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[martc]

  On 21/10/2021 at 18:35, Leyland Worldmaster said:

It is a Leyland-DAB. Underframe and Body made in Denmark. The batch before this had Leyland National bodywork. I'd like to have a go driving one! 👍 👍 👍 😎 😎 😎 

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Thanks, you are truly a master of the world of Leyland. I didn't know about DAB until just now, found a few more pics...

Here's a native one, sans Leyland badges - operated by HT on a rush-hour commuter limited-stop service to Kokkedal to the north of Copenhagen . Also discovered that the Danes call them the 'ledbus'.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Here's my DAB Brochure:

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

And the rest... DAB were known for their crisp styling. At the time of the BL Breakup, it became part of Austin Rover; although a close technical relationship continued with Leyland Bus who supplied Engines, Axles, Transmissions, etc, until a Management Buyout, then part of United Bus before the factory became part of Scania. The first Omnicity buses were built there. 

Factory closed some time ago, sadly. 

The Leyland Tiger B43 owes it's suspension design to DAB. 

 

 

[Inspector Morose]

  On 21/10/2021 at 19:17, Leyland Worldmaster said:

 

The Leyland Tiger B43 owes it's suspension design to DAB. 

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And the windscreens of the mk2 National.

[Zelandeth]

Artics are always interesting...only one I've really any experience with was this one.

Which had a poor reliability record in service because it was so complicated.  Different to the Leyland and Volvo fleet the maintenance crews were used to too.

Goes like a bat out of hell though and sounds fantastic.  Controls are all feather light, with none of the snatchiness to the brakes like the Volvo B7LAs which First used a fair number of.

Driving an artic is quite a surreal experience but nowhere near as alarming as I expected - aside from reversing anyway which is a bit of an acquired art - one I never had the opportunity to master.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

  On 21/10/2021 at 21:54, Inspector Morose said:

And the windscreens of the mk2 National.

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*Anorak on* The National 2 used the DAB Windscreens. 

*Removes anorak*

🤓

[busmansholiday]

South Yorkshire tried out a DAB and MAN before ordering five of each. 

Here's the MAN, which wasn't used in service,

c

and here's the DAB on one of the test runs where passengers were carried to ask their views. Bonus 1500v DC electric train action.

[Inspector Morose]

  On 22/10/2021 at 03:52, Leyland Worldmaster said:

*Anorak on* The National 2 used the DAB Windscreens. 

*Removes anorak*

🤓

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Thats why I said it.

[Inspector Morose]

Knew I’d find it eventually with credit to Ron Mcullock for posting it up to Flickr.

What you see here is the original design for the mk2 National. It almost made it into production too but a last minute redesign using windscreens from DAB put paid to this handsome design.

[willswitchengage]

Travel Coventry also is in the running for bendy bus obscurity, with what I think could be UK unique O405 low floor things. A pleasant place to sit, decent build quality and a nice sounding powerful engine.

A photo would be less interesting to share but I also really like First Yorkshire B10LAs and B7LAs. They were never replaced and I seem to remember the latter were very underpowered and noisy, even in hill-less York. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

  On 22/10/2021 at 18:19, Inspector Morose said:

Knew I’d find it eventually with credit to Ron Mcullock for posting it up to Flickr.

What you see here is the original design for the mk2 National. It almost made it into production too but a last minute redesign using windscreens from DAB put paid to this handsome design.

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That's rather handsome, isn't it! Looks a lot like the Titan B15 windscreen. I think this picture appears in the Ian Allan 100 years of Leyland Buses. 😎

[Eyersey1234]

  On 22/10/2021 at 18:19, Inspector Morose said:

Knew I’d find it eventually with credit to Ron Mcullock for posting it up to Flickr.

What you see here is the original design for the mk2 National. It almost made it into production too but a last minute redesign using windscreens from DAB put paid to this handsome design.

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Why was there a last minute redesign? 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

  On 23/10/2021 at 08:01, Eyersey1234 said:

Why was there a last minute redesign? 

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Good question; my guess is windscreen reflections at night. A shortcoming of the Mk1 National from contemporary reports. 

For non- bus people, the reason for the re-design was to accommodate a front radiator; necessary as the O. 680/L11/TL11 Gardner 6LXB were all bigger and heavier than the 500 Series. 

No room in the back and weight distribution was more favourable with the rad' in the front... 

😁

[Inspector Morose]

  On 23/10/2021 at 10:24, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Good question; my guess is windscreen reflections at night. A shortcoming of the Mk1 National from contemporary reports. 

For non- bus people, the reason for the re-design was to accommodate a front radiator; necessary as the O. 680/L11/TL11 Gardner 6LXB were all bigger and heavier than the 500 Series. 

No room in the back and weight distribution was more favourable with the rad' in the front... 

😁

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Well, yes and no to that one.

Mk1 windscreen reflections were an issue but having the saloon lighting running straight down the centre of the roof from right behind the cab certainly was more of the issue than the windscreen design. Operators generally removed the first tube to counter the problems but others ran a blue tube in the first bay or even had it switch off when the doors closed. Having run and driven more Nationals than most on here, I can speak from experience.

The radiator move for the mk2 wasn’t for room, indeed the first prototype mk2 (Ribble NCW800T) was a mk1 shell with rear radiator and a 0690 engine. The popular DAF conversion was based on an engine loosely related to the 0680 and that kept the rear radiator too.

