Bus Shite

[willswitchengage]

 

Scania K92 - peculiar longitudinal drive on these

[Inspector Morose]

That because it was a coach chassis with a bus body on it! Was the highest capacity bus at the time it was built for Maidstone (92 seat) and for bonus bus shite points, it was a manual ( well a computer controlled manual box with no stick but still with a clutch pedal - I kid you not)

[Split_Pin]

Joseph, what make were mostly the "I'm yer wee happy bus", crap that used to scoot around?

 

These would be an MCW Metrorider, although they used VW LT's before that.

[brickwall]

Ahh, thanks. You didn't half get flung about inside those.

[willswitchengage]

it was a manual ( well a computer controlled manual box with no stick but still with a clutch pedal - I kid you not)

 

How do you change gear then? Isn't that that some bizarre opposite of the robotised* gearbox?

 

*Noticed those new Lolvo B5 hybrids in London have those, GR3.14 for reliability...

[Inspector Morose]

It was Scanias first attempt of a computer assisted gear change. Based upon their ten speed (five with a splitter?) box, there was a little box on top of the dash with the numpbers one to ten on it. When it decided to change up the next gear it decided was suitable lit up and then you pressed the clutch, the box changed gear, two beeps later you let the clutch back in as per a normal manual box. I think it was to avoid long and complex gear linkages but my memory of it was that the speed sensor was on the rear near side hub and when you had a blowout on that side, the computer gave up and muggins had to trapes out and reconnect the sensor or show the hapless driver how override works to get the unimpressed passengers back.

One of those good ideas on paper.

[CreepingJesus]

That'll be one of the variants of Scanny's CAG system, then. Another one had a 'joystick' type gear choosing device, in a box, bolted to the side of the driver's seat. Still had a clutch pedal too, iirc.

An acquaintance of mine, ran a tidy looking Alizee bodied Scanny 113, as a tourbus. Very rock'n'roll it was too, with its' blacked out windows'n'stuff. It had a 6-speed version of the 'joystick' job. Well, 3-speed for most of the time he had it - 1st, 3rd and 5th worked fine, the other 3 were impersonating Jim Morrison. Turned out it was an electrical problem after all, and he told me the amusing tale of crawling across the Forth Rope Bridge in 3rd, to take it to Reliable* Scania at Newbridge.

They couldn't fix it, couldn't even be arsed to try properly. Parts made of unobtanium, and so on; the usual guff. He found a sparky who could, and did, fix it. So off he tootled on some unsuspecting band's European tour, only for the thing to completely peg it in France. Which is where he abandoned it, shortly before getting a flight back home.

I've told him about AS, so hopefully if he's lurking, he'll pop up and regale us with the tales. And post his LPG'd Bronco up before I do...

[cms206]

Never has any company made such a complete rip-roaring cunt of any replacement of anything than Merc did going from the 86-97 T2 to the Vario. Dreadful, dreadful things. Cheetahs are bad, Cheetah 2s are worse, Beaver 2s break in the middle, ALX100s suffer the same issues as the ALX200... at least the Marshall Master was pretty handsome - not many bodies on the Vario were, the others I can think of off hand being Frank Guy's final efforts, Nu-Track's schoolbus bodies, the Optare Nouvelle 2 and the various T2 carry overs like the Marshall C16, Leicester Carriage Builders Eagle and Keillor local authority bodies.

[Joseph]

I'd love to know what the engineers at Scania were smoking when they developed that gearbox.

 

Anyway, on the subject of big shite:

 

 

And Stagecoach's finest:

 

 

I remember travelling on these on the X25 service from Glasgow. Two individual seats right in the articulated section - front section of the coach turned left, rear section went right, centre join faced straight. Made for a rather strange experience...

 

...Cannot imagine it would be especially easy to turn left in one of these in busy Glasgow...

[mrcitroen]

Stagecoach last used those in the mid / late '90s on that run. Never seen the point as they were rarely full.

I also remember when Stagecoach started running Cumbernauld - Glasgow services they ran from the Dunfermline depot and adopted the rather unusual gimmick of using clippies. My car was off the road at one point & I used the early morning service into town. I discovered another gimmick, you goat a muffin ( no not that kind!) and a drink off the lovely clippie.

 

Anyway, another artic. I remember these & always wanted a shot on one.

 

[Joseph]

Re: Bus Shite

by mrcitroen » Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:21 pm

 

Stagecoach last used those in the mid / late '90s on that run. Never seen the point as they were rarely full.

I also remember when Stagecoach started running Cumbernauld - Glasgow services they ran from the Dunfermline depot and adopted the rather unusual gimmick of using clippies. My car was off the road at one point & I used the early morning service into town. I discovered another gimmick, you goat a muffin ( no not that kind!) and a drink off the lovely clippie.

 

Anyway, another artic. I remember these & always wanted a shot on one.

 

Yes that's correct - I remember when they introduced a batch of the brand-new M-registered Plaxton Premiere Interurbans on the X25, with the artics soon to come and go.

 

Ha yes, I remember the muffins and carton of orange juice from the clippie as well! Or rather, my then-three year old brother did. I got sod all!

[Justin Case]

Any step-entrance bus is becoming a rarity and even more so a Carlyle bodied Dart, so when I caught a glimpse of one in Wolverhampton last Saturday, I knew that I had to follow it up. I was in Wolverhampton yesterday lunchtime, so off on the hunt with camera in hand. I was soon rewarded

 

Dennis Dart, Carlyle, Travel Express, Wolverhampton by geoffp5, on Flickr

 

In true bus fashion, I only had to go round the next corner before I came across not one but two prime specimens of bus-shite :

 

Two for the Price of One by geoffp5, on Flickr

 

Well worth missing a bite for?

