Bus Shite

[cms206]

Fair play Yoss man! I can see your points but I just hate the sodding things. Still, it'd be a boring world if we all liked the same things and 2037 means something to you so alls the better.

 

I had about 13 buses at one point, bought my first at 18. Never again.

 

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[CreepingJesus]

What was that rare one you stuck on FB recently Andy? I lost a good few hours looking it up...!

[cobblers]

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...

 

That was bloody fantastic to watch, I never realised the scale of the operation.

[Yoss]

Hello Felly. Not a fan then? I can't quite tell as you seem to be sitting on the fence a bit.

 

Never mind, each to their own and all that. But I have to pick you up on a couple of points. Firstly trying to pick faults in a design based on some abused refurbs doesn't really hold water. The Ivecos were widely regarded as the worst of the re engined RM's, so the worst of a bad bunch. Steering shake? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I tend to cruise at about 40mph and it creeps up towards 45 if I'm not paying attention and I have no steering shake. I've driven a few others, all original unrefurbished buses with AEC or Leyland engines and never experienced it. I know the high speed Routemasters had a damper fitted to the steering column but as they used to run at 65mph that seems only sensible. I suggest next time you try getting your wheels balanced.

 

Heaters? Mine is brilliant. So good in fact that I can't turn it off. There is a slidey knob that says hot and cold but it just comes out hot wherever you put it. Not really a problem on an open platform bus with opening windows. Better that than the other way around.

 

And I'm not sure why we're bringing Boris Buses into the argument. They are nothing to do with real RM's. But whilst we're on the subject. They are purely political machines. When Ken was mayor, firstly he started buying back proper Routemasters with the famous 'only a dehumanised moron would get rid of Routemasters' speech then very suddenly changed his mind (with a bit of a push from Peter Hendy) and started getting rid of them. Boris saw an opportunity here and promised to build a 'new Routemaster'. It worked, Boris won, so then he had to go ahead with it. Though what we got isn't what the people voted for. Most, and now all, were run without conductors and the platform doors shut which was the reason people wanted them.

 

But anyway that's not the issue here. Have a look at this picture.

Two buses that to the untrained eye look very similar. Both from 1964, both have the classic AEC grille, both roughly the same shape. But I can't stress enough how different they are under the skin. There's one of the Southampton Regents being slowly restored in the yard and I take my hat off to the guys but there's not much of it left under the panels. The floor is simply a bit of plywood over a steel frame with a thin sheet of the flooring material stuck on top. There wasn't much of either left. Both the steel and plywood had rotted away. The Routemaster has an aluminium floor on an aluminium frame with a much thicker Treadmaster flooring stuck on top all of which will outlive all of us. A Routemaster has no separate chassis but an immensely strong aluminium framed body. Most of you will know this, I'm just adding it for the casual observers here who don't. THIS, and again, can't say this enough, is why there are so many left.

 

Then there's maintenance. Look again at the picture. It's not the best angle for the Regent but the RM bonnet is a lot bigger, comes a lot further down. Not only that, the whole grille and wing come off with just five bolts and a plug for the lights. The bonnet needs the removal of two split pins. And they're all fibreglass so even the wing is light enough to be removed by me on my own. It just hangs off the front bulkhead which is possible because of the immensely strong aluminium body.

 

The Regent has a small side opening bonnet. Access is much poorer and I've no idea how you get the engine out because it won't fit through that hole.

 

Aaahh, Aldenham **wistful sigh**

 

That's a great film. Despite what Felly says it's a real shame we lost that. It's a massive factory that made buses better, what's not to like, unless it's not your buses it's making better of course. So it cost a lot of money. So what. The government waste millions of pounds on everything they do every day, at least this was doing something good. And though you don't like it London will always have loads more money to spend on transport, Crossrail, Crossrail 2, Thameslink etc...

 

And when I say massive, I found this picture I took of a scale model of the place at Acton depot.