No, the reason to move the radiator to the front was to overcome the overheating issues that overseas mk1s were suffering from when operating in hot territories. The Jamaica Nationals had an oversped fan drive to try and solve this but all it seemed to achieve was to increase noise and overheat the arses of the rear seat passengers.

The Gardner option came quite late in the Nationals life and was only done to stop losing an order from a Scottish operator. There was enough room in a mk1 for a Gardner with a rear mounted rad anyway, as Crosville proved with their Gardner repowers using engines recovered from scrap Seddon RUs.

Note that the restyle in the pic above had a very ‘BL facelift’ look about it. It was no coincidence that the car styling team often did side projects for the commercial side - the original National design was a side project from the car design team - Michelotti (can’t spell) only redesigned the front and rear of the mk1 National, with a little styling tweak to the skirt panels.

The reason for the late change was simply that they weren’t entirely happy with the styling. It was okay and serviceable as a bus but management thought it just looked too stark. A swift raid of the corporate parts bin and an the DAB standard windscreens were chosen for their curve and the lower panel work modified to match. It was possible to graft a mk2 front onto a mk1 and one was made  by eastern Counties (DPW718T).

[2cvspecial]

  On 06/01/2020 at 20:21, cms206 said:

AS-Tronic.

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has AS in it so must be good LOL

[Yoss]

At least one and possibly two of those National bodied bendy buses turned up in Winchester for a while in original Stagecoach livery. They were used on the 47 to Southampton but not for very long. I have pictures upstairs somewhere. 

[busmansholiday]

  On 25/10/2021 at 18:11, Yoss said:

At least one and possibly two of those National bodied bendy buses turned up in Winchester for a while in original Stagecoach livery. They were used on the 47 to Southampton but not for very long. I have pictures upstairs somewhere. 

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That would be the original batch of DABs with the National style bodies that were assembled by Roe IIRC.

Stagecoach did buy some articulated Volvo coaches with Plaxton and Jonckheere bodies for use on express services. The Jonckheere ones ended up on a service from Donny to Hull or Grimsby via Scunthorpe and Humberside airport.

[busmansholiday]

Thirty five years ago today, October 26, 1986, bus deregulation came into existance. Stagecoach was a small, but expanding Scottish company, and nobody had heard of Arriva or First.

 

[Yoss]

Thirty five years ago yesterday was the last day of Routemasters on the 68 (technically it was the 24th but by the time it all finished it was nearly 2am on the 25th). I was on that bus, it was RM 2037. Six months later it turned up in Southampton and instantly became our favourite of all the Southampton RMs. When that operation came to an end in 1989 we bought 2037.  If it hadn't been the last 68 it wouldn't have stood out to us, it would just be one of the fleet and we probably wouldn't have bought it. 

So that is very much the date that I consider our relationship started. Since then we sold it to Reading Mainline, watched it go to another preservationist but kept in touch meaning I was in the right place to buy it back in 2006. Then I sold it again two years ago but to somebody I've known nearly as long as I've known the bus. But it all started 35 years ago yesterday. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

⚠️HEAVY LEYLAND BUS CONTENT⚠️

Had to share this here! Atlanteans, Nationals, a Pacer and some former London Country Bristol LHS action! 

 

[Slappy]

Over in Jersey for Holibobs atm.  Seen a few of the 'famous' Leyland Swifts about, but finally got an opportunity to get a pic of three of them parked up, presumably with their shift done for another summer. Modern content over here at present appears to be Solo SRs and Enviro400s.

[puddlethumper]

I was round to a place that repairs RV's and spotted these buses. No idea what they are but I thought you bus lickers might like them.

[martc]

The MAN type 750 HO-M electric bus built in 1970.

[busmansholiday]

  On 30/10/2021 at 16:01, puddlethumper said:

I was round to a place that repairs RV's and spotted these buses. No idea what they are but I thought you bus lickers might like them.

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Not sure about the top one, I've seen those bodies in Europe, Den Oudsten?

Bottom one is a preserved BMMMO S17.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

  On 30/10/2021 at 16:01, puddlethumper said:

I was round to a place that repairs RV's and spotted these buses. No idea what they are but I thought you bus lickers might like them.

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Top one makes me think Leyland Worldmaster. Could not see the wheel hubs to make a positive ID. No idea on the bodywork! Great pictures though! 👍 👍 👍 😎 😎 😎 

Was a great article on BMMO buses in Classic Bus magazine a while back... Very interesting. 👍 

[Inspector Morose]

The unidentified coach is a Van Hool bodied Guy Victory belonging to the Aldridge transport museum. That site is used for storage of their surplus stock along with other owners vehicles. Inside there are some real gems including the prototype BMMO D9 double decker.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Just had to share this; many à happy hour driving these... 

http://philstockley.blogspot.com/2016/01/what-makes-man-man.html?m=1

[Eyersey1234]

  On 02/11/2021 at 18:59, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Just had to share this; many à happy hour driving these... 

http://philstockley.blogspot.com/2016/01/what-makes-man-man.html?m=1

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We have 6 Centros on Volvo B7RLE chassis, nice buses to drive. In fact we were one of the few operators to take both Centros and ADL Enviro 200s.

[martc]

Mitsubishi Fuso RP118 somewhere in Thailand.

[willswitchengage]

  On 07/11/2021 at 19:48, martc said:

Mitsubishi Fuso RP118 somewhere in Thailand.

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Buses in Japan are odd. When I went in 2016 they were all still conventional three-pedal manuals.