Bus Shite

[lesapandre]

LeBonCoin - €24,000.

[Inspector Morose]

8 hours ago, lesapandre said:

LeBonCoin - €24,000.

FFN378, an ex East Kent park Royal bodied Guy Arab. Quite the survivor, that one.

[eifion]

 

This is the old coach that helped* me get my PSV licence. A crash gearbox with the gears all in there somewhere and a clutch so heavy that after the first day's training I got back in my car and thought that the clutch pedal had broken, so light was it by comparison. A Bedford something-or-other. I'm sure someone here will know what. Taken by Pontins in Prestatyn in late Spring 1994.

[quicksilver]

Apart from the circus, the other target of today's trip to Milton Keynes was this.

The Loop is a new circular service introduced to replace the unpopular demand-responsive MK Connect and serve areas that lost their regular bus service years ago and is the biggest change to the city's bus network in five years. The much-publicised 'new' bus, in typically high-quality Arriva MK fashion, turned out to be a 17-year old Solo with a vinyl wrap slapped on. There are actually two of them but the other one for some reason hasn't been used at all since it was wrapped, and with four buses required and only one in the special livery it rather defeats the point.

 

[clayts450]

16 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Apart from the circus, the other target of today's trip to Milton Keynes was this.

The Loop is a new circular service introduced to replace the unpopular demand-responsive MK Connect and serve areas that lost their regular bus service years ago and is the biggest change to the city's bus network in five years. The much-publicised 'new' bus, in typically high-quality Arriva MK fashion, turned out to be a 17-year old Solo with a vinyl wrap slapped on. There are actually two of them but the other one for some reason hasn't been used at all since it was wrapped, and with four buses required and only one in the special livery it rather defeats the point.

 

Nottingham City have all but expired their last Solos with the intro of 48 Yutong electric buses in the last few months.

What I love about NCT is that you can actually see what bus is on what route and, if they're in service, exactly where they are : https://www.nctx.co.uk/fleet-list

[High Jetter]

7 hours ago, eifion said:

 

This is the old coach that helped* me get my PSV licence. A crash gearbox with the gears all in there somewhere and a clutch so heavy that after the first day's training I got back in my car and thought that the clutch pedal had broken, so light was it by comparison. A Bedford something-or-other. I'm sure someone here will know what. Taken by Pontins in Prestatyn in late Spring 1994.

Duple? Idk, just what my mind threw up. Interesting reg.

[lisbon_road]

On 17/03/2025 at 15:26, eifion said:

 

This is the old coach that helped* me get my PSV licence. A crash gearbox with the gears all in there somewhere and a clutch so heavy that after the first day's training I got back in my car and thought that the clutch pedal had broken, so light was it by comparison. A Bedford something-or-other. I'm sure someone here will know what. Taken by Pontins in Prestatyn in late Spring 1994.

Was it normal to have a crash box on something this young?  I'd have thought not.  Like the photo.

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

From Facebook.

Its long working life with Ipswich Corporation having finally ended, ADX 1 is being officially handed over to the ITS Preservation Section on 21st July 1973, ready for what has turned out to be an even longer period of active preservation. It will be 75 years since this veteran took to the streets of Ipswich this coming May. Photo by Mike Abbott, ITM Archive.

All rea

[lisbon_road]

3 hours ago, 83C said:

Bedford tended to be basic but rugged, and if it wasn't factory fitted it wouldn't surprise me if a crash box found its way in because it was cheaper than buying a synchromesh box, or the old box was in the yard and happened to fit. 

I s'pose the synchro could be just totally shagged, another option.

[Matty]

I thought a synchro less box was constant mesh? Isn't a crash box much older?

[wesacosa]

On 17/03/2025 at 23:26, High Jetter said:

Duple? Idk, just what my mind threw up. Interesting reg.

I think its a Plaxton bodied Bedford Elite

We used to have them as our school buses. I remember then having a huge gearstick which the driver used to wave around trying to find a gear 

EDIT, could be a Supreme 

[lisbon_road]

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

I think its a Plaxton bodied Bedford Elite

We used to have them as our school buses. I remember then having a huge gearstick which the driver used to wave around trying to find a gear 

EDIT, could be a Supreme 

It is a Bedford YRT with Plaxton Panorama Elite bodywork.  They were just everywhere in the 70s. 

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

After Walsall Fleetline number 1,  the rest  had a longer  overhang and a single entrance only front door for one man operation.

Pictured  is 15L showing the revised front design, parked outside  Wolverhampton's Park Lane Garage, 4/3/73.

 

[SunnySouth]

On 19/03/2025 at 23:41, The Old Bloke Next Door said:

After Walsall Fleetline number 1,  the rest  had a longer  overhang and a single entrance only front door for one man operation.

Pictured  is 15L showing the revised front design, parked outside  Wolverhampton's Park Lane Garage, 4/3/73.

 

Not a looker…

[Inspector Morose]

On 19/03/2025 at 23:41, The Old Bloke Next Door said:

After Walsall Fleetline number 1,  the rest  had a longer  overhang and a single entrance only front door for one man operation.

Pictured  is 15L showing the revised front design, parked outside  Wolverhampton's Park Lane Garage, 4/3/73.

 

Erm, not quite. The early Walsall short Fleetlines wee indeed a bit longer than No.1 but they still didn’t have a front doorway and looked like this :-

 

Later batches wee different again and incorporated a front doorway, initially just for crew use but with the spreading of one man operation, was used as an entrance door.

