Bus Shite

[busmansholiday]

2 hours ago, justbinnedit said:

The voltra buses in Newcastle have caught my eye recently when I have been up there. Will be interesting to see if electric buses catch on wether it will be a fad before the powers that be realise that li-ion batteries are not the way forward. 

Plenty of battery buses (electric buses to me are trolley buses) in service around the world now. I believe Newport will be the first operator to be all battery powered in the U K as 33% of the fleet is already battery powered.

[rml2345]

On 12/7/2022 at 6:51 PM, Inspector Morose said:

1931 Gilford single deck bus powered by a Junkers opposed piston engine and front wheel drive.

Amazingly, nobody wanted to buy one so the double deck version (yup, the built two of the things) was converted into a front wheel drive trolleybus making it the only one of its kind ever to run in the UK (at Wolverhampton). Unsurprisngly, it wasn't a success.

 

Were Gilford not also a very early adopter of air suspension?

And to go back to Leyland tin fronts briefly; Edinburgh Corporation fitted a fibreglass copy of the BMMO tin front to their PD3s before bodying by Alexander. 

[Eyersey1234]

5 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

They were introduced 2 years ago and are still only on the two very short, circular routes that serve Gateshead and Newcastle City Centre. If they are that good I would have thought they would have rolled out a few more routes by now. My guess it is just a bit of green washing and a way for Go North East to avoid the new Clean Air Zone that will be going live very soon.

Newcastle and Gateshead Clean Air Zone | Newcastle City Council

To be fair during most of 2020 and into 2021 the only new vehicles delivered were buses already on order due to Covid. GNE have introduced more this year.

[MiniMinorMk3]

47 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

To be fair during most of 2020 and into 2021 the only new vehicles delivered were buses already on order due to Covid. GNE have introduced more this year.

Just the one on the Q3 route.

[Inspector Morose]

3 hours ago, rml2345 said:

Were Gilford not also a very early adopter of air suspension?

Yes, they used Gruss air springs, manufactured by Pneumatic tools Ltd, Glasgow.

[martc]

A gathering of buses in Kamppi in the late 1960s.
 

[martc]

Robur Garant 30K coach from early '60's East Germany. What cool looking things

 

[busmansholiday]

8 hours ago, rml2345 said:

And to go back to Leyland tin fronts briefly; Edinburgh Corporation fitted a fibreglass copy of the BMMO tin front to their PD3s before bodying by Alexander

As far as I remember all Edinburgh's PD2s and PD3s had standard Leyland tin fronts. 

[mat777]

19 hours ago, martc said:

Robur Garant 30K coach from early '60's East Germany. What cool looking things

 

Wow, never knew those were a thing! Oddly small radiator grille - could be interesting in the mountains in the summer? I'm assuming 30K is the power in KW... (or did they use HP in Europe back then?)

 

Here's some spots of mine from Valetta, Malta over the summer. Much like London Transport's Routemasters, the "vintage buses" in Malta were kept in service until well after their sell-by date, before eventually being replaced by a modern fleet - and then a handful re-appeared in fully restored format to serve in heritage format on selected popular tourist routes. In the case of these beautifully restored examples, they seem to be owned and operated by a local private garage rather than a municipal bus company.
Interestingly, although they appear to be running their original vintage diesel engines (and extremely unsynchronised boxes), they have all been fitted with LPG systems. This was something new to me, as I had thought LPG was only possible to use on spark engines. 

All the buses I saw were varying vintage of British light coach chassis and running gear, with locally made bodies.

Thames and OB:

 

Austin of some sort:

 

Another Thames with ALL the signwriting and an onboard shrine:

 

[martc]

More Finnish goodness.

[Eyersey1234]

On 12/16/2022 at 5:11 PM, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Just the one on the Q3 route.

I was under the impression there were about 9 delivered this year

[MiniMinorMk3]

15 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

I was under the impression there were about 9 delivered this year

They may use all 9 on the Q3 route. It's still only 3 routes that the electric buses are used on.

[Eyersey1234]

4 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

They may use all 9 on the Q3 route. It's still only 3 routes that the electric buses are used on.

Aah I see what you mean, sorry I misunderstood 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Trolley Bus, Clayton Street, Newcastle, 1958

[martc]

On 12/17/2022 at 3:51 PM, mat777 said:

Wow, never knew those were a thing! Oddly small radiator grille - could be interesting in the mountains in the summer? I'm assuming 30K is the power in KW... (or did they use HP in Europe back then?)

It's a bit difficult to find info in English but there is some gen in the German version of wikipedia. Granate = Granite.

The 30K was an amalgam of the 27K and 32K engines, max power = 40kW; '30' refers to the engines capacity in deci-litres (ie it's got a 3 litre engine) and K stands for„kopfgesteuert“  'head-controlled' in other words OHV. The previous model, the 27K, looks very similar to the 30K. 50,000 of all models (coach, van, lorry, ambulance and fire engine, some in 4wd flavour which was offered as an option) were made between 1953 and 1961. Some were sold in the west (Belgium and the West Germany).

There's no mention of overheating problems, it is air cooled,  but access to the spark plugs was a problem as the air filter assembly needed to be removed first.

