longitudal and not transverse like the Omnicity. 

Correct. Anorak alert - the Omnilink effectively replaced the 'L' series which has the flatish mounted 11 litre mobile death metal concert. The old 'N' series had a transverse engine which was a bit pointless in the UK, where operators seem perfectly happy with a high floor at the back and no intermediate doors. I spent much of my youth on these, which for some reason still has a Scania engine access door.

I have been to many Eastern European countries over the past decade and even then they seem overwhelmingly reliant on old German stuff, and a few commie bi which are always interesting to see.

British Scanias also seem to have air horns as standard, much better than the pathetic beeps of rival bi.

[LightBulbFun]

5 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Thinking of engine conversions, I think this one beats them all.

Thats a Daimler Roadliner. Originally fitted with either a Cummins V6 or Perkins V8 engine and semi automatic gearbox. This one was later fitted with a TS3 engine and manual six speed gearbox. Apparently it wasn’t quick but was okay for what it needed to do (schools mainly).

hah thats awesome!

(when you mentioned fitting nationals with different engines I had this amusing mental image of a National fitted with a commer knocker TS3 LOL)

[Inspector Morose]

Couldn’t work out a way of connecting the TS3 to the National box. It was briefly mulled over when we went to get the supercharger from the ‘sandpit’ (Chaseracer, remember that?) but even we had to draw the line somewhere!

[Leyland Worldmaster]

 

Enjoy! That LHD Lynx was bodied by Camo and subsequently used as a Development Vehicle by Volvo. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

And... Worth it for the pusscats... 

 

[Zelandeth]

This just popped up on my photo frame slideshow and given the recent talk of more modern vehicles seemed worth a mention.

This is probably the most pleasant modern bus I've been on as a passenger.

Lovely composed ride, very little of the shuddering through the body you generally get on city buses, really quiet, but what noise you could hear from the drivetrain was a nice smooth growl, and on the one bit of open road I was on it for, seemed to have a decent amount of poke.  Honestly felt more like a low floor coach than a city bus.

No idea what they're like to drive or to live with as an operator, but as a passenger I was very impressed.

Sadly have had little experience with Scanias as everything in my area has been almost exclusively Volvo through my life.  Bluebird did have *one* oddball on a G plate with an Alexander PS body (I'm assuming it was a K.113) for a while though back around 2003.  I didn't even clock it wasn't a B10M like the rest until the driver started the engine and I realised that A: that doesn't sound anything like a Volvo engine, and B: The noise was coming from the wrong end of the bus.  Only rode on it twice sadly but I loved that one.   Sounded absolutely epic, very Gardner like at low revs but really smooth above about 1500rom.  Went like hell too, reckon it hit the rev limiter at just under 80.  Definitely did more than 70 on the flat as I got overtaken by it on the A96 twice.

Speaking to the driver on the second trip out on it she said it was a great bus to drive - apparently hated by the company though as the aforementioned performance came very much at the cost of economy!  It disappeared a couple of weeks later so sadly never got a photo of it.  Not that it would be that special as one PS looks pretty much like another.  Only really interesting angle would be the offside rear as it had totally different cutouts etc around there for the radiator, exhaust etc that the front/mid engined ones didn't need.

[CreepingJesus]

I reckon Scania did the only thing they could do to chip away at Volvo's stranglehold: build hot rods, more or less. Mate of mine from years back ran a sleeper bus company - the kind bands hire to go on tour - and one of his big 'uns was a Scania, he reckoned it out grunted anything up to a big engine Neoplan. And it would give one of those a run for its' money on the autobahn. 

Always wondered why Scania didn't 'push the red button' and fit the V8, after all the Merc OM442 engined Neoplans had a corner of the market they could've muscled (pun intended) in on. Not for everyone to run such a diesel guzzling beast, but they had their place at the time. After all, didn't Plaxton build a few 14L Cummins motorway deckers for NatEx? Same principle.

[Inspector Morose]

8 hours ago, CreepingJesus said:

After all, didn't Plaxton build a few 14L Cummins motorway deckers for NatEx? Same principle.

You’re not thinking of the fabled MCW 400GT are you? One of the few coaches to have a legitimate 0-60 time and at least one was fitted with the big Cummins (basically a sprinter engine mounted vertically).

Fuck me, they were fast.

[CreepingJesus]

Yes, you are correct. Something was bugging me after I wrote that: could it be...entirely the wrong manufacturer? Why yes, it could be.

I had the infamous Chris Goffey road test in mind, which wasn't helping, but I was sure whatever that was had the 330 horse Daf engine in the back: about par with the L10 of the time, but the NTE ran to 450 horse in road trim then. More like the kind of outputs the big German engines had.