Bus Shite

[SilverMachine]

1 minute ago, martc said:

A Nottingham trolley bus during the second world war. Note how they've made it look like a diesel bus.

would it not have been converted ? or have just implemented the coachwork panels available? the conducting pole brackets look like an afterthought

 

[Inspector Morose]

For those who are in the slightest bit interested (just me then), that's a Park Royal bodied Karrier E6. Trolleybuses of that period were made to look either slightly like their fossil fuelled counterparts or very like them, up to and including the fitting of a dummy radiator shell.

As this was built in 1931, it will have been built in Huddersfield, after they were purchased by Rootes in 1934, trolleybus production moved to the Sunbeam factory in Wolverhampton, both ranges eventually sharing everything barring the badge at the front.

[Yoss]

I took this this morning because I thought the bus would be nice a contrast with the cherry blossom trees.  Plus I got the Panda in as that must be proper Shite by now. 

But this one got me thinking I've something like this at home.... 

So a quick rummage later. This is 1988. By the way I have never seen this bus stop so busy at any point in the intervening 37 years, I really don't know what is going on here. 

The cherry blossom trees aren't even there at that point. The convenience store is a Circle K, anybody else remember those or were they just a local thing? When I were a lad the convenience store was a Sperrings, definitely a local brand, but it was smaller and there were a separate Post Office and greengrocers in between that and the chippy. The chippy was only renamed from Cap N Cod to the Big Catch a year or so back. The Post Office was absorbed in to the Circle K for a while before disappearing completely. There is now an Indian takeaway and a betting shop between the (now a Premier) shop and chippy. 

In the top picture you can see a hairdresser and funeral parlour in a separate building to the right. They have both always been that but I can't remember if the names have changed. 

 

So I went through some of my other pictures and went back out and took these (I live about a hundred yards from here now. Forty years ago I lived a hundred yards in the opposite direction).

1985. This was a running day. The last Regents were withdrawn in 1981. It seems mad to think that was only four years previous. At the time it already felt like the dim distant past which it now is. I was about 16 or 17 at the time so four years was a much larger proportion of my life back then. 361 still exists, I very much doubt that any of the cars do. 

Today. The bus stop had its own layby then, now it doesn't. It has also moved forward several yards. This of course is because of the slightly raised kerb for level loading. Obviously better to have it on the straight bit of road. 

To the left of each of these pictures you can also see changes. A wall in the first one and a metal fence with tall hedge in the latter. In 1985 it was the yard of Summerfield Coaches, a long gone local coach company. Now it is a special needs school. Obviously as a crank I would prefer it was still a coach yard but even I would have to admit the school is probably a better use of the land. 

This is looking the other way, school clearly visible. 

Unfortunately I can't find a corresponding 1980s shot. But I did find this, taken about a hundred yards from the above picture pointing the other way. One of Summerfield Coaches more interesting vehicles, the world's shortest Bristol LH, which they had acquired for a specific school job. 

The pub behind the bus is now a Tesco. My main memory of that pub, The Woodman, was sitting in the window watching the V8 Sherpa ambulances coming and going. The hospital was just down the road.