Bus Shite

[Yoss]

40 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

it had been refitted as apparently the London ones have a different cabin layout and the later operator wanted a different configuration 

It would have been dual door from new and it doesn't look like it is now from what I can see through the windows. So it would have had less seats from new. Chase were of course the last large scale operators of Nationals so it makes sense to preserve it like this, it is now a classic look for them. 

[wesacosa]

10 minutes ago, Yoss said:

It would have been dual door from new and it doesn't look like it is now from what I can see through the windows. So it would have had less seats from new. Chase were of course the last large scale operators of Nationals so it makes sense to preserve it like this, it is now a classic look for them. 

yeah the guy did say it was once dual door but no longer is, I guess hence the interior refit 

[Yoss]

31 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

Sad day on Friday.  Last number 46 bus from Winchester to North Baddersley.  Used to go all the way to Southampton and was a really useful service which has gradually been cut back.  Rather local news for most of you but @Yoss might know the route.  Here's the last one:

Many years ago there was a route 54 that ran from Winchester to Southampton the long way round via North Baddesley. I did the last one of those, it was a Hampshire Bus VR. I have pictures upstairs somewhere I shall try and dig them out. 

And of course the 45 to Hiltingbury that ran alongside the main 47 from Southampton to Winchester. That stopped about the same time I think. I have no idea how you even get to Hiltingbury by bus any more. There's probably a local service from Eastleigh. 

[Yoss]

In fact no their isn't, you can no longer get to Hiltingbury by bus apart from a couple of school buses. The Bluestar bus app has just told me to walk from Chandlers Ford station. That's progress. 

[lisbon_road]

8 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Many years ago there was a route 54 that ran from Winchester to Southampton the long way round via North Baddesley. I did the last one of those, it was a Hampshire Bus VR. I have pictures upstairs somewhere I shall try and dig them out. 

And of course the 45 to Hiltingbury that ran alongside the main 47 from Southampton to Winchester. That stopped about the same time I think. I have no idea how you even get to Hiltingbury by bus any more. There's probably a local service from Eastleigh. 

There was an Xelabus full sized bus service - I used it a lot.  Then there was a minibus service to replace it and google now tells me that's gone too.  Fine if you can walk.  Frustrating to think of the huge number of people that must drive that journey.  

[Inspector Morose]

6 hours ago, lisbon_road said:

I think there's someone on here that used to work there.  They certainly did a fine job of keeping them going and improving them. 

You called? Ooh, it's number 2! Hello old friend!

Yeah, I worked at Chase from 1994-2000 and was involved in the operation and rebuilding of their fleet of 55 (at the time) Nationals.  

2 was one of the exLT Nationals that came direct (via a dealer) with others coming via Parfitts. Some of the Parfitts Nationals had already been rebuilt from dual doored 36 seaters to single doored 42 seaters. Many still ran the blue LT moquette and it wasn't until they were looking tatty inside that the majority were retrimmed with whatever Moquette was cheap at the time. 

I can't remember if 2 was one of them but one or two of the direct from LT Nationals had been rebuilt by LT themselves but the majority came as dual doored and were operated as such, the single seats on the nearside being replaced with twins making them 39 seaters. Then the modas began...

First to go was the vandal screens, turning the cab into a standard National. Then, as the brains failed, they were converted from fully auto to semi auto (the gearboxes were the same, only the control system was changed to protect the necks of the driver and passengers).

As time progresses and our knowledge of the minutiae of Nationals grew ever larger,we began experimenting to improve the breed. A lot was putting things together properly; much of the issues were simply down to time pushed large fleet engineers cutting corners and making things worse in the long run. We found brackets missing and broken, bolts loose or not there at all and a slapdash approach to engine construction. We rebuilt our own engines and fuel pumps and so could control quality and eventually we tamed the majority of the models foibles.

What next? What other engines fit? The 510 is a slim engine and there's not very much room to slot anything else but we managed to fit a leopard spec 0680 into the back of a long national we got from Crosville. Easy enough but we were told that you couldn't do the same with a short national as there simply wasn't enough room. 

So we converted 2 of them. Okay, we cheated a bit by relocating the radiator, firstly to the nearside rear corner and on the second conversion, we used the hole made by removing the centre doors to put the radiator in, boxed in with a couple of single seats alongside. There you go, job done. Next?

