Bus Shite

[cms206]

FOR THE DEMANDING EIGHTIES

 

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[Eddie Honda]

[cms206]

One last time to Strathault...

 

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[clayts450]

This plodded past work the other day (no ribbons on it) - turns it's one of three ex-LT AEC's - 2 Routemasters and an RTL hired out by http://www.londonbushireuk.co.uk/

 

 

I feel a Summer Holiday acomin' with this

 

[CreepingJesus]

FOR THE DEMANDING EIGHTIES

 

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Didn't realise Cotter's were a dealer! Doesn't the livery live on in Pride Of The Clyde? Their white with orange stripes seems vaguely familiar.

[puddlethumper]

Saw this in Stanleyshire, (Accrington) dunno if its of any interest coz I don't know buses, but I like them.

 

 

 

[phil_lihp]

I know nothing much of buses but find this thread quite educational.  This popped up on eBay, I was curious about its history as it looked like a mega-expensive conversion left to rot and it turns out to have had quite an interesting life.  Weird looking thing, I thought it'd be a lot newer than it actually is.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Neoplan-skyline-coach-spares-or-repairs/112640146083?_trksid=p2485497.m4902.l9144

 

 

It started out in life rather differently on a different reg...

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/h981gdv/

 

I read somewhere that the conversion was done for an insurance company who spent a fortune on several buses for a promotion, then after a few weeks ordered them to be stripped out again.  That company later went bust, strangely enough.

[overrun]

^^^ a Geordie, me, sitting in traffic [as you do!] spent a fair part of my life behind T&W Atlanteans.

 

Sickyellow+Cream...

 

SCN xxS seems burned in somewhere. There are deffo some (1+ poss?) still in SickyellCreem for preserved.

 

 

TS

 

A Busways one lives in the same storage place I keep my car trailer, in Peterlee. AFAIK.

Always great to see it out and about.

[Guest Hooli]

I know nothing much of buses but find this thread quite educational.  This popped up on eBay, I was curious about its history as it looked like a mega-expensive conversion left to rot and it turns out to have had quite an interesting life.  Weird looking thing, I thought it'd be a lot newer than it actually is.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Neoplan-skyline-coach-spares-or-repairs/112640146083?_trksid=p2485497.m4902.l9144

 

 

It started out in life rather differently on a different reg...

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/h981gdv/

 

I read somewhere that the conversion was done for an insurance company who spent a fortune on several buses for a promotion, then after a few weeks ordered them to be stripped out again.  That company later went bust, strangely enough.

 

I used to drive one of them, for a different company. Lovely grunty things with a four over four box. Only tri-axle 'decker I ever got sideways too

[busmansholiday]

I was asked to take a Volvo down to Scratchwood Services (now London Gateway) early one Sunday morning." Meet the fitters there, they're already set off" they said. Sure enough, our ex Shell Chinese six Scammell wrecker was in the park, and one of our drivers waiting for the Volvo. The plan was to go with the fitter then to Reading and drag one of our Tigers back to Sheffield that had gone bang big style. We rang the depot (no mobile phones in the eighties) and they said that a Neoplan wouldn't start at Battersea coach park, go start that first.

"You know where that is "said the fitter. "Why ?" "'cause your driving" was the reply.

To cut a long story short about blocking a bridge, various roads and a well known coach station in London off with our attempts to tow start it, all I'll say is the Germans are ingenious. Start a British diesel up and you don't then need batteries, on a Neoplasm, if the batteries are faulty then there's an auto kill system that cuts in. It was a long way back with it on a fixed bar at 40mph.

[Zelandeth]

I used to drive one of them, for a different company. Lovely grunty things with a four over four box. Only tri-axle 'decker I ever got sideways too

 

They sound absolutely epic at full chat when the exhaust system has fallen to bits as well...

[busmansholiday]

One of our drivers forgot to press the ferry lift button on one of these at Dover. Ripped the sump off, oil everywhere followed by a big bang. Management weren't too happy with the bill.

[Yoss]

This was parked on my delivery today. Not actually that surprising, the chap who's house it was parked outside is quite heavily involved with old Southampton buses.

They'd come to pick up some gearbox oil from him.

