Bus Shite

[Crackers]

I'll just leave this here. 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/794889835808124/

[busmansholiday]

2 hours ago, Crackers said:

I'll just leave this here. 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/794889835808124/

I wish you hadn't.....

[bramz7]

Went to Alton Bus Rally this morning, something I have never done despite living locally for two decades. Maybe because I live alone now I can make these decisions? 

Anyway, I didn't take too many bus photos but some caught my eye as I have suddenly been confronted with things I used to use as a bus now being in preservation. 

Staggered this one is still around. Just over a decade ago, they decided to run buses through Odiham as Fleet Buzz, which was a local company which Stagecoach had absorbed. It also meant a fleet of absolute misfits, this plastic seated Dart was super uncomfortable but quite quick. Certainly better than the awful SWB ones that also appeared. I actually saw this in the move in Basingstoke, in the dark, a few months back and thought it was a fever dream. 

I will never not appreciate a PS. 

Everyone* loves an Iveco.

 

Now I managed to get 'rides' on these:

Just as I remember them, even snagged the same seat hanging over the rear axle as I always used to when they were knocking about locally. And it was driven very enthusiastically, just as they were then as well. 

This was so very loud. 

I remember this still hanging on in Basingstoke until 2009/10, it never appeared on my route though. It was the loudest bus locally then, and still sounded mega today. I didn't think I'd find riding on old buses therapeutic until today, maybe that is why I was surrounded by old people. And quite a few youngsters. And a lot of Hongkongers were fawning over one of the ex-HK Olympians. 

 

Also rode on a manual gearbox VR, kudos to the driver for that. I would love to have a go driving one of these things but the track day equivalent doesn't seem to exist. 

 

And it dragged out a few old cars, including a V8 75. 

[Zelandeth]

48 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

 

I will never not appreciate a PS. 

 

Pretty sure that did a stint with Bluebird in Aberdeenshire at some point, if not we definitely had a few with very close registrations to that.

[busmansholiday]

51 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

Also rode on a manual gearbox VR,

Not sure even @Inspector Morose has managed to fit a Spanish waiter into the back of a VR.

[bramz7]

2 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Not sure even @Inspector Morose has managed to fit a Spanish waiter into the back of a VR.

It sounded like it was a manual box 🫠 my mistake! Must have been a semi automatic. 

[busmansholiday]

14 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

It sounded like it was a manual box 🫠 my mistake! Must have been a semi automatic. 

What you mean is the driver knew how to change gear correctly.

[Yoss]

I know how popular* Routemasters are on here so feel free to ignore but RM 70 is a bit of a milestone so I'm going to carry on regardless. If nothing else it shows how time flies and you really should make the most of it. I say that because we bought our bus just over 35 years ago. At the time it was only 25 years old, and RM 1 was 35, but because we were only 20 they still seemed ancient. 

Anyway, a few pictures. Not too many as I know  you think all RMs look the same but it was a nice day in a nice setting. 

 

The first RM and the first RML together. 

 

 

RM 2097. Belongs to my friend Tim who bought it in 1997 aged 16. Except it actually looked worse than this. It had no cab, no stairs or back end at all below the white stripe, no engine or brakes and only a few seats and windows. 

He got it back to this condition in a few years but in doing so other people noticed how handy he was with an RM and offers of work started coming in. Now he seems to be the country's eminent Routemaster fixer and goes all over the world to do it so his own bus never gets a look in unfortunately.

Having said that it is the best bus I've ever driven. It has an AEC AV 690 that was sourced from the RAF. It had been used as a static generator sat on a trailer and wheeled out to the planes to power them up. It still has a standard diff so goes no faster than a standard RM but gets there very quickly, goes up hills like they're not there and will happily pick up in fourth gear from walking pace making it a very relaxed drive. 

 

By pure coincidence my two buses were parked next to each other. 

I bought 2037 in 1989 with a couple of friends direct from Southampton CityBus. We ran out of money and sold it (I might add as a quick aside that two of us were only twenty when we bought it and had no driving licence. So we thought it would be a good idea to learn but once we did couldn't stop buying old shite. At the time we sold it I had six cars which were more responsible for my financial situation than the bus was) 

We sold the bus to Reading Mainline in 1994 and it did another six years in public service.

Then in 2001 I got the itch again and bought RM 2213. It wasn't a bus I knew but by that time there weren't that many for sale and it was the best available at the time. Then in 2006 I found out the current owner of 2037 who had bought it from Reading Mainline was emigrating and selling his fleet (he had at least four buses) and I convinced him I was the right person to sell it to. 

So I had to quickly sell 2213 to buy 2037 back but its never hard to sell a Routemaster. 

Then in 2019 I decided it was time to let go again. I sold to a friend who knew the bus well and wanted a Leyland engined example. He has spent far more money on it in four years than I did in the previous thirty (not on the outside yet but that is coming) so I know it is in good hands. 

Living on an RM for the weekend. Proper shiters RM. 

It's nice to see the patina on this number plate. I painted that about eight years ago and it looked mint. You can only get to this with age. 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

A question I've long been meaning to ask. Why are Voith Gearbags so fucking noisy? 