2 is restored in the final iteration of the rebuild process. Front fog lights were changed to easy to source units off the shelf, all of the lighting was replaced with off the shelf BMAC units, the wipers were converted to electric from air as the air motors were getting harder so source. The doors were also converted to ram operation from the original hinge mounted door motors, with the doors being swapped for new items to get rid of a rot spot. The air intake was converted to draw air from the rear corner and used a lorry (ERF) cone air filter, and the whole bus is retrimmed with generic off the shelf Moquette.

There was one other engine conversion undertaken. This used a vertical Leyland engine and Alison gearbox that we bought from a scrapped dustcart after we saw one of British Bus's "son of Greenway" at the place we took our MoTs to. This still exists along with one of the ex LT 680 conversions; the cab window from the other conversion is now running in the Cumberland National 2 that mascarades as a Western Scottish bus (Yadda Yadda Yadda 289X,or something)

So yeah, that's how I know A LOT about Nationals, there isn't a bit of them I haven't seen, taken apart and rebuilt at least a dozen times!

[wesacosa]

1 hour ago, Inspector Morose said:

You called? Ooh, it's number 2! Hello old friend!

Yeah, I worked at Chase from 1994-2000 and was involved in the operation and rebuilding of their fleet of 55 (at the time) Nationals.  

2 was one of the exLT Nationals that came direct (via a dealer) with others coming via Parfitts. Some of the Parfitts Nationals had already been rebuilt from dual doored 36 seaters to single doored 42 seaters. Many still ran the blue LT moquette and it wasn't until they were looking tatty inside that the majority were retrimmed with whatever Moquette was cheap at the time. 

I can't remember if 2 was one of them but one or two of the direct from LT Nationals had been rebuilt by LT themselves but the majority came as dual doored and were operated as such, the single seats on the nearside being replaced with twins making them 39 seaters. Then the modas began...

First to go was the vandal screens, turning the cab into a standard National. Then, as the brains failed, they were converted from fully auto to semi auto (the gearboxes were the same, only the control system was changed to protect the necks of the driver and passengers).

As time progresses and our knowledge of the minutiae of Nationals grew ever larger,we began experimenting to improve the breed. A lot was putting things together properly; much of the issues were simply down to time pushed large fleet engineers cutting corners and making things worse in the long run. We found brackets missing and broken, bolts loose or not there at all and a slapdash approach to engine construction. We rebuilt our own engines and fuel pumps and so could control quality and eventually we tamed the majority of the models foibles.

What next? What other engines fit? The 510 is a slim engine and there's not very much room to slot anything else but we managed to fit a leopard spec 0680 into the back of a long national we got from Crosville. Easy enough but we were told that you couldn't do the same with a short national as there simply wasn't enough room. 

So we converted 2 of them. Okay, we cheated a bit by relocating the radiator, firstly to the nearside rear corner and on the second conversion, we used the hole made by removing the centre doors to put the radiator in, boxed in with a couple of single seats alongside. There you go, job done. Next?

2 is restored in the final iteration of the rebuild process. Front fog lights were changed to easy to source units off the shelf, all of the lighting was replaced with off the shelf BMAC units, the wipers were converted to electric from air as the air motors were getting harder so source. The doors were also converted to ram operation from the original hinge mounted door motors, with the doors being swapped for new items to get rid of a rot spot. The air intake was converted to draw air from the rear corner and used a lorry (ERF) cone air filter, and the whole bus is retrimmed with generic off the shelf Moquette.

There was one other engine conversion undertaken. This used a vertical Leyland engine and Alison gearbox that we bought from a scrapped dustcart after we saw one of British Bus's "son of Greenway" at the place we took our MoTs to. This still exists along with one of the ex LT 680 conversions; the cab window from the other conversion is now running in the Cumberland National 2 that mascarades as a Western Scottish bus (Yadda Yadda Yadda 289X,or something)

So yeah, that's how I know A LOT about Nationals, there isn't a bit of them I haven't seen, taken apart and rebuilt at least a dozen times!

Fascinating

I overheard the owner of the bus at Rustival talking about a duscart vertical engine conversion but I didn't know if it was this one or another he was taking about.  He kept calling the engine in this one the headless wonder if that helps confirm if its the duscart one or not

[lisbon_road]

@Inspector Morose@wesacosaI went to the running day - or last day, whatever it was - for Chase.  This is a deceptive picture as it isn't the same bus, but they did own a load of them.  Was a good day out though obviously a shame to see them go.  But operations like this need a lot of hard work for sure.