Those little rectangular things you can barely see are buses to scale. Every Routemaster went through here every five years roughly and came out as a new bus (see above video) so for the first 25 years of their lives no RM was more than five years old. Not only that, it gave jobs to hundreds of people, and proper skilled jobs at that.

 

And also, if they had decided by the 1990s that they needed new engines then Aldenham and Chiswick would have tested them properly and made sure they worked with the rest of the bus and Felly wouldn't have had to deal with those shitty Ivecos.

 

I could go on but I need to go out.

[catsinthewelder]

While I'm not a big Routemaster fan I would love to see all of the countrys buses being built properly and then rebuilt in a facility like that.  That film shows what a properly civilised society can achieve rather than the shonkey shite we have to put up with in the 21st century.  I don't care which numberplate they bolt on afterwards.

[Pillock]

That video is amazing! Like you say Yoss, the amount of skill in those workers was incredible. 

 

And yes, it was huge. There's an entire industrial estate on the site now...

 

[Inspector Morose]

I remember the experimental department of LT did the early re-engine experiments on RMs. The original choice was, erm, interesting. Among the contenders were the DAF 1160, the Ashok Leyland 680 copy and a polish 680 copy along with the usual suspects from IVECO and Cummins. The one wonderful thing about the IVECO conversion was that the fuel pump was on the wrong side of the engine meaning that you couldn't get at the sodding img when in the bus. Quality*.

 

The FRM. Now there's an intriguing machine if there ever was one. Built using 60% of standard routemaster parts, it had some neat touches such as a totally seperate engine and transmission meaning no need to disturb one when removing the other. LTs engineers again chased their own personal holy grail of a combined heating and cooling system with this bus - the "radiators" we're at the rear of the bus, ducted and with hydraulic fans that could either blow hot air from them into the saloon or suck warm air from the saloon and out of the bus. Very clever and it definitely worked better than their other tries (RTC1, an experimental STL and one or two others) but LT went over confident and removed all opening windows on the bus. When it caught fire the fire brigade had to smash the windows to let smoke out. When rebuilt, hey presto, opening windows are back again!

The whole project was cancelled by AEC while FRM1 was being built and parts had been made for the second (for Sheffield). It was deduced that there was no market for what was a technologically advanced bus for its time, AEC learning from past experience (it must be remembered that the Routemaster was offered on the open market and only found one other buyer - Northern General who took 50 and even then built to a slightly reduced specification). The similar but low height AEC Bridgemaster was also too advanced for the market and found few buyers and was replaced by the far simpler Renown and so AEC pulled the plug on the project. Good it may have been but it wasn't what the market wanted, they wanted relatively simple machines like the re-engineered Atlantean PDR1/1 if they had to and secretly many a general manager still wanted Titans, Regents and the like.

The Fleetline by Daimler was still in competition with the Atlantean at the time and offered many advantages over the Leyland. It could be built to a low height, the driveline was better packaged (apart from the utterly hopeless trailing link) so component life was longer and it could be bought with a Gardner engine - the bus engineers friend.

 

All quite interesting and AEC definitely was quite the experimenter (side engined, front entrance double decker using an nine that rotated the other way round and built in 1932 anyone?) I've a lot of time for the products of Southall as they produced some very refined products but did make some complete howlers (AEC 505 - when it worked it was very very good but really did suffer from the old K series syndrome or the Regent iv that failed to find a single buyer). I digress.

 

Yoss, using your analogy shouldn't there should be a shed load of Alexander bodied buses preserved as they were built using aluminium frames. Of all the piss taking, I still wouldn't mind a rip in yours one day, just for comparison purposes you understand!

[Yoss]

Yes I remember the four re-engined prototypes and I remember being really disappointed when they didn't go with the Daf or Ashok. We decided they just picked the cheapest option (though how much could an Indian built Leyland be). This was just opinion, not based on any evidence but the eleven London Buses districts were on the verge of being privatised and the route tendering process had no quality control at the time and London Buses were losing routes to people like Boroline using ex Nottingham Atlanteans and Grey Green with elderly Ailsas so it's not unreasonable to assume they were going for the cheapest option. It was a very interesting time to be a bus enthusiast but it was doing nothing for the service.