[busmansholiday]

You may remember my comment earlier in the thread about our Scottish holiday on ex Sheffield 874 in 1978, and photos will follow, but even before the Portsmouth trip a few of us, armed with sleeping bags to sleep on the bus overnight,  went down to the smoke on 17/18th September 1973 in a then recently acquired ex Rossie Motors Daimler CVD6 for a transport rally on Clapham Common. Sadly KWT600 is no longer with us.

 

I thought I'd post a few pics of what we found that weekend, hopefully with a bit more than just the bus in the picture.

 

Ignoring the three people and their 1970's dress sense trying to commit suicide, there's a Triumph Herald and a Mk I Zepher ruining my picture of RT1181.

 

 

RM952 in it's Dinky toys advert livery (before the days of wraps), about to be overtaken by a BeeeMMM.

 

 

Another RM, 783, and it's Esso Uniflo advert for their 10W/50 motor oil. It's sandwiched between a pair of HB Vivas and is being overtaken by a continental visiting coach.  The reg plates appear to be Portuguese, and it looks like a Salvador Caetano body but what chassis I don't know.

 

 

 

 

 

[busmansholiday]

I've been to London a few times since then so a few pictures to get you excited (!!!).

 

For the Queens Jubilee, London painted 25 Routemasters (sorry) in a silver livery.  SRM10 (RM1914) being sandwiched between an XJ6, FX4, a Grenada, a Fiat (124 ?) and an Austin 100 round the back of Buck Pal.

 

 

How many remember London Undergrounds PD3As ?

 

 

The last day of RTs, April 1979, and RT2240 somewhere near Barking (somebody on here will be able to identify this street).  According to me there's 16 cars, a Marina Van, a milk float, a caravan and a speed boat in this picture.

 

 

And just for Yoss, a year after you went to Glasgow on RML903, she visited the Tinsley Transport Museum in Sheffield.

 

 

Off to walk the dog and sort out the pictures of 874 on her travels

[busmansholiday]

Let's start with the trip to the Southsea Rally in June 1978.  We left Sheffield on the Saturday night and went via London.  First stop for a photo was outside the works of the best bus and coach builders there ever was (IMHO).

 

 

Then we drove down into the middle of the town to take a picture by that big clock. It's am and apologies, I cannot get it to be vertical.

 

 

Whilst we were blocking off the inside lane we were overtaken by a piece of modern, fuel guzzling shite, which itself was being overtaken by a Reliant Regal, a Rover P6 and an FX4.

 

 

A stereotypical British bus of the late 50's, early 60's.  Driver up front in a separate cab, engine along side him and a rear platform so you can jump on and off at traffic lights. Oh, and a Routemaster and what looks like a Datsun sneaking out of the picture.

 

 

We arrived at Southsea for the rally.  The group of passengers waiting for the open topper look suitably bemused whilst a City of Portsmouth Passenger Transport Department (to give them their correct name) nasty National sneaked into the edge of the picture.

 

 

We got back in the early hours of Monday morning, ready for work.

 

If anybodies interested I can see what was still running then and post a few.  I kept detailed records of all the colour slides I took between the first one in September 1972 (the world was in black and white before then) until I got bored doing that in November 1978.  I'd taken just over 4000 by then.

 

[Yoss]

Thanks for those, they're great. I'd like to point you towards my Background Shite thread. I don't know how to do links but it's on here somewhere. It's mainly pictures of buses but in the course of the last thirty years the cars in the background have become more interesting than the original subject of the pictures. So I thought they deserved their own thread.

 

Some of the above fit that description perfectly. At the time you're annoyed the cars got in the way. Now you're pleased they're there. At the time, you were always going for the three quarter front view with nothing else in it as the perfect shot but as my wife has pointed out, to her they all look the same, and with hindsight she is right. So now I always get the people and traffic in.

 

 

RML 903 did a lot of traveling for a few years. After the Scottish trip they fitted a high speed diff to give it a higher cruising speed. Can't remember if it was from an RMC or RCL now (all RM variants had the same gearbox but they put different diffs in to change the gearing. RCL's had the highest but also had a bigger engine to cope and could cruise easily at 60 and go a bit more if need be).