I've only driven one (Stagecoach TAL) vehicle so fitted. 

They're always making a high pitched whine. Even when in Neutral. 🤓

[Inspector Morose]

Back home from the Netherlands again and now reacquainted with my luggage, I can now go through the photos from the trip. Luckily the long suffering Mrs Morose occasionally went off and did her own thing allowing me to sod off and take photos of buses and trams.

Knowing that the days of the ICE bus are well and truly numbered over there, I tried to grab some last shots of various diesel buses (of which there were very few now).  Luckily for me, I managed to bag Berkhof bodied VDL200s, an IVECO Crossway and a few Scania Omni-whatevers amongst the sea of electric VDLs.

One name I'd never come across before was Ebusco. Apparently, it is a Dutch manufacturer of electric buses and energy storage systems and have been going since 2012. Until recently, they have been built in the Netherlands too but doing a bit of digging (there seems to be very little detail about Ebusco on the net) their latest model, the 3.0 is at least partially built in China now. The models I managed to photograph seem to be the 2.2 model and were built not far from Eindhoven.

[Yoss]

To follow on from my pictures of RM 70, I've dug these out from the last time I was there. It is now Chiswick Business Park, a very well kept steel and glass jungle with parking for 70 odd buses when needed but was previously London Transports research and development centre. 

The last time I was here was December 1987(I've been past the entrance many many times but never been in since, my favoured way in to London is to park in Brentford and get the bus via Chiswick to Hammersmith or Shepherd's Bush).

This was advertised as a mystery tour from Finchley Garage. We knew there would be a Christmas lights tour at the end of the day but had no idea what the rest of the day had in store. Turned out to be a visit to Chiswick Works, the former AEC/Park Royal site at Southall and the London Buses comms centre in Baker Street. An excellent day out. 

 

Not a bus but one of LTs many service vehicles, a Ford D series in front of the main building. 

 

Our ride for the day, RML 903 inside the works. 

 

RM 1368 was damaged in an accident then converted by Chiswick for use in all sorts of experiments. Although I've no idea what the bus on the left is. These days I would have taken a picture of it but I was young and every picture taken cost actual money in those days so I didn't. Any guesses? 

 

RCL 2221, the cinema bus. We watched a couple of old LT films on here. 

 

RML 2400. No idea why it was there. 

 

And there were these BEL (Bus Engineering Limited) liveried RMAs lying about the place. The place had so much space that they just seemed to be parked haphazardly anywhere. 

These were used as staff buses which still strikes me as an unnecessary luxury. The place was on Chiswick High Road with many buses going past the entrance to places like Hammersmith, Shepherd's Bush, Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond with connections to the Underground and British Rail. Even if you had to start work at 6am I'm sure you could get there from anywhere in London on normal public transport. 

But this was London Transport so you got picked up by your own personal fleet of RMAs. Nice work if you can get it. And then I start wondering who drove them. Did they have their own drivers? What did they do in between the morning and evening run? Were they engineers who had other jobs in the works in between? And Stamford Brook garage was only a couple of minutes further down Chiswick High Road, surely they could have absorbed a few staff bus runs far more efficiently but where's the fun in that? 

 

And today... 

I will grudgingly admit it is very well kept. I've no idea how long it's been here now, certainly over ten years, maybe even twenty and it is still immaculate. All the grass was millimetre perfect with no weeds as we're the shrubs and everything is still absolutely spotless, (though the car park might have a couple of oil leaks on it after this weekend), but I know what I'd rather have. I think the last picture is in the approximate area of the skid pan. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

That's intriguing reading @Yoss; thanks for sharing. 

368 CLT/ RM1368 certainly seemed lucky to have survived post 1973 it seems. 

659 DYE looks to have been completely burnt out and I assume didn't survive? 

[AnthonyG]

Seems an appropriate place for this, an ex Lothian Atlantean living the dream in Australia:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxe25d13m9lo

[Yoss]

The day started at Finchley Garage. 

 

No not there, the other side... 

Ah yes. 

 

First stop was the former AEC Park Royal site in Southall which was used by London Buses sales department to prep buses for sale. 

I know RM 908 ended up in Bedford with United Counties. 

More service vehicles in between the buses. I bet some of those would have been a bargain for somebody.

 

I bet they were cheap!

 

Looks like accident damaged buses were dumped here too. 

 

Although this one looks like it has been deliberately dismantled at the front and fire damaged at the back. 

 

Inside the building we found this mock up, presumably another Routemaster replacement that never happened. 

 

And an RCL being prepared for a new owner? 

 

And we surprised to find these. 

These arrived in Southampton a few weeks later. They were bought to start a competitive service in Portsmouth under the Red Admiral name but after they'd already bought them changed their minds and used Iveco Turbo Daily minibuses instead. 

So they used these to replace some of the first batch as they arrived with fresh MOTs. These became 415 to 419 in the Southampton CityBus fleet. 

They looked a bit half arsed though as they just stuck cream backed rectangular stickers with the fleet names on that were meant for Atlanteans. The first batch had lovely hand painted large logo fleet names  with a cream band and yellow adverts. A third batch arrived that were never used at all but I think they sold them on at a profit. 