Not a bus but a 4wd 30K ambulance. The 30K ambulances used in Bulgaria, for off-road mountain rescue work, had a very long life due to their rugged construction.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phänomen_Granit_30K

[AnnoyingPentium]

Can anyone tell me anything about Carrick Coaches in Ayrshire? We were talking about them earlier in the house. Seems like a dream to me as it's as if they never existed.

[martc]

Haymarket, NuT, 1995

[Inspector Morose]

Scanning my prints into the compu-ter has brought back some memories back of some of the weird and wonderful rescues I was involved in, over the years. 

Let me tell you a tale...

Way back in 1991, a younger me was an active volunteer at the Black Country Museum, working on the trolleybus system amongst other things. One of the other volunteers had a day job of stores officer for Nottingham City Transport.
Now in 1991, NCT took over the long established firm of South Notts, an independent who had been operating since 1926. Their garage at Gotham was a treasure trove of all manner of decrepit buses and coaches as they seemed to have a policy of when the bus was too old or knackered, it was parked up at the back and simply left because, well, you never know, do you?

"Do you want help to rescue an old bus because I think there's something really old around the back?" I was aked by my mate. Of course I did and we set off (with others) to see what could be liberated for the museum (I had my hands full with numerous buses and cars at the time so really couldn't afford any more).

We found our prize around the back and to liberate it, not only did we have to dismantle the remains of the body but cut down a fairly mature tree that was growing through the chassis - yeah, this had been here a very long time. Soon it was in a state to be loaded onto a transporter for the move back to the museum. The chassis was pretty complete with engine and a good base for something to be built upon it.

So what did we find and rescue? This:

 

That is the remains of South Notts No.1, a 1926 Guy BB and the very first bus that South Notts bought for operation. It had been sitting at the back of the yard for a very, very long time with the intentions that something should be done with it for the company but sadly time ran out for both the comany and it.

It was simply a rescue mission; we had no intentions to do anything other than save it (we were in the process of repatriating a Wolverhampton Guy BTX trolleybus that was found in Ireland) and so it was put into safe storage at the museum until time would allow to actually do something about it. 
Fast forward to 2000 and I left the group with the GUY still in the same condition but safe. I do wonder what its actual fate was. Did somebody take it on? is it still inexistance? Who knows but at least I knew that I'd played my part in trying to save it over 30 years ago.

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Trolley bus being tested at Byker Depot 1948

[MiniMinorMk3]

Bedford by Northern Coach Builders, Spittal Tongues, 1938

 

[mat777]

23 hours ago, martc said:

It's a bit difficult to find info in English but there is some gen in the German version of wikipedia. Granate = Granite.

The 30K was an amalgam of the 27K and 32K engines, max power = 40kW; '30' refers to the engines capacity in deci-litres (ie it's got a 3 litre engine) and K stands for„kopfgesteuert“  'head-controlled' in other words OHV. The previous model, the 27K, looks very similar to the 30K. 50,000 of all models (coach, van, lorry, ambulance and fire engine, some in 4wd flavour which was offered as an option) were made between 1953 and 1961. Some were sold in the west (Belgium and the West Germany).

There's no mention of overheating problems, it is air cooled,  but access to the spark plugs was a problem as the air filter assembly needed to be removed first.

Not a bus but a 4wd 30K ambulance. The 30K ambulances used in Bulgaria, for off-road mountain rescue work, had a very long life due to their rugged construction.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phänomen_Granit_30K

Thanks for the info, very interesting reading!  

[martc]

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Seasons greetings to you guys! Thank you for sharing these fascinating pictures and stories! 🎄😎👍

[Yoss]

On 12/21/2022 at 8:11 PM, martc said:

I assume that's Crystal Palace Parade being a 2b, can't think of anywhere else on that route that looks like that. The 2b was my bus's last London route in March 1987. It was running from Norwood Garage which was about five minutes from here by bus. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Grainger Street Newcastle Upon Tyne

[martc]

London Police Regulations did not allow covered driving cabs until the well into the 20th century on London buses. Merry Chirstmas.

[High Jetter]

No covered top deck either! At least the driver had some shelter.

[Remspoor]

16 hours ago, High Jetter said:

No covered top deck either! At least the driver had some shelter.

Those on the top deck paid less  to travel and they did not sit there fora working day unlike the driver.

[Yoss]

Walking over to my mums for dinner earlier and a bus went past. On Christmas day? I wasn't quick enough to get a picture but it said 17X on the front. The normal route is just a plain 17.

A quick look on Google shows there is indeed an hourly service and it looks exactly the same as a normal 17.

 

So a quick look on their website shows three routes running. 

 

The 17 and 18 are the same as normal but the 1X is an amalgam of the 1 and 2 going all the way to Winchester via Eastleigh. 

Seems the only difference to a normal service is the price. 

But £3.50 flat fare seems entirely reasonable to me on Christmas day considering the alternatives. 

No wonder First Bus are pulling out of the city, they can't compete with service like that. Good for Blue Star, I've never known anybody run services on Christmas day before. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

5 hours ago, Remspoor said:

Those on the top deck paid less  to travel and they did not sit there fora working day unlike the driver.

Mind you - the conductress is stood up there without any sort of outer garment?  I guess she could nip back downstairs and defrost?
Changed days