Some of their Nationals received Arriva style painted front and rear ends but I doubt they lasted long.  

[83C]

35 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

Fascinating

I overheard the owner of the bus at Rustival talking about a duscart vertical engine conversion but I didn't know if it was this one or another he was taking about.  He kept calling the engine in this one the headless wonder if that helps confirm if its the duscart one or not

The ‘headless wonder’ is the original 510 engine. Leyland had the bright idea of eliminating head gasket issues by removing the need for a head gasket. @Inspector Morose can give chapter and verse on them but suffice to say that as with a few other ideas the 500-series was a good idea, just lacking in development and execution. They were perfectly ok if well maintained, but if the maintenance regime suffered then so did the engines, being far less tolerant of poor maintenance than a Gardner or even Leyland’s own O680.

[Inspector Morose]

17 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

Fascinating

I overheard the owner of the bus at Rustival talking about a duscart vertical engine conversion but I didn't know if it was this one or another he was taking about.  He kept calling the engine in this one the headless wonder if that helps confirm if its the duscart one or not

The 'headless wonder' was the rather tongue-in-cheek name given to the 500 series engines, as fitted to this and many, many more Nationals. The rough story goes that Leyland was looking out for the next series of engines, to replace the 0680 series (whose design could be traced back to just after WW2), along with a new series of rationalised trucks and buses to take Leyland into the upcoming decades. The bus (Forward Project Bus 7) ended up as the National, and the truck (Forward Project Truck 70) was stillborn, with parts of it showing up in the Marathon later on.

The lead for the whole circus was a Dr Albert Fogg. For the engine, he took on the Leyland 0680s weakness in the head gasket area (leading to it being unable to be turbocharged with high boost to give higher outputs that were being demanded by haulage firms) and came up with a radical solution. Taking inspiration from Bentley of the 1920s, he designed the head and block as one unit - no separate head, no headgasket, no headgasket failures. An oversquare bore and stroke with overhead cam and stressed to take high boost pressures, this was more of a racing car engine design than one for commercial vehicles.it also made it remarkably thin, quite useful if you needed to stuff it under the floor in the back of a bus.

(Now the next bit of the story is controversial and many folk have said that I am plainly wrong, but this is what I think happened after trawling through reams of files, articles and talking to some folk who were there at the time).

The engine was to come in two flavours, a 700ci that was initially to be a torquey, normally aspirated engine that was futureproofed to be able to be turbocharged later in its production life to cater for the ever-increasing power demands from larger and heavier trucks. Normally aspirated, this would have replaced the 680 for bus use and was quietly pencilled in for the Commutabus project(FPB7 or National).

The other variant was a 500ci that could cater for the lighter end of the market, yet was identical to the 700ci architecture and so was able to be turbocharged for much higher outputs.

With all of these projects on the go, the accountants at Leyland were having anurisms aplenty and looked at cutting costs. First on the chopping block was FPT70, with only one prototype being built. Next, the engine project was scrutinised. 

It was noted that the turbocharged 500ci engine gave out almost as much power as the normally aspirated 700ci (and the 0680). This smaller version would be cheaper to produce and could be sold to hauliers as being lighter, allowing for a greater payload. What they forgot was the futureproofing. The turbo 500ci was at its limit of power and had no further expansion capability; that's where the 700ci came in. Also, the 700ci was pencilled in for FPB7, and bits of tooling for that engine had already been made. The axe was swung on the 700ci, leaving the 500ci to be rushed into production to soldier on alone for use in trucks and buses (the National being the main bus recipient).

Maybe it was rushing the smaller engine into production, maybe it was the use of tooling for the intended 700ci variant, the 500 series was a disaster. Hauliers soon told tales of woe, with failed engines aplenty and gutless performance and high fuel consumption when they did work. It quickly became obvious that Leyland was trying to get a quart out of a pint pot with the turbo 500 (or 510), and reliability suffered accordingly. On the bus side, engineers and drivers were met with an engine that didn't have the grunt of the old torquey 680, and putting it on its side under the National didn't make it any more reliable either. 

Fogg was hauled over the coals over the debacle and soon left for MIRA, where he established the testing grounds to be one of the leaders in the field. Leyland eventually dropped the 500 series, replacing it with rehashed versions of its old designs; the TL11 being in essence a modernised 0680  - a near wartime design.

Yet if they had stuck to Foggs' plan, it could have been so different, with Leyland catering for all of its needs with just two engines that were capable of being increased in output over their design life to meet demand. 