 

I did a few trips with it, one to Wythall transport museum in Birmingham, Canvey Island and one that was sold as a Christmas Mystery Tour. Turned out we never even left London but it was one of the best trips. Chiswick Works then Southall (as pictured above with your bus) which was being used to store lots of withdrawn RM's and ready them for resale, including a paint shop. Next was the LT communication centre at Baker Street, I don't think many people have been there. And finished with a Christmas lights tour. Top day out.

 

And the overall advert RM's are giving me an idea. There was a time when any self respecting bus company had an in house signwriter. Southampton certainly did. I have many pictures of them upstairs. I should go and find some.

[3VOM]

Don't know if anyone is interested but this just turned up in an email:

https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gordonbrothers/catalogue-id-gordon10034?utm_source=bs-fa-21/11/2017&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Gordon%20Brothers&utm_content=catlink

especially

https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gordonbrothers/catalogue-id-gordon10034/lot-3f86efd2-eba7-4981-8227-a82b00f9180a

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Yoss, thanks for sharing your well organised shenanigans on WLT 903. Is it just inverse snobbery with Routemasters on here, or is it a general thing? Personally, I love the look of them, and in the event of winning the lottery, I'd have one parked next to my Lambretta in my 2 mile long barn. More stories required!

[Vantman]

And another one---

 

[Inspector Morose]

The Routemaster "thing"

 

I can only speak from my experiences so this is not gospel just opinion. I have nothing against Routemasters at all. They are very technologically advanced and the perfect bus for the specific job they were designed for. BUT.

 

1) This was a design who's layout, when launched, was obsolete. At the same show as the launch was the first Atlantean with promises of increase capacity, better conditions for the driver (bloody quieter for a start) and the potential for future one person operation (it wasn't legal to have one man double deckers when the Atlantean was first launched) for all of its technical prowess, the basic thinking of the bus was out of date. This could be attributed by the extrodinarily long time from prototypes being built and rested and the production models being ready for production (6years IIRC)

 

2) There were other buses out there with the same features but are stunningly overlooked by the "enthusiast"Two that spring to mind are the independently sprung, integral BMMO D9 and the (slightly later) front engined, front entrance Guy Wulfrunian. Both these were as technically forward looking as the Routemaster, it he case of the D9, it was built by the operator themselves in their own purpose built bus construction and repair works. Due to the slight London bias of the world, they are sadly overlooked and ridiculed as failures(especially in the case of the Wulfrunian). Do you know how many problems they has when the Routemaster was introduced? For at least six years there was a constant battle to get the things to work as they should - frame failures, brake failures, hydraulic failures, gearbox failures - they were all sorted in the end but it was no perfect bus from the start that some would have you believe. Even then, buses in London were rebuilt at great cost every X number of years to the point of losing their identities and emerging from overhaul as another member of the batch. The continual rebuilding of the routemasters meant they were (condition wise at least) never more than 6 or so years old until the overhaul process ended in the 80s due to it being a vastly expensive exercise that was not repeated anywhere else I the country (central works and overhauling buses to a great extent was one of the first casualties of privatisation in October 1986)

 

3) They lasted on the roads longer because the monolithic London Transport could afford to run and crew them. Other corporations and companies would have loved to be able to keep running their Titans, Lodekkas or Regents but the harsh economic favpcts were that they couldn't afford the luxury of crew operation any longer, especially as at the time the government were pushing the purchase of new one person operation buses with the aid of the new bus grant. The stipulations that came with the grant meant a certain sixpence and layout was all that could be bought, no front engines there. Only London Transport was large enough to be able to stick two fingers up and keep the Routemasters going but even they succumbed to one man operation eventually.

 

So the above shows that they were good but not the holy grail that some would lead you to believe. So why are there so many preserved then? Well that leads me to my major gripe.