 

The Daf bus still exists, RM 545, and it sounds fantastic. Not just louder than the Leyland but a really deep booming noise. Lovely.

 

I did not know that about Alexander buses but it makes sense what with them being built in Scotland. Steel frames wouldn't last five minutes up there. And as you say rather disproves my theory. In 2001 I was busless and getting the urge again. I found RM 2213 for sale in Glasgow. It was in an old bus garage in Bridgeton almost within sight of Celtic Park. That place was full of Scottish Alexander bodied stuff. Is it still there? Someone here must know.

[Inspector Morose]

Buses were far more interesting in the 80's and 90's. Even Routemasters

[cms206]

It does indeed Yoss, the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust; at the time I suspect it would still have been the Glasgow Bus Museum.

 

I still have no idea where the idea that steel frames don't last in Scotland comes from, it's neglect that kills things - the most rotten cars I ever owned spent their entire lives in Nottingham and Liverpool respectively. We ran Paramounts and Supremes for years and rot wasn't an issue on them either, even the Paramount we got from Shetland.

 

My earlier bus driving career was on a varied mix of Mercedes 709Ds, Dennis Dart SLFs, Volvo B10Ms and a solitary Optare Vecta-bodied MAN, though I did stints on other odds and sods (Varios, Solos, Metroriders, all manner of shite) before returning to private hire full time.

 

Stage carriage still appeals but I know how rare a 6-pot Mini Pointer Dart is to find now, and the likelyhood of bagging a 12 hour shift in a manual Merc 709D is virtually nil so...

 

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[Yoss]

Ha ha, sorry, pandering to stereotypes there. I'm sure it doesn't rain in Glasgow all the time, just when I go there.

[Yoss]

So these are some of the pictures I found from the Glasgow bus museum, though it wasn't like a museum, it was just a bus garage full of old buses. How I'd love somewhere like this. Not just for buses but a great place for old cars too.

 

I know I have more pictures but I can't find them at the moment. These are from when I went to view RM 2213 and I took more when I picked it up but as I've mentioned elsewhere I have no cataloguing system, I just know roughly what year they're from by the packets they're in.

 

 

Anyway you can probably tell me more about these than I can.

I know that's a Belfast RE, that's all.

 

Malta bus receiving treatment.

 

Portuguese AEC Regent. Very international feel to this place.

And that's the RM I bought.

 

Oh yeah, and this RM in Glasgow colours. It had DMS seat moquette too. No idea what happened to it or if it's still up there.

[CreepingJesus]

I remember the Y-types still being in service with Fife when I first moved here in 94. Well, Leopards in general: istr Dominants and Paramounts on the long runs too, well into the 90s, but I could be wrong about that. They all vanished about 97/98 finally when the fleet of Plaxton Volvos came in.

Mind you, the early Ailsa Volvos of theirs were still kicking about on P and R plates even then. Very leggy and careworn by then, but still mixing it with the 93 intake of Olympians.

Probably worth having a peek in Rennie's old yard at Wellwood to see if they're still lurking, they may well be. Their better stuff lives at the Cowdenbeath garage now.

[cms206]

So these are some of the pictures I found from the Glasgow bus museum, though it wasn't like a museum, it was just a bus garage full of old buses. How I'd love somewhere like this. Not just for buses but a great place for old cars too.

 

I know I have more pictures but I can't find them at the moment. These are from when I went to view RM 2213 and I took more when I picked it up but as I've mentioned elsewhere I have no cataloguing system, I just know roughly what year they're from by the packets they're in.

Bridgeton is a proper museum now doing sterling work - well worth a visit for their open days if you're in the area.

 

Anyway you can probably tell me more about these than I can.

IMG_20171126_091135.jpg

I know that's a Belfast RE, that's all.