Leyland stopped building engines in 1987.

[N19]

Not as extensive nor as late as Chase, but in the early 90s a reasonable fleet was owned by Wilfreda Beehive (an unusual name, on reflection) which operated a variety of services competing with Mainline (the spinoff of the former SYPTE operation, which would eventually become First Mainline in the late 90s and then successively run down). The competition was nothing wild nor novel, simply running buses slotted in the middle of the Mainline service. Many of them retained centre doors although I think the majority came from Bristol, rather than London.

.As a child they were certainly more characterful than the B10Ms which were standard fare although Mainline had a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which were the standard SYPTE purchase for many years. They gave up stage carriage services in ?1998? to concentrate on coach holidays, although they did operate several tendered services in the late 00s. Mainline bought out the stage carriage business but never used the Nationals, although they did amalgamate a number of newly purchased Darts into their fleet.

In their dying days, Mainline bought a selection of Darts which had been extended into "Super-Pointer-Darts". They were slow, sounded like a vacuum cleaner having a coronary, and unreliable. One of them with a full load would struggle to accelerate anywhere, and on a hot day in summer it was fairly common to see at least one broken down on the way into town. Hateful things to travel on!

As above, there was a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which had their own routes, but would be drafted in to cover any shortages or breakdowns elsewhere (even if this resulted in a route normally worked by a minibus having one of these rattling around! I assume there were simply so many of them knocking around, following the post-privatisation service cuts, that they owed the company nothing on paper). They continued up until summer 2006 when the last were withdrawn. 2479 here was one of the last and is in quite a tatty condition.

Apologies, I seem to have drifted off the National tangent somewhat!

[Inspector Morose]

5 minutes ago, N19 said:

Not as extensive nor as late as Chase, but in the early 90s a reasonable fleet was owned by Wilfreda Beehive (an unusual name, on reflection) which operated a variety of services competing with Mainline (the spinoff of the former SYPTE operation, which would eventually become First Mainline in the late 90s and then successively run down). The competition was nothing wild nor novel, simply running buses slotted in the middle of the Mainline service. Many of them retained centre doors although I think the majority came from Bristol, rather than London.

.As a child they were certainly more characterful than the B10Ms which were standard fare although Mainline had a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which were the standard SYPTE purchase for many years.

In their dying days, Mainline bought a selection of Darts which had been extended into "Super-Pointer-Darts". They were slow, sounded like a vacuum cleaner having a coronary, and unreliable. One of them with a full load would struggle to accelerate anywhere, and on a hot day in summer it was fairly common to see at least one broken down on the way into town. Hateful things to travel on!

As above, there was a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which had their own routes, but would be drafted in to cover any shortages or breakdowns elsewhere (even if this resulted in a route normally worked by a minibus having one of these rattling around! I assume there were simply so many of them knocking around, following the post-privatisation service cuts, that they owed the company nothing on paper). They continued up until summer 2006 when the last were withdrawn. 2479 here was one of the last and is in quite a tatty condition.

Apologies, I seem to have drifted off the National tangent somewhat!

Wilfreda Beehive had UAE994N, an ex Bristol National and the next one to one of ours (UAE993N) at Metrowest. I came across it at a Sandtoft Gathering once and bagged a drive of it on the car park shuttles so I could say I'd driven two consecutive numbered Nationals from different operating areas (god, I'm sad).

[Zelandeth]

14 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

The 'headless wonder' was the rather tongue-in-cheek name given to the 500 series engines, as fitted to this and many, many more Nationals. The rough story goes that Leyland was looking out for the next series of engines, to replace the 0680 series (whose design could be traced back to just after WW2), along with a new series of rationalised trucks and buses to take Leyland into the upcoming decades. The bus (Forward Project Bus 7) ended up as the National, and the truck (Forward Project Truck 70) was stillborn, with parts of it showing up in the Marathon later on.

The lead for the whole circus was a Dr Albert Fogg. For the engine, he took on the Leyland 0680s weakness in the head gasket area (leading to it being unable to be turbocharged with high boost to give higher outputs that were being demanded by haulage firms) and came up with a radical solution. Taking inspiration from Bentley of the 1920s, he designed the head and block as one unit - no separate head, no headgasket, no headgasket failures. An oversquare bore and stroke with overhead cam and stressed to take high boost pressures, this was more of a racing car engine design than one for commercial vehicles.it also made it remarkably thin, quite useful if you needed to stuff it under the floor in the back of a bus.