 

4) The preservationists. There are times when I used to go to rallies in the past and I was sure that of the 2760 London Routemaster built, over 3000 had been preserved. It was, at the time the easy way into bus ownership, the MGB of the bus world. They were the final chance for folks to buy a "proper" front engined bus as there was, and still is, a huge amount of snobbery between front engined bus owners and the ones who tried to preserve early rear engined buses. Because of this there is a huge chunk of the bus era missing, namely the first generation rear engined buses from the early 60s until recently when people have woken up to find non left and are left to rescue and restore complete hulks back to their former glory. The great swathes of routemasters in preservation has ousted the unusual, the oddballs, the unique. when was the last time you saw a Gilford at a rally? There are quite a number (relatively) preserved but they have either succumbed to being hidden away or worse, scrapped when no other buyer could be found yet prospective purchasers went for the Routemaster as the safe easy option of bus preservation. So the world is left with a skewed view of bus and coach operation with people being led to believe that the Routemaster was the only and best bus around. If only they knew what we have lost because of it.

 

So, in conclusion, snobbery? No, not really. The bus turned out okay in the end and it was the right tool for the job at the time. I've driven my fair share of them and TBH, Ive driven better buses of the same era. But don't get me started on (some, I'm not talking about you Yoss) the owners.

[CreepingJesus]

The Westcars one reminds of how Brian Soutar turned up at a meeting at my secondary school (as after deregulation, the school service had gone to shit) promising the earth, and sent us RMs and Lodekkas that were lucky to get to the end of the road...

[cms206]

Yoss, thanks for sharing your well organised shenanigans on WLT 903. Is it just inverse snobbery with Routemasters on here, or is it a general thing? Personally, I love the look of them, and in the event of winning the lottery, I'd have one parked next to my Lambretta in my 2 mile long barn. More stories required!

 

I'm one of the vocal naysayers of Routemasters. I do not and never have understood the appeal, even before I drove (several) examples of the breed. To me they were outdated when they hit the road and quite tremendously ugly to look at. Having driven various examples - from memory the only engine option I've not driven was Scania - they're difficult to get into, harder still to get out of, when you do manage to wedge yourself in you can't see where you're going and due to the shape of the cab, you can't see where you've been either. That's before you spend a shift chasing the steering column round the cab.

 

The whole "Ohhhh but they lasted sixty years in service! They must be fabulous!" shite can be summed up by the phrase "Trigger's broom". I reckon there's probably a good few Routemasters out there preserved now which have had, at some point, every single engine option fitted, likewise for gearboxes. If they'd lasted more or less as intended then that would have been impressive, but the fact of the matter is that anything'll last sixty years if you've replaced the engine, gearbox, axles, refurbished the body numerous times, replaced all the windows,, repanelled it, refloored it... most of the Routemasters preserved now don't even have their original bodywork. 

 

 

Routemasters are my least favourite vehicle to drive out of all of the vehicles I have driven, even beating the Optare Solo - only just mind - but that's only because I like talking to people, so as a result not being a halfcab the Solo gains half a point.

[Vin]

It's interesting, regarding mention of the Routemaster being an example of 'Trigger's broom'. There is a a BTF film called 'Overhaul' from 1957, that has probably been posted before.

 

Although the buses are not Routemasters, it still fully illustrates the process posters have discussed...

 

[busmansholiday]

I have to say I agree with FPB7 and his comments above. When I first got into bus preservation in the early 70's the basic 'want' of a preservationist was to purchase the oldest vehicle they could find from their favourite fleet. By this era most operators were getting rid of outdated front engined, rear entrance vehicles and replacing them with one man operated buses. These were the obvious choices for people who had grown up with rear entrance buses. The first generation rear engined deckers were generally despised by even people like me and were not at the time they were getting withdrawn thought of as being worthy of saving. How times change.

 

As the 70's rolled on, more people became interested and London was the last stronghold of these types of vehicles. When the RT's went at the end of the decade it just left the Routemaster for people to long for. By then all the early 60's stuff had been scrapped. When I purchased my first Reliance, it was the oldest one I could find, but single deck wise things are different as underfloor engined vehicles were the norm in the late 50's.

 

As for London, the world revolves around it doesn't it?. No money to electrify the railway to Leicester and Sheffield but money to build another underground line can easily be found. Same with the Routemaster. When London found out it couldn't overall it's modern DMS class Fleetlines how it wanted to it promptly sold them claiming they were unreliable. Yet their own figures showed they were more reliable than the Routemaster.