Sure can - Western SMT KL2025 (CAG 440C... not sure what happened to thia), Western Scottish PL43 (GCS 43V, now scrapped), Midland Scottish MPE400 (RMS 400W, happily restored IIRC), Western SMT KL2466 (SCS 335M, still preserved), Alexander Northern NAC147 (NMS 358, still preserved), Fife Scottish FPE194 (RSC 194Y) and Ulsterbus 2386 (UOI 2386) which I was doing a deal for when the previous owner scrapped it. Bar the aforemention RE, all are Alexander bodied Leopards bar NMS 358 which is an Alexander-bodied, 470-powered Reliance.

 

Malta bus receiving treatment.

IMG_20171126_091204.jpg

Now registered 522 XUT and still resident at Bridgeton; it's the former DBY 333, a Barbara-bodied Fordson.

 

Portuguese AEC Regent. Very international feel to this place.

IMG_20171126_091403.jpg

IMG_20171126_091433.jpgIMG_20171126_091257.jpg

And that's the RM I bought.

The Portugese AEC was part of an idea to bring buses of the world together; there was a Irish Bombardier (KD70 IIRC), two Singapore NZMB-bodied Volvo B57s, the Maltese Ford and a few others from memory.

 

The red Bedford was an ex-Navy J2 from memory, FYS 999 is Glasgow D217, Glasgow's unique Alexander-bodied 30 foot Daimler CVG6-50 which is still a Bridgeton resident, FYS 10 is a Corporation-bodied AEC Matador wrecker. Just off stage is former Ian Glass Bedford VAS USS 416L which had been beautifully restored though like FYS 10 and the Bedford J2 vanished off the face of the planet.

 

I don't remember RM2213 as a resident; RM2121 certainly was but it's still resident in Scotland IIRC.

 

Oh yeah, and this RM in Glasgow colours. It had DMS seat moquette too. No idea what happened to it or if it's still up there.

IMG_20171126_091336.jpg

RM759 was not a happy bus from memory, pretty poor mechanically and beset with brake problems. It went "down south" but where it ended up I don't know.

 

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[cms206]

 

 

Bridgeton is a proper museum now doing sterling work - well worth a visit for their open days if you're in the area.

 

 

Sure can - Western SMT KL2025 (CAG 440C... not sure what happened to thia), Western Scottish PL43 (GCS 43V, now scrapped), Midland Scottish MPE400 (RMS 400W, happily restored IIRC), Western SMT KL2466 (SCS 335M, still preserved), Alexander Northern NAC147 (NMS 358, still preserved), Fife Scottish FPE194 (RSC 194Y) and Ulsterbus 2386 (UOI 2386) which I was doing a deal for when the previous owner scrapped it. Bar the aforemention RE, all are Alexander bodied Leopards bar NMS 358 which is an Alexander-bodied, 470-powered Reliance.

 

 

Now registered 522 XUT and still resident at Bridgeton; it's the former DBY 333, a Barbara-bodied Fordson.

 

 

The Portugese AEC was part of an idea to bring buses of the world together; there was a Irish Bombardier (KD70 IIRC), two Singapore NZMB-bodied Volvo B57s, the Maltese Ford and a few others from memory.

 

The red Bedford was an ex-Navy J2 from memory, FYS 999 is Glasgow D217, Glasgow's unique Alexander-bodied 30 foot Daimler CVG6-50 which is still a Bridgeton resident, FYS 10 is a Corporation-bodied AEC Matador wrecker. Just off stage is former Ian Glass Bedford VAS USS 416L which had been beautifully restored though like FYS 10 and the Bedford J2 vanished off the face of the planet.

 

I don't remember RM2213 as a resident; RM2121 certainly was but it's still resident in Scotland IIRC.

 

 

RM759 was not a happy bus from memory, pretty poor mechanically and beset with brake problems. It went "down south" but where it ended up I don't know.

 

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For some reason my replies didn't show on tapatalk... lets try again.

 

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[Yoss]

Yes RM 2121 was there when I took these (I know I have more pictures).

 

That wrecker looks great. The cab looks like the top deck of an Alexander body. I'd like one of those.

 

And a sarcastic thanks for the registration of the Malta bus. Now I can spend hours going through my Maltese pictures looking for it.