(Now the next bit of the story is controversial and many folk have said that I am plainly wrong, but this is what I think happened after trawling through reams of files, articles and talking to some folk who were there at the time).

The engine was to come in two flavours, a 700ci that was initially to be a torquey, normally aspirated engine that was futureproofed to be able to be turbocharged later in its production life to cater for the ever-increasing power demands from larger and heavier trucks. Normally aspirated, this would have replaced the 680 for bus use and was quietly pencilled in for the Commutabus project(FPB7 or National).

The other variant was a 500ci that could cater for the lighter end of the market, yet was identical to the 700ci architecture and so was able to be turbocharged for much higher outputs.

With all of these projects on the go, the accountants at Leyland were having anurisms aplenty and looked at cutting costs. First on the chopping block was FPT70, with only one prototype being built. Next, the engine project was scrutinised. 

It was noted that the turbocharged 500ci engine gave out almost as much power as the normally aspirated 700ci (and the 0680). This smaller version would be cheaper to produce and could be sold to hauliers as being lighter, allowing for a greater payload. What they forgot was the futureproofing. The turbo 500ci was at its limit of power and had no further expansion capability; that's where the 700ci came in. Also, the 700ci was pencilled in for FPB7, and bits of tooling for that engine had already been made. The axe was swung on the 700ci, leaving the 500ci to be rushed into production to soldier on alone for use in trucks and buses (the National being the main bus recipient).

Maybe it was rushing the smaller engine into production, maybe it was the use of tooling for the intended 700ci variant, the 500 series was a disaster. Hauliers soon told tales of woe, with failed engines aplenty and gutless performance and high fuel consumption when they did work. It quickly became obvious that Leyland was trying to get a quart out of a pint pot with the turbo 500 (or 510), and reliability suffered accordingly. On the bus side, engineers and drivers were met with an engine that didn't have the grunt of the old torquey 680, and putting it on its side under the National didn't make it any more reliable either. 

Fogg was hauled over the coals over the debacle and soon left for MIRA, where he established the testing grounds to be one of the leaders in the field. Leyland eventually dropped the 500 series, replacing it with rehashed versions of its old designs; the TL11 being in essence a modernised 0680  - a near wartime design.

Yet if they had stuck to Foggs' plan, it could have been so different, with Leyland catering for all of its needs with just two engines that were capable of being increased in output over their design life to meet demand. 

Leyland stopped building engines in 1987.

Sounds pretty classic of the company to me - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was after all their main passtime it seems.

[SunnySouth]

2 hours ago, N19 said:

…

In their dying days, Mainline bought a selection of Darts which had been extended into "Super-Pointer-Darts".

 

 

Ah, the Super Pointer Dart! Believe it or not, they were in fact built like that, rather than converted from normal Darts - an attempt, presumably, to flog rattly lightweight midibuses for use where a proper, full length bus was required! They were pretty uncommon, and universally regarded as shite where they did exist. This was the “SPD”, the opposite end of the product line to the much more widespread “MPD” mini Dart, which found a fair bit of success.

In fairness to Dennis/Plaxton at the time, they were in fact simply too early in the game - very few operators now buy proper, decent heavyweight full length single deckers, they all want to run the modern equivalent of Darts (the Enviro 200). The Mini was okay, at least offering ‘big bus’ durability rather than some of the crappy van-style efforts aimed at providing small low floor vehicles, but it suffered through being full width, whereas the Optare Solo as its main competitor offered narrower versions more suited to some routes.

Anyhow, excellent post!

[N19]

At the time (and again, this is from the POV of a passenger) we had a large number of high-floor first generation pointer darts and they always seemed nippy and could fit anywhere. The SPDs on the other hand were, crap. The vibration and racket was another thing and the build quality suspect, especially if it rained. We ended up with them in Doncaster as they had originally been sent to Rotherham, where many of the routes went into Sheffield. As anybody who has ever been anywhere near Sheffield knows, it is hilly. Seriously hilly. The SPDs could not cope and were swopped with some B10BLEs which had been bought for Doncaster. I think they were B41F, but had replaced B10Ms which were B51F, so at peak times things were very crowded. I think various timetables had to be re-worked to accommodate their slow performance. They were fitted with early powerblind units which never worked and therefore displayed the wrong destinations, so drivers would take down an advertising poster from the inside and scribble on the back of it, the bus destination. Ironically, the brand-spanking-new electric things that Metroline have bought for the 384 here in North London/Herts have a very similar issue with their LED displays, although as a show of progress, the temporary destination displays are now laminated A3 printed! 