I remember going on a trip around Chesterfield Transport just after they had bought some. Speaking with their engineers they had bought both runners and scrap ones. Looking at one of the ones they pointed out as being scrap we asked what was wrong with it. Nothing, other than the a half shaft failure was the reply. It was soon in service. It's not changed much either in my opinion. When Ken was mayor he set about buying up all the existing Routemasters and putting them back in service. Then Boris got rid of them and the artic's and had a bespoke Decker designed. Sod all use anywhere but London but I bet almost every one gets preserved in the future.

 

I like Routemasters, don't get me wrong and if I had the money, space and a Mrs that allowed me to have one I would. But I'd want either a proper one like Yoss, with an original engine, not a modern Scania, Iveco or Cummings in there or one of the Sri Lankan ones, where they threw away the greasy bits and stuffed an Indian built engine and manual box in. It would seriously piss off the snobby, up their own arse preservationists that exist in the bus as well as car world, but it would be fun.

 

Rant over.

[quicksilver]

Agree 100% with the Routemaster comments. Not only are there too many but they're nearly all the same and finished in boring old London Transport red. As if there weren't enough in this country already a whole load have been repatriated from Canada and Europe and there are many much more interesting things that could have been imported instead. People have spent fortunes turning converted ones back into buses too, which seems a waste of effort to me.

 

Look at what we've lost in favour of all these Routemasters. The Duple Trooper for instance, the mainstay of small coach operators in the sixties. Now there are two left, neither of which are ever likely to be restored, and its big sister the Mariner/Marauder is completely extinct. Only recently the very last surviving Duple Calypso got the chop after its storage was lost and no one showed any interest in saving it.

[Noel Tidybeard]

so basically all routemaster are OMGRINGERS

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Well that told me!

Interestingly reading that the early rear engined buses haven't really survived due to OMG Routemaster though. I don't profess to know much about buses, and like Routemasters purely because they look, to me, 'just right'. The bigger picture regarding driving conditions, non-original parts, outdated concept before it hit the road and so on, doesn't change the opinion of a novice such as myself. Interesting all the same, though. Sad times that some worthy contenders are no longer around to fight their corner any more, however.

I'll finish my breakfast monologue by saying I also like the Harrington Legionnaire from TIJ. Now I do know that they are a very endangered species. Tell me they weren't a bit average, and generally unloved by hardcore bus and coach fanatics?!

 

Oh, and just to add... I'm glad this thread exists. I wouldn't have foreseen myself in being interested in reading about buses, to be honest.

How wrong I was...

[Yoss]

Okay so now the views of an actual Routemaster owner.

 

Actually I agree with quite a lot of what's been said above. There probably are too many preserved and at bus rallies I tend to ignore them too. A quick note of which ones are there to see if it's anyone I know but that's about it. The refurbs don't interest me at all.

 

I've been involved with mine since 1986 and owned it twice for about 18 of those years. We first met on the last night of RM's on route 68. Me and Barry came out of the Wellington pub at Waterloo about 9.30 and stood at the northbound bus stop. As it was the last night most of the conductors had gone sick and the few buses that did turn up were already one man buses. After about an hour we were on the verge of giving up and getting the train back to Southampton (22.52 being the time of the 'down mails' , class 73 hauled travelling post office with a couple of passenger coaches on the back, our regular train home) when RM 2037 went past southbound. We legged it across the road and jumped on. It already had a few cranks on and it turned out this was going to be last one so we stayed on and ended up at Norwood Garage at 2am.

 

Six months later it turned up in Southampton. Southampton Citybus bought all Leyland engined examples as the rest of the fleet was Atlanteans so they had lots of experience with them. The RM's stayed here only until January 89. Me and Barry wrote to Citybus asking if it would be possible to have RM 2037 on the very last bus and surprisingly they did (they actually wrote back saying they couldn't guarantee it but I'm pretty sure it wasn't coincidence that it happened).