 

But back to the mystery tour. After Southall we moved on to Chiswick as described in the previous Post and then on to Baker Street. This is somewhere round Baker Street. This was to visit the communications centre. If a London bus driver used his radio this is where the message would arrive and where any actions, like early turning of late running buses, would be decided. Tea and sandwiches were laid on too. 

 

Then after the the Christmas lights tour it was back to Finchley Garage. 

Like I said, a proper day out, no doubt finished off by a trip on the Down Mails, the 22.52 Waterloo to Weymouth mail train. This was a proper TPO - Travelling Post Office - with postmen sorting on board, but it had a couple of normal passenger coaches tacked on the back. This was always our train home from London as it was A rare chance to get a class 73 on a passenger train. 

[Yoss]

28 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

That's intriguing reading @Yoss; thanks for sharing. 

368 CLT/ RM1368 certainly seemed lucky to have survived post 1973 it seems. 

659 DYE looks to have been completely burnt out and I assume didn't survive? 

I know they lost a couple to fires in the early days. You can see how hot it got to simply melt the bodywork but that one still looks almost driveable. When you compare it to modern buses, like the one in Leeds the other night, they seem to burn until there's nothing left. Whereas that RM even looks repairable. Not economically repairable but I know some people who'd give it a go. 

[Inspector Morose]

IIRC this was part of the work done with Ogle around accessibility, the mock up being filmed with various people boarding, alighting and using the stairs. Being a wooden mock up, it could easily be changed around - the nearside was originally designed to open out to allow fir a larger entrance.

 

After development work was done on this, the findings were to be used as a base for a specification for new buses for London Transport.

The findings were tested in the real world by rebuilding a DMS to include many of the features. As far as I know, it still exists in preservation somewhere.

[N19]

Finchley garage has been closed for some considerable time (likewise Muswell Hill) - in fact it was turned into a DIY superstore which is itself now closed and there's much local consternation about it turning into flats.

The inspector's hut at the Muswell Hill changeover point is long gone but the concrete base remains, many years after it was ever used!

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, Yoss said:

And we surprised to find these. 

Routemasters with the rear offside indicator mounted on the curved corner panel, rather then then inline with the rear tail lights, make my teeth itch (but its interesting to see that it was an error happening even back then, I always chalked it up to 1990s+ shenanigans by people who where not very observant) 

[martc]

June, 1956.

[martc]

Hepscott Road, Hackney Wick, 1967 and...

2024. Aerosol cans were not readily available in 1967.

[Inspector Morose]

The ‘Ogle’ DMS.

[wesacosa]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1546349595972326?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Some mid 90s Hull bus station nostalgia. I have no memory of those blue and white Nationals or who operated them.  I'm not sure I remember Nationals in Hull at all from any operators.

I love the way the 181 Metrobus let's his passengers off and has them weave in front of those other buses!

[martc]

[martc]

Poco the Elephant, stood in front of Poco's Postcode Bus. Poco publicised postcodes and encouraged their use.

[High Jetter]

Yup, usually door name or No & postcode is your address. Clever stuff.

[cms206]

Back in THE FROZEN NORTH for a few weeks thank christ - really not getting on with Manchester 😂

Been out and learned a new PTE tendered service we started after I departed for Manchester; it has a peak requirement of two and three Solos are on fleet for it, though these appear to be on rotation as there has been about eight different Solos at various times over the last few weeks.

Yesterday's offerings on my shift were 47651 and 47843; 47822 (MK59 BLU) is the third.

[busmansholiday]

On 28/07/2024 at 09:15, wesacosa said:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1546349595972326?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Some mid 90s Hull bus station nostalgia. I have no memory of those blue and white Nationals or who operated them.  I'm not sure I remember Nationals in Hull at all from any operators.

I love the way the 181 Metrobus let's his passengers off and has them weave in front of those other buses!

The blue Nationals were owned by Pride of the Road Coaches, technically a Barnsley based firm who competed with established operators in parts of South, West and East Yorkshire after bus deregulation. Well until they went bust.

[wesacosa]

23 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

The blue Nationals were owned by Pride of the Road Coaches, technically a Barnsley based firm who competed with established operators in parts of South, West and East Yorkshire after bus deregulation. Well until they went bust.

ah ok right, thanks. I don't remember them at all and I was a bus nerd

[Weird Car]

Is anyone going to Stokes Bay on the 4th?

I’ll be representing my Depot by displaying and driving a ‘The Star’ livery ADL 200MMC 

the first 2 shiters to come up to me and say  ‘why have they given you this piece of shite and not a Leyland National’ will get a free Autoshite sticker 😁

[Inspector Morose]

2 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

The blue Nationals were owned by Pride of the Road Coaches, technically a Barnsley based firm who competed with established operators in parts of South, West and East Yorkshire after bus deregulation. Well until they went bust.

Altogether now:

”Pride o’ road? More like side o’ road”

They were the first company to put the Ikarus bodied DAF SB220 on the road though, way way back.