Still awake? Good. In 1969 Walsall was absorbed into the WMPTE and they saw the savings of OMO and sped up the roll out across its network, to the point of buying second hand buses from  were one man capable, to replace home owned front engined stock. The problem was the early Walsall Fleetlines. Too young to get rid (and who would want a Fleetline that was not able to be run one man operated?), they contracted Lex to rebuild the lower front to slightly extend them to allow a similar front doorway to the later batch, the result being like the original photo.

The resulting conversions, although pig ugly, turned the early Fleetlines into useful machines and the last of them were transferred to Wolverhampton, the last withdrawn in the early 80s. 15L was lost after a fire when it was working from Bilston street around 1975.

[SunnySouth]

12 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Erm, not quite. The early Walsall short Fleetlines wee indeed a bit longer than No.1 but they still didn’t have a front doorway and looked like this :-

 

Later batches wee different again and incorporated a front doorway, initially just for crew use but with the spreading of one man operation, was used as an entrance door.

Still awake? Good. In 1969 Walsall was absorbed into the WMPTE and they saw the savings of OMO and sped up the roll out across its network, to the point of buying second hand buses from  were one man capable, to replace home owned front engined stock. The problem was the early Walsall Fleetlines. Too young to get rid (and who would want a Fleetline that was not able to be run one man operated?), they contracted Lex to rebuild the lower front to slightly extend them to allow a similar front doorway to the later batch, the result being like the original photo.

The resulting conversions, although pig ugly, turned the early Fleetlines into useful machines and the last of them were transferred to Wolverhampton, the last withdrawn in the early 80s. 15L was lost after a fire when it was working from Bilston street around 1975.

Having sorted the front entrance for OMO use, did they not panel over that enormous sliding side door to make better use of the space? Or was it retained as an exit? 
 

Also; why “15L” ?

[calebaaront]

I got a “promotion” at work this week, I’m now on the QA Hospital Park & Ride rota full time. Due to length restrictions on the route they allocate WrightBus Streetlites. It’s not a bad route to do. It only takes 10 minutes to it in it’s entirety

[jon.k]

Went on this today. The owner asked me if I wanted to buy it, so if anyone is looking for one you heard it here first.

[Inspector Morose]

6 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

Having sorted the front entrance for OMO use, did they not panel over that enormous sliding side door to make better use of the space? Or was it retained as an exit? 
 

Also; why “15L” ?

Dual doored buses were commonplace during the early days of one man operation. Passenger flows are better with two doors so time at stops can be comparable with those using crew operated buses (known as dwell times). The front doorway on the Walsall Fleetlines was only ever single width (there simply wasn’t enough length to fit a full width doorway without lengthening the front overhang to such a degree that driving positions would have to be moved, etc. 

So the question is asked. Why did walsall order special short Fleetlines? Edgley-Cox was a professional Yorkshireman and he worked out that it was far cheaper for Walsall’s ratepayers to buy special short buses with their doorway in the same position as the forward entrance, front engined buses than to go to all of the expense of totally rebuilding the whole bus station for just part of the fleet, making the rest of the fleet harder to operate from the newly, and expensively rebuilt bus station.

Final question, why an L in the fleetnumber? When WMPTE took over the fleets of the various corporations, there were duplications in the fleet numbers. To solve this, a suffix letter was added to the original number. Walsal(L), Wolverhampto(N), West Bromwic(H), and later Coventr(Y). Birminghams fleet numbers were never suffixed as this was the numbering scheme that was to be used, going forward and hey, it was the biggest so there, never mind that it was by far the largest loss making constituent of the newly formed WMPTE.

[myglaren]

[SunnySouth]

22 hours ago, myglaren said:

At least they put wheeltrims on it

[SunnySouth]

On 22/03/2025 at 11:01, calebaaront said:

I got a “promotion” at work this week, I’m now on the QA Hospital Park & Ride rota full time. Due to length restrictions on the route they allocate WrightBus Streetlites. It’s not a bad route to do. It only takes 10 minutes to it in it’s entirety

Christ, how many days of doing that does it usually take to become borderline suicidal?! 

[calebaaront]

34 minutes ago, SunnySouth said:

Christ, how many days of doing that does it usually take to become borderline suicidal?! 

As in the route or having to drive a Streetlite? 🤣It’s a nice route when the sun is out, does get a bit annoying when your shift is almost over though when you’re going up and down. 

[lesapandre]

New ieTram bus on the move in London today.

[Yoss]

21 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

New ieTram bus on the move in London today.

Was that really the best place they could find for the roundel. That looks awful. 

[SilverMachine]

21 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Was that really the best place they could find for the roundel. That looks awful. 

round here they would have put there logo over the windows... (no posh roundels up here!)

[Leyland Worldmaster]

6 hours ago, lesapandre said:

New ieTram bus on the move in London today.

I've heard these haven't been without their 'operational difficulties' some of which include charging and random window breakages...

[cms206]

My chariot every day for the last few weeks... it's got a bit of a thirst for oil and a sore face but it's toasty warm and goes like fuck.

[lesapandre]

15 hours ago, Yoss said:

Was that really the best place they could find for the roundel. That looks awful. 

I had a look today. All TfL buses have the logo on the side at eye level - visible to passengers as they arrive. I think that's the only place they can put the roundel given the glazing configuration. 

It would look better on one of the windows in outline.

I'm not sure what the contract is for these buses - whether this is seen as a test and they will be modified by the manufacturer if anything appears deficient in service in London.

They do look very cool.

[lesapandre]

19 minutes ago, cms206 said:

My chariot every day for the last few weeks... it's got a bit of a thirst for oil and a sore face but it's toasty warm and goes like fuck.

Hobson's choice (bus) 🤣