 

The last bus turned out to be an eight bus convoy. RM 820 & 2059 ran in front as duplicates, then 2037 as the last service bus followed by two preserved RM's a Southampton Regent V, oddly a Cardiff Regent V and one of Citybus's brand new dual purpose Olympians! We got back to the garage at about 8.30pm. Now most people who lived in Southampton just went home but me and Barry cadged a ride on RM2116 back to Tilbury Docks where it lived at the time just for the hell of it. Got there about 2am and Trevor dropped us off in Palmers Green in his Escort Huntsman to catch a night bus into town and get the first train home. That's a proper night out.

 

Anyway it was on this trip that Graham and Trevor convinced us Routemaster ownership was possible and not at all crazy. By the way, me and Barry were twenty at the time and niether of us could drive but two months later RM2037 was ours along with Ernie mentioned in the post above.

 

We had it for six years before we ran out of money (mainly because me and Barry had learnt to drive and kept spending our money on Austin 3-Litres) and we sold it to Reading Mainline who put it back in service for another five years. It then got sold back into preservation and I kept in touch with the owner. He was involved with Cobham museum and also owned a couple of RTs an RF and an AEC Matador. Then in 2006 he decided to emigrate and sell most of his buses and I managed to convince him that I would be the right person to sell me my own bus back to.

 

So back to some of the points above. Yes there are lots of RM's preserved. Partly this is because they survived so long that when LT started mass withdrawals lots of people who remebered them when they were younger were old enough to have enough disposable income to give it a go. Most buses of that era didn't last long enough for that to happen. And whilst a lot of older buses may have been more deserving you can't force someone to buy something that they don't want. If somebody wants an RM you can't force them to buy a Bristol RE.

 

 

The Triggers Broom thing. You say it like it's a bad thing. Of course a sixty year old bus will have had most of it changed. And the Routemasters were designed to have have stuff changed quickly. If an engine develops a problem it makes sense to swap the engine completely and get back on the road, then fix that engine and have it ready for another bus. And I know the overhaul system was rather extravagant and only London could afford it but it was bloody good while it lasted! Yes, technically it was ringing on a massive scale, my bus has carried the identity RM 2037 since 1984 though it carries body 1980 and A and B frames 1981 so technically it's RM 1980.5 but I can't put ALD980.5B on the number plate.

 

BUT! The real reason they've lasted is their aluminium frames. The Triggers Broom concept is all well and good but you have to have something to bolt the bits back on to. Most other buses have aluminium panels screwed onto steel or wooden frames. I really admire people who take these on. There's several buses in our yard where people have removed panels and the found there's nothing underneath to bolt them back onto. I've taken panels off my bus and what's underneath still looks brand new.

 

So I like lots of other buses but I'd never be brave enough to take one on. And I'm too lazy for all the problems that will inevitably arise. Plus of course I helped shape my own bus's history so to me it's not just another RM even if all the other RM's at rallies are.

 

 

Oh and by the way, I couldn't agree more about BMMO D9s.

[Felly Magic]

Anywhere else, the RMs would have been gone in the 1970s, but LT were allowed to spend taxpayers money without a care, a relative was a fitter from the 70s-90s, and he told me about how they would waste cash, and the DMS suffered from 'not invented here' syndrome, and simple things like gearbox filters weren't changed often enough, with expensive consequences. TfL are still carrying on the attitude from the 70s of wasting public money, with wasteful buses that are about as much use as a chocolate teapot, the Borismaster is turning out to be a real disasterwagon, with the hybrid drive failing, and yet more reports of DAF wide open throttle failures, yet another clip has surfaced of one out of control hitting vehicles, but TfL keep trying to sweep these faults under the carpet, plus MPG isn't much better than a Trident, and they will end up clogging up yards very soon when dealers cannot sell them, as unlike most buses, you cannot easily provincialise them with a quick single door conversion. LT's practice at Chiswick & Aldenham would now be highly illegal, and every bus would have to leave bearing a Q plate, I'd love this to be retrograde applied. I've experienced working with Fiat repowered examples, and talk about a lash up conversion, the only way to shut em off was turning the fuel tap under the bonnet, and the steering shake on all 5 above 25 mph was alarming, heaters left a lot to be desired too. When it came to disposal, no bugger wanted them back then, the market was saturated, all 5 failed to sell at ADT, and it took months to sell em all, 3 ended up overseas, and I did feel sorry for the poor sods who bought them as they were FUBAR