[N19]

Anyway, on further rambling, it does show how poor the bus network has become. As above, in the late 90s we had a 5-minute service along the main route, with two different 30-minute frequency services serving the back streets and deep into the estates (popular with pensioners etc as it took them much closer to the door, and served some sections of estates which were quite a long way from the main route). These days, there is a 15 minute service and that's yer lot.

One of these routes was operated by the Dominators pictured above by Mainline (although it had previously been with Wilfreda). Even into Firstbus days, there was a regular driver who for whatever reason was allocated to the route every Monday to Friday and was popular with all the passengers! The other estate route was operated by a small local concern called Leon. They had two Optare Metroriders which bounced around the suburban backstreets, however, they operated an interesting rota system whereby a driver would take a particular bus out with him when he started, and drive that bus all day. So whilst the two Metroriders would be taken by the drivers who spent a lot of the day on the route, their lunch breaks and other journeys would be covered by a driver who had previously done a school duty and would be in an elderly Atlantean or Olympian (assuming that the aforementioned had not broken down, or had the emergency door corrode off, whilst on the morning school duty - frequent enough to note, anyway). Other appearances in their fleet included two very early Tridents, a few Lynxes, a few Darts, and then having been taken over by a Sheffield based firm (MAS Special Engineering) a variety of ex-London Titans which always seemed one whisker away from the scrapyard, although they could get up to a very respectable speed. The routes could be very quiet at times, other than at the main shopping times when they would be packed. However, after the dalliance around the estate, they would join the main corridor into town and would usually pick up a fair few extra passengers there who would simply be waiting for the first bus that came. Tickets were rarely issued... unless an inspector was on board, at which point every single passenger would get a ticket and all the money went in to the till.

I digress slightly. But fundamentally, and I'm sure this isn't exclusive to Doncaster, the bus network has not evolved or grown as the town has changed and shopping/employment patterns have changed. Very few people can now rely on the buses as they don't go where they need to go, aren't frequent, have poor service out of daytime hours and are expensive. Which is a shame really.

[catsinthewelder]

I was operating a model railway at Welshpool today but a friend turned up with this to do the connection with the mainline station so I got on for a chat.  He's probably the only person whos driven a double decker bus up the lane past my house.

[danthecapriman]

2 hours ago, N19 said:

Not as extensive nor as late as Chase, but in the early 90s a reasonable fleet was owned by Wilfreda Beehive (an unusual name, on reflection) which operated a variety of services competing with Mainline (the spinoff of the former SYPTE operation, which would eventually become First Mainline in the late 90s and then successively run down). The competition was nothing wild nor novel, simply running buses slotted in the middle of the Mainline service. Many of them retained centre doors although I think the majority came from Bristol, rather than London.

.As a child they were certainly more characterful than the B10Ms which were standard fare although Mainline had a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which were the standard SYPTE purchase for many years. They gave up stage carriage services in ?1998? to concentrate on coach holidays, although they did operate several tendered services in the late 00s. Mainline bought out the stage carriage business but never used the Nationals, although they did amalgamate a number of newly purchased Darts into their fleet.

In their dying days, Mainline bought a selection of Darts which had been extended into "Super-Pointer-Darts". They were slow, sounded like a vacuum cleaner having a coronary, and unreliable. One of them with a full load would struggle to accelerate anywhere, and on a hot day in summer it was fairly common to see at least one broken down on the way into town. Hateful things to travel on!

As above, there was a huge fleet of Dennis Dominators which had their own routes, but would be drafted in to cover any shortages or breakdowns elsewhere (even if this resulted in a route normally worked by a minibus having one of these rattling around! I assume there were simply so many of them knocking around, following the post-privatisation service cuts, that they owed the company nothing on paper). They continued up until summer 2006 when the last were withdrawn. 2479 here was one of the last and is in quite a tatty condition.

Apologies, I seem to have drifted off the National tangent somewhat!

Blast from the past! I remember those. 
My family are all from Doncaster and most live in Cantley so I remember seeing them out & about, possibly even going to town and back on them.

Nationals and Beehives aside, I always liked the yellow and red Mainline livery on the buses up there. They had a few National’s in that livery too I think. 
At the time though my interest was more towards the more vintage fleet of Leon Motors.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Inspector Morose said:

(god, I'm sad).