[catsinthewelder]

Nice to see that Dart in Go-Ahead colours, the last bus I saw in those colours outside the north east was a Leyland National that was being used to ferry Eastern European fruit pickers around near Leominster.

 

I was intrigued so had a quick Google and found this site full of bus shite http://wmbusphotos.com/home.html

[Justin Case]

Nice to see that Dart in Go-Ahead colours, the last bus I saw in those colours outside the north east was a Leyland National that was being used to ferry Eastern European fruit pickers around near Leominster.

 

I was intrigued so had a quick Google and found this site full of bus shite http://wmbusphotos.com/home.html

 

Thanks for the link, now bookmarked. From that site :

 

http://wmbusphotos.com/forum/index.php?topic=380.0

 

Looks as if the buses are the least shite part of the whole operation If autoshite ran bus services........

[Joseph]

Check out this, for sale in Beith. Apparently from Holland, looks pure shite, too, AND it's a Leyland!:

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEYLAND-WORDM ... 19d91e099b

[Joseph]

A V8 engined British beast, with a few more seats than an SD1...

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dennis-Lancet ... 4d09a3eb84

[Split_Pin]

I hope that Lancet finds a good home, must be unique, being a trial vehicle and all?

[willswitchengage]

Not the first time it's been on ebay recently either.

[davidfowler2000]

I've been passenger on that wee Lancet and what an ORSUMZ machine it is. If I had the readies I'd be having it for myself but sadly it is not to be. Besides I've got a B10M coach to play with.

[Joseph]

I've been passenger on that wee Lancet and what an ORSUMZ machine it is. If I had the readies I'd be having it for myself but sadly it is not to be. Besides I've got a B10M coach to play with.

 

I bet it makes some noise with a Cummins V8 as well.

 

Which B10M do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Is it an Alexander PS, or some Plaxton metal?

[cms206]

I've been passenger on that wee Lancet and what an ORSUMZ machine it is. If I had the readies I'd be having it for myself but sadly it is not to be. Besides I've got a B10M coach to play with.

 

I bet it makes some noise with a Cummins V8 as well.

 

Perkins V8-540 mated to an Allison auto 'box; there are videos on YouTube of it. It's like a Dennis RS fire engine. Or a bin lorry.. It was the last of five Dennis Lancets with Alexander P-type bodies (ND2-6, A502-6 FSS) which followed unique Y-type bodied Lancet ND1 (XSA 4Y). The Lancet was a parts bin special and sadly didn't really take off. The one I had was pretty miserable but it wasn't a V8.

[Cavcraft]

 

Leyland National in a horrible Crosville colour scheme, seen outside the old entrance to Chester Zoo in 1990.

 

(Picture courtesy of the excellent Chester Memories web page thing)

[Lankytim]

Dumb question time.. but what's that hump on the rear roof? Is it the radiator or something?

[rml2345]

That's where the heating/ventilation system went (no, really). I've heard that it was empty apart from that.

[Inspector Morose]

Yup, all that was up there was the heating/ventilation unit. It did take up half the pod though. There should have been two such units up there and all the prototypes got that set up which acually worked in blowing hot air down from vents in the roof panels. Due to the wonderful god of cost cutting in the final phase of setting up production specifications, one unit was deleted and the Natonal was cursed from then on with piss poor heating, de-misting and ventilation.

 

There were two types of pod. The origional was a long and flat thing that was physically impossible to manouvre with less than four people. This was changed in the mid 70s when the phase 2 (not National 2 - that was a different beast altogether) came out, to a shorter, slightly taller unit that was at least managable by two people.

 

Hope that clears it up for you.

[rml2345]

Smiths Quest by salopbus, on Flickr

 

Whilst looking for photos of Locomotors bodies I found this beastie. It's a Quest B, bodied in this unique style and originally used on Heathrow shuttles.

Could this be the ultimate in bus shite?

[mk2_craig]

Passenger door in weird place. Check.

Ford Cargo grille bodged onto parts bin body. Check.

Serck pressed tin number plates. Check.

 

Yeah. That's pretty much 24 carat shite right there

[Inspector Morose]

Got the sneaking suspicion that it ended its days as a mobile home. Possibly could still exist.

Quest were the autoshite choice for buses and coaches. Side engine? No problem sir. Engine in the corner driving a manual gearbox with a chain? Yup, we can do that. Marine engined coach with incredible combustible qualities? You need our VM model then. All powered by Ford and full of Ford commercial parts just not necessarily in the same order as the last one.

 

We've got a strong tradition of small companies building a small number innovative but flawed of buses. Names include Rowe Hillmaster, Ward, ACE, Quest and the best of them all, the Gilford Trendsetter, a low height, front wheel drive double deck bus powered by a Junkers engine in the 1930s. It not only failed to turn a wheel as a going vehicle after being exhibited at Earls Court (some of the engine parts were actually made of wood due to lack of parts) it was converted to a trolleybus before anyone would consider buying it.

 

I could go on. But to save you all, I won't. (Ooh did you know the Leyland National was actually a Crossley?)

[Joseph]

I give you this:

 

[Split_Pin]

(Ooh did you know the Leyland National was actually a Crossley?)

 

Pray tell

 

Did you know the LN was style by David Bache, who also knocked out the handsome Rover P6?