[Snipes]

Couple of older buses doing the rounds in Gravesend today. I missed the first one (no idea what it was other than having a suffix P-reg) but I hit this one at least.

[Inspector Morose]

TN Titan. An integral bus built by Leyland to try and "do a National" to their double deck offerings. Lovely things to drive.

[phil_lihp]

Thought you bus chaps might like this, posted to a Barnstaple history Facebook page.  No idea what it is to be honest, or what year the photo was taken but I'd guess mid-to-late 60s.  Looks good though.

 

[Bobthebeard]

Non bus question.

SAAB related.

My 2002 SAAB 9-5 has a brake related issue. When stomping on the brakes (as in braking suddenly) the pedal is hard and wooden feeling, brakes work but feel unassisted. After a second the servo kicks in and all is ok. Bit unnerving.

What could be the reason?

[Inspector Morose]

FLF Lodekka with Eastern Coachworks body. The first successful lowheight double decker with a normal layout upstairs. Before these (well the preceding model of Lodekka) the only way a lower height body was achievable was by the use of four abreast seating and a side, sunken gangway down one side of the bus upstairs. This was achieved by dropping the driveline down as far as it could go and using a drop centre rear axle. Very clever but not as barmy as the prototypes that had a split driveline with two propshafts running down either side of the bus driving its own angle drive on the rear axle. The "diff" was actually on the back of the gearbox at the front before the drive was split.

Have driven a couple of these and they are a fine, if pretty heavy, drive. The notable thing is that the steering column is quite angled towards you leading you to adopt quite a "relaxed" position to drive the things. Oh, and the steering wheel traps your legs if you're in a rush to get out of the cab. One of the ones I drove was a five speed manual where fifth was obtained by going down through fourth, across then back up a bit. If you missed fourth going back down the box there was no option but to stop the bus, wrestle the lever back to first then start again. For a young chap willing to have a shot at anything I could blag a drive on, it was one of the most demoralising yet rewarding driving challenges at the time. 

[Inspector Morose]

Saab issue - sounds like the rubbers in the servo are iffy and sticking to me.

[cms206]

TN Titan. An integral bus built by Leyland to try and "do a National" to their double deck offerings. Lovely things to drive.

Dave Fowler is a massive Titan fan...

 

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[Christine]

Ruthlessly stolen article from 1967 Leyland journal .. Dunsop Bridge..

 

click them to go big , and it should be readable? Charming story anyway  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[martc]

 the only way a lower height body was achievable was by the use of four abreast seating and a side, sunken gangway down one side of the bus upstairs. This was achieved by dropping the driveline down as far as it could go and using a drop centre rear axle. Very clever 

EYMS had at least one bus with this arrangement. As an (approx) 4 year old I can remember watching the struggles as a whole bench full of people had to get up to allow the window seat passenger off at their stop - it seemed to take twice as long to decant passengers as any other bus I'd been on.

 

Engineering wise it was a clever solution but for passengers it was a bit of a nightmare.

[Christine]

And another that might interest.... click to make them bigger  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Yoss]

A couple of random pics.

 

Thought I'd better go and put some anti freeze in the bus (Yes I know I should top it up with anti freeze mix all year but I get lazy and just top it up with water).

 

This the view as I arrive. Three generations of Southampton buses.

The RM and Regent are the same age but the RM only ran in Southampton from 87 to 89 so it ran alongside the Atlantean over the back. The green Dart is ex Xelabus, a local company that tends to do council tender work. No idea why someone would want to preserve it but it takes all sorts.

 

This is the tax and soon to be MOT exempt half of my fleet.

I've owned these two for 40 years between them.

 

Leyland O600 cold start up.

 

 

Off topic but the view from the cab when parked. Fancy a holiday in this?

[Guest Hooli]

Ideal for winter holidays that, the darker colour will absorb more heat from the sun...

[Felly Magic]

Is that a Pants & Corset Fluff in the background?

[Yoss]

Yes it is. On route 47 too, the best route.