Bus Shite

17,764 · March 24, 2022

Last day of cab hopping for a few weeks thank fuck, the MAN passed it's MOT this afternoon; it's to come off again during the Easter school holidays for more work I think.

Today's horses were GJI 627, a Van Hool bodied Volvo B12M new to Marbill as SA02 RZB, and Ford Transit SB63 GNU for the backshift which is the last of a batch purchased from Arnold Shark Car & Van Rental a few years back.

17,029 · March 25, 2022

On 23/03/2022 at 16:47, busmansholiday said:

March 26th, was a Sunday back in 1972 and is a day inevitably etched in my mind, as it was the day the last trolleybus system in the UK, at Bradford, closed for good.

We'll start a year or so earlier, when a number of us went to Bradford to travel on the last rear entrance trolleybuses as they were being withdrawn because there were enough forward entrance ones for the remaining services.

A tour had been organised using two vehicles EKU745, a 1949 BUT 9611T with Roe H33/25R bodywork,

and FKU758, a 1951 BUT 9611T but with Weymann H33/26R bodywork.

Amazingly, out of the people in this shot I can still identify, only Alan, facing the camera far left, isn't still around. Alan was one of the main people behind the preservation of ex Sheffield AEC Regent V / Alexander 874, and died of cancer just before Xmas last year.

So that fateful day, and a number of us from Sheffield met up early to travel to Bradford on this, ex Sheffield JOC 1330, 6330WJ, a 1960 AEC Regent V with Roe bodywork that had recently been purchased by a group of friends. They had actually bought this as a swap, as down in Kent ex Sheffield 116, a 1952 AEC Regent III with Roe bodywork was still in service on school runs and a deal had been done to acquire it on the condition the operator got a newer replacement bus. When 1330 became surplus a few years later it was repurchased and returned north for preservation.

So Bradford then, there were a number of tours organised to mark the event and the one I went on used this, DKY706, a 1945 Karrier W that had been rebodied by East Lancs in 1960 with a forward entrance body.

The other vehicle on our tour was this, FWW375, a 1950 Sunbeam F4 that was new to Mexborough and Swinton, with a single deck body but was rebodied in 1962 by East Lancs as a doubledecker.

Their were a fair few trolleybuses out that day on tours as these views show (nice Simca sneaking in the shot).

FWX913 was another rebodied ex M&S vehicle

There was a final tour in the afternoon with civic dignities on. We managed to get in front of the tour with 1330.

Quite a chodtastic line up behind 844, another ex M&S vehicle.

A lot of people gathered at Thornbury depot for the end, here's a few shots in B&W and colour..

Note the late registration madness

And that was that. Diesel buses replaced trolleybuses. Then a year later the fuel crisis hit and people started looking for alternative ways of powering vehicles. Progress.

I remember trolley buses in Maidstone late 60s, must have gone before the Bradford ones. More recently , saw some in Vancouver about 5 years ago, but they were struggling in modern traffic tbf.

22,134 · March 26, 2022

theres no "buses you didn't know existed until recently thread" so im punting it here, but the Steyr City bus is a new one on me

looks like one of those weird 1980's futuristic concept designs that actually made it to production LOL

47,640 · March 26, 2022

Talking of 'buses you didn't know existed until recently thread' and combining it with 'bus shite' I give you the 'Tajikistan 2A' from the '70's -

Didn't know about this and it looks shite.

7,974 · March 26, 2022

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

As if someone crashed a Terberg shunter into a fishtank and put it straight to market.

9,506 · March 26, 2022

Bit like the demountable Dodge.

17,764 · March 26, 2022

6 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

theres no "buses you didn't know existed until recently thread" so im punting it here, but the Steyr City bus is a new one on me

looks like one of those weird 1980's futuristic concept designs that actually made it to production LOL

If you squint really hard at that you can almost see what it morphed into...

17,764 · March 27, 2022

In sunny Skelmersdale this evening on a hire from Glasgow, still waiting on parts for the toilet on my own bus so slumming it today with a Temsa.

Parked up next to a fairly unusual Plaxton-bodied MAN; I asked the driver if he'd come far today - "about four miles; you?"

"226 miles each way... "

3,477 · March 27, 2022

7 hours ago, cms206 said:

In sunny Skelmersdale this evening on a hire from Glasgow, still waiting on parts for the toilet on my own bus so slumming it today with a Temsa.