I must, respectfully, disagree. Your detailed explanations and experience seem to be on a similar level to Dr. Fogg. I'm not a bus nerd, but fondly remember the wrecks I travelled on as a kid in the 60s & 70s, when we moved from Hayes in Kent via Heathfield to the home of the first municipal bus service in the UK. My 
Dad, when a local councillor, was involved with the committee  and later horrified when EBC sold it. Southdown was proud, but went the same way. Does any other town have a road named after a bus depot?

[Inspector Morose]

3 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

I was operating a model railway at Welshpool today but a friend turned up with this to do the connection with the mainline station so I got on for a chat.  He's probably the only person whos driven a double decker bus up the lane past my house.

Another ex Chase National, no57 in the fleet. Ex Parfitts.

[N19]

9 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Blast from the past! I remember those. 
My family are all from Doncaster and most live in Cantley so I remember seeing them out & about, possibly even going to town and back on them.

Nationals and Beehives aside, I always liked the yellow and red Mainline livery on the buses up there. They had a few National’s in that livery too I think. 
At the time though my interest was more towards the more vintage fleet of Leon Motors.

Small world! I grew up in Cantley in the early 90s, and god knows how many journeys I made on the 170, later 57.  The red and yellow with a blue and grey stripe was the original MainlinE colour scheme (after some unsuccessful testing of other options), but this was simplified when First came in to plain red and yellow. I'm fairly sure that they retained buses in those colours up until about 2010, by which time they had all been repainted or replaced into 'Barbie' colours.

Leon and their eclectic goings on... I mention them in another reply above - they certainly had a selection of interesting vehicles...

[danthecapriman]

5 minutes ago, N19 said:

Small world! I grew up in Cantley in the early 90s, and god knows how many journeys I made on the 170, later 57.  The red and yellow with a blue and grey stripe was the original MainlinE colour scheme (after some unsuccessful testing of other options), but this was simplified when First came in to plain red and yellow. I'm fairly sure that they retained buses in those colours up until about 2010, by which time they had all been repainted or replaced into 'Barbie' colours.

Leon and their eclectic goings on... I mention them in another reply above - they certainly had a selection of interesting vehicles...

At the time I lived down south, but we’d regularly go back to Donny to visit family. I did live in Bessacarr for a while (not far from Cantley) which was probably around 89/90ish.

We’d end up going into town during our visits which was a great excuse to both take the bus and find somewhere to sit and watch the buses at the big bus terminal! 
Not my pic but this is similar to what I remember.

The train station and depot were a big attraction to me too and I used to spend ages there. 
When we lived in Bessacarr (Kelsey Gardens) our house had a brilliant view down the street to the railway line at the end and I’d sit and watch the trains come and go!

[N19]

The North bus station was demolished in the early 00s and is now the site of the Interchange which is interlinked with the Arndale Centre (now Frenchgate Centre). Previously I think the North Bus Station was accessed through a subway underneath the road, or directly from the railway station. The South Bus Station remains but is now a car park!

[danthecapriman]

16 minutes ago, N19 said:

The North bus station was demolished in the early 00s and is now the site of the Interchange which is interlinked with the Arndale Centre (now Frenchgate Centre). Previously I think the North Bus Station was accessed through a subway underneath the road, or directly from the railway station. The South Bus Station remains but is now a car park!

Jesus! I didn’t know that. Goes to show how much notice I take of things now! 
Mind you, it’s been some time since I went to Doncaster town centre. I suppose like everywhere it just changes so much without you noticing.

[Gaffer]

Another ex Doncaster resident here and your posts have brought back some fond memories @N19 I think the ex London titans you mention are what I used to ride to school and back on every day! 

[83C]

2 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

Ah, the Super Pointer Dart! Believe it or not, they were in fact built like that, rather than converted from normal Darts - an attempt, presumably, to flog rattly lightweight midibuses for use where a proper, full length bus was required! They were pretty uncommon, and universally regarded as shite where they did exist. This was the “SPD”, the opposite end of the product line to the much more widespread “MPD” mini Dart, which found a fair bit of success.

Urgh, the SPD. Fucking awful things, we had a batch at Slavecoach West that had been bought new for the 94 Cheltenham - Gloucester service but by 2004 got relegated to the 10 (Gloucester - Cheltenham via Brockworth) with the arrival of a batch of Trident/ALX400s for the 94. At 4-5 years old the SPDs were all saggy-arsed thanks to the extra weight at the back end and an over stretched design.