Parked up next to a fairly unusual Plaxton-bodied MAN; I asked the driver if he'd come far today - "about four miles; you?"

"226 miles each way... "

What are the Temsa's like in terms of driving, reliability etc?

17,764 · March 28, 2022

4 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

What are the Temsa's like in terms of driving, reliability etc?

They can be a mixed bag; in a previous life I was responsible for four, a 16-plate MD9 (the little ones) and 10, 14 and 16-plate Safari HD12s (the big ones).

Of those... the 10 plate was hopeless. The 14 plate was absolutely 100% reliable and more or less fault free, and at one point it was the highest mileage Temsa in Britain. Buoyed by the performance of the 14, the two 16-plates arrived.

The little one continually jettisoned pulleys and leaked like a sieve from the day and hour it arrived. Some of the fit and finish was pretty grim but it went like the hammers of fuck and was a popular little bus. The big one was a pig in a poke and ended up on it's side over the crash barrier on the M9 of an evening and that was the end of that until Caledonian got their hands on it.

At Marbill we've got eight, five big (2x 67-plate, 1x 68 and 2x 20s) and three small (2x 19-plate 34 seaters with toilets and a 20-plate 39 seater). Can't say there has been any major issues with any of them, though electrics can be flaky and the 67-plates are VERY soft riding - they bounce and pitch alarmingly when you're not used to it. Fit & finish, especially in the cab is poor but mechanically they're about as simple as can be - DAF/ZF auto in the big ones, Cummins/ZF auto in the little 'uns.

My biggest complaints on the Safari as a driver are visibility - the door and cab window could be doing with being maybe four inches taller - and the brake pedal sits almost vertically and a good inch and a half higher than the accelerator, a real pain in the arse in traffic.

The little ones are fantastic things.

March 30, 2022

NXWMs bus-naming team seems to have developed a sense of humour...

17,764 · April 1, 2022

6.30am at Charnock Richard services on our first Alton Towers of the year.

Today will be A Long Day.

21,668 · April 1, 2022

9 hours ago, cms206 said:

6.30am at Charnock Richard services on our first Alton Towers of the year.

Today will be A Long Day.

Jesus, what time did you leave Glasgow? And when are you expecting to get back? And don't they have theme parks in Scotland? So many questions.

16,806 · April 1, 2022

Nah, it's to cold!

17,764 · April 1, 2022

5 hours ago, Yoss said:

Jesus, what time did you leave Glasgow? And when are you expecting to get back? And don't they have theme parks in Scotland? So many questions.

0145 sign on, 0200 out the depot. School picked up at 3, 30 minute break at Charnock Richard then into Alton Towers for 8.45am.

Tacho out, 9 hours day rest in a fantastic B&B with breakfast on arrival, dinner before departure and transport there & back included; tacho back in 1745, quick walkround, 1750 departure.

Just arrived at Gretna services at 2110, so back on the road north at 2155 after a 45min break, into the school maybe 0030, depot for 0115, fuel & adblue bus, drop and recharge the toilet, run it through the wash, sweep & mop. Finish maybe 0200, home for 0220.

Tomorrow is 1115 sign on for a midday pickup in Troon (Marr Rugby to Currie RFC for anyone into that sort of thing) and return after the match, Sunday is 0500 sign on for the Greenock shift bus into the base then a football run into Ibrox.

Off Monday & Tuesday thank fuck!

21,668 · April 1, 2022

Must admit 9 hours in a B&B sounds infinitely better than a day at Alton Towers.

17,764 · April 2, 2022

6 hours ago, Yoss said:

Must admit 9 hours in a B&B sounds infinitely better than a day at Alton Towers.

I never normally sleep that well in B&Bs but the bed was outstanding, blackout blinds and nice and cool... think I went up about 10am and woke up about 3.30.

Teachers said it was snowing through the day. Oh dear, how sad.

29,407 · April 2, 2022

When we did the school trip to Alton Towers back in 1998-ish it was Turriff to there by a late Volvo B58 based Supreme III. GIB7513 (originally NSU640V).

https://flic.kr/p/nBL1ML

The second bus was a slightly newer early B10M Van Hool Alizee. They arrived significantly later than we did. Two reasons...first they had a working speed limiter, we didn't. Secondly despite their coach being a couple of tonnes heavier, they were being propelled by the same engine.