33506 was repainted in Cheltenham & District colours and was one of the better machines, but overall the SPDs were like most Darts - cheap nasty shite.

 

[cms206]

8 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

"... the cab window from the other conversion is now running in the Cumberland National 2 that mascarades as a Western Scottish bus (Yadda Yadda Yadda 289X,or something)"

SHH 389X, one of two Mk2 Nationals I owned; 389 sadly is a bit of a sore point and is the reason I'm not doing the preservation bit any more. It had the most glorious sounding 680 in it which has apparantly now been ditched for a TL11. It was more or less to Cheltenham & Gloucester's "National 3" interior spec.

The other Mk2 I owned was the former Crosville SNL2, AFM 2W though at the time I had it was PIL 7013. 260bhp TL11, high ratio gearbox and a high speed back end on it; the only semi auto Leyland I ever experienced where 1st was actually a gear rather than a crawler and it would quite literally do the P in MPH.

It too had electric wipers, a full sized box heater mounted under the ticket machine shelf and a Tiger steering wheel. It was most pleasant indeed.

The other National I had ended up broken for spares by Gordon McGregor after I lost my storage, it had been the former Cumberland Motor Services 206 (there's a nod to the past), B-series Mk1 AHH 206T. Gordon never paid me for it either... 

[cms206]

3 hours ago, N19 said:

Anyway, on further rambling, it does show how poor the bus network has become. As above, in the late 90s we had a 5-minute service along the main route, with two different 30-minute frequency services serving the back streets and deep into the estates (popular with pensioners etc as it took them much closer to the door, and served some sections of estates which were quite a long way from the main route). These days, there is a 15 minute service and that's yer lot.

I genuinely do wish I knew where all the people have gone; back in 2009 I started my "career" - using that term in the very loosest sense of the word - with a local independent called Riverside Transport, where I drove a motley collection of Mercedes minibuses all of which bar two had all been bought new, plus a smattering of Dart SLFs again bought new. Our main corridor was between Paisley Cross and the East Fulton area of Linwood. On this we competed with First, Arriva and another independent, Lippen Coaches.

At that time there were sixty four buses an hour over the section between Paisley Cross and Linwood village; we had seven an hour over the 8 and 8A services, Lippen had six an hour, Arriva six an hour and First the remainder on their 9 which at the time was operated by both Scotstoun (Linwood to Drumchapel) and Larkfield (Linwood to Glasgow short workings) garages. It was absolute bedlam. That doesn't include the Riverside 18 or Arriva 28 which both covered Paisley to Linwood but on different routes.

 

At the minute the same corridor has a 20 minute headway and none of those four operators run it; Arriva sold their Scottish operations to McGills, Riverside and Lippen both ceased trading and First's 9 now only operates from Paisley to Glasgow on a 15 minute headway.

 

Where did 61 buses worth of people on that corridor go in the last 16 years?

[cms206]

19 minutes ago, cms206 said:

SHH 389X, one of two Mk2 Nationals I owned; 389 sadly is a bit of a sore point and is the reason I'm not doing the preservation bit any more. It had the most glorious sounding 680 in it which has apparantly now been ditched for a TL11. It was more or less to Cheltenham & Gloucester's "National 3" interior spec.

Not long after we collected 389 from Bankfoot Buses at the SVBM with me at the helm; not a car alarm was safe... 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=m-Qp51rEb5I&si=65rL0UCTy4CyEZgW

[N19]

7 hours ago, Gaffer said:

Another ex Doncaster resident here and your posts have brought back some fond memories @N19 I think the ex London titans you mention are what I used to ride to school and back on every day! 

They appeared en masse around 2003 when MAS Engineering bought out Leon. MASS had a huge fleet of them over at their depot which was near Dinnington. Their primary business was school contracts in Sheffield, whilst Leon held the majority of school runs in Doncaster, so from that perspective I can see why they bought them out. Some of them had dual doors still but if you stood there to get off, you'd be disappointed as the drivers often forgot to open them! The Titans gradually leaked on to stage carriage services and replaced the Atlanteans and Olympians previously in use, gradually stage carriage services were cut back and in 2007 they threw in the towel, with the few routes they still operated being sold to First Mainline (there was a short period when Mainline was operating a competing service against itself... it was running the 191 having acquired the remnants of the MASS network, whilst also running the competing 91 that it had ran for a few years! As soon as possible it was all amalgamated)  .