The vast majority of folks on our bus spent most of the trip complaining about the fact we didn't have the TV the other bus did, I couldn't have cared less.

Gib was a cracking old coach and went like the bloody clappers. Wound up exported to Ireland somewhere around 2001 whereupon it was almost immediately involved in an RTC and got scrapped.

Best trip we ever had to AT as a family though was back around 2012. We went on a cold, slightly drizzly day. Not poor enough weather anything was closed, just enough to put people off. Place was virtually deserted, didn't have to queue for anything.

47,640 · April 2, 2022

You can almost smell the 1970's in this shot.

29,407 · April 2, 2022

3 hours ago, martc said:

You can almost smell the 1970's in this shot.

... I'm pretty sure one of the other vehicles Amber Travel had on fleet had a virtually identical interior to that, TKS666T. Didn't see much of that one as it catastrophically overheated pretty soon after it was allocated to our run. Like "the exhaust manifold was glowing cherry red" overheated.

2,170 · April 3, 2022

A couple of LT Types somewhat surprisingly far away from Central London...

47,640 · April 5, 2022

Cheapside & St.Mary le Bow.

23,514 · April 7, 2022

I picked up a metric shitlaod of photos at the local auction today.

I've lobbed them on eBay as job lots as they are not my thing but these minibus ones looked like shite.

I believe these had a habit of bursting into flames....

3,120 · April 7, 2022

4 hours ago, UltraWomble said:

I picked up a metric shitlaod of photos at the local auction today.

I've lobbed them on eBay as job lots as they are not my thing but these minibus ones looked like shite.

I believe these had a habit of bursting into flames....

What's your eBay name? I couldn't find anything searching for Ultrawomble!

23,514 · April 7, 2022

10 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

What's your eBay name? I couldn't find anything searching for Ultrawomble!

Brownowl99

3,120 · April 8, 2022

On 4/7/2022 at 11:04 PM, UltraWomble said:

Brownowl99

Thanks

16,806 · April 8, 2022

Dib dib dib!

23,514 · April 9, 2022

18 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Dib dib dib!

Missus was a Brownowl.

I was an Akela.

The air bed never stood a chance

We opened our ebay account in 1999

April 9, 2022

On 2/15/2022 at 7:50 AM, jon.k said:

I may have posted this a while back but this one is still on school runs near me; obviously a bit of a pet but great to see it in action (photo from flickr).

Ah, this hits right in the 'on the spectrum' childhood! Scotland and Bates the original owners of this beauty held (probably still do) a large number of schools contracts in the Ashford area. While I actually walked to school I professed to my mates that I could cite the reg number of the approaching S&B / Browns / Poynters / Carrs / Stagecoach EK National (delete as applicable) on the horizon. Pretty much always got it right too. Aaaand that's why I ended up being a shite fan...

12,277 · April 11, 2022

I've found my pics from the trolleybus rally that I used to help organise at the BCLM at the earlier part of this century.

Every two years we used to invite owners of trolleybuses from around the country to come to our site and operate them under power, some for the first time since they were switched off over 30 years previously. Much work was involved on the run up with arranging towing, making sure the vehicles could run safely and dealing with issues along the way, I used to use up most of my holiday entitlement just to get this done.

Once the vehicles were 'delivered' and checked through (600v DC doesn't half spoil your day if it leaks out the wrong bits) the fun began with daily operation of vehicles from Bradford, Bounemouth, Reading, Teeside and further afield. As a passed driver and instructor (and as it was my job to look after these guests over the fortnight) I managed to drive sometimes multiple examples from many former systems as close to 'in service' as you could. Highlights included agreeing with South Yorkshire council for the loan of Dennis C45HDT, getting the two remaining Walsall 'golfish bowls' running together for the first time since 1970 and ressurecting the last traditional british trolleybus built, Bounemouth 301, and plugging it in for the first time since 1969.

Sadly a change in Museum management and policy towards the corporate and buisness meant that they were not willing for us to hold the rally again after three succesful events held over six years that attracted visitors from around the world to see this spectacle. Sad, but life moves on and I'm glad I was there at the time to experince one of the last chances to properly drive British trolleybuses in a service setting.