For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 29/02/2020 at 15:09, Gwiwer said:

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

I found this on Google.

Its not the same, its normal control but is otherwise very similar.

 

5 hours ago, PatB said:

Bit of a roundabout route, but if you can pin down a reasonably accurate location you might be able to use the NLS map archive to check when the area was developed to narrow down the date. 

I had a quick look at Google Maps and the bus might be climbing out of Overcombe on what is now Bowleaze Coveway, although I could be entirely wrong. 

 

 

I don't know the road names. But the chara is on the bit of road that climbs up to Preston after doing about 1.5 miles along the coast eastwards from Weymouth. It's a much better route into Weymouth than going via Dorchester if coming from the east / north-east.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Driving up the A49 last Tuesday on my way to Wellington, I spotted an interesting looking bus in the garden of a former level crossing cottage. Difficult to stop there (because of the level crossing) but I think it is a Midland Red type. The thing that I could see was a Foden badge, not a chassis/engine manufacturer that I associate with buses.

 

I am going to Shrewsbury again this Tuesday so will try to stop and get a pic.

[J. S. Bach]

15 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 ...snip... I was amused to see this rather lost looking exhibit attached to the wall there though, given everything else being of US origin..........

This wayward wanderer ended up in my collection of US bus stop (and other signs, note the shy interstates trying to hide) signs:

I actually found the exact location that it was from via Google Earth, it looks to be a busy place. My only other UK transit artifact is a rollsign from a London area bus; again, odd, as the rest of my hoard collection is all US.

Edited March 1, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[Gwiwer]

27 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

The thing that I could see was a Foden badge, not a chassis/engine manufacturer that I associate with buses.

 

They never built many bus chassis.  Their final venture was the Foden-NC truck-derived chassis intended for double-deck bodies.  Just seven were completed and of those six received Northern Counties bodies and the seventh East Lancs.  A very few more were incomplete and abandoned.  

Edited March 1, 2020 by Gwiwer

[dpgibbons]

 

10 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

It looks like a Guy FBB. Note the solid tyres and toastrack seating.

 

Thanks. A little googling suggests you are right, which would date the picture sometime after 1927, and perhaps the late 1930s when the Riviera Hotel opened at Bowleaze Cove. I can't find any images of an FBB with toastrack seating, but earlier Guy coaches with this arrangement as illustrated in PhilJ's post were employed nearby at Bournemouth.

[PhilJ W]

The FBB was made from 1922 to 1930. It was a normal control chassis but some may have been converted to forward control. The solid tyres and lack of front wheel brakes would have meant withdrawal by 1932 at the latest.

 

[runs as required]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

They never built many bus chassis.  Their final venture was the Foden-NC truck-derived chassis intended for double-deck bodies.  Just seven were completed and of those six received Northern Counties bodies and the seventh East Lancs.  A very few more were incomplete and abandoned.  

Are they all pictured here ? 

The PSV Fodens I remember most vividly were the (sometimes) rear engined 2 stroke supercharged ones that had weird bodies built like the Bulleid DD Dartford units. You could hear one coming half a mile away!

dh

Edited March 2, 2020 by runs as required

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, runs as required said:

Are they all pictured here ? 

The PSV Fodens I remember most vividly were the (sometimes) rear engined 2 stroke supercharged ones that had weird bodies built like the Bulleid DD Dartford units. You could hear one coming half a mile away!

dh

 

Some truly amazing bodywork on buses on that link!

[Johann Marsbar]

Purely by chance, I did get a photo of the GM Foden back in 1981. Didn't actually notice it was the Foden until I got the slides back from Kodak!

 

 

The Waest Midlands one, from memory, ended up with an operator near Bury St Edmunds, and I have a photo of that somewhere as well.

[SRman]

2 hours ago, runs as required said:

Are they all pictured here ? 

The PSV Fodens I remember most vividly were the (sometimes) rear engined 2 stroke supercharged ones that had weird bodies built like the Bulleid DD Dartford units. You could hear one coming half a mile away!

dh

The Crellin-Duplex bodies, mostly built by Mann Egerton.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I remember travelling over to Warrington to sample proper Foden buses!

 

 

Mike.

[Johann Marsbar]

This Foden coach (ex Bullocks of Cheadle) was at the former RAF Burtonwood in the late 70's/early 80's as part of the North West Museum of Transport project. The intention was to set up a Museum there, but they eventually ended up at St Helens instead, in the old Corporation Bus depot.

Vehicles were kept in one of the old hangars, though there was still some flying activity at the site at the time as can be seen from the ATC gliders in the background!

 

There wasn't a lot of light in there for photos......

 

[Johann Marsbar]

At the risk of this becoming a Foden bus thread, I found I have a photo I took of the Derby one at their depot open day in 1984...

 

 

and this coach survived in the weeds at Fosdikes of Bramfields yard in Halesworth well into the 1980's. Don't think it made it into preservation when the yard was eventually cleared though.

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Looking through the link posted by Runs as Required I found this oddity >>

Its possibly a K8 but the wheels suggest a heavier chassis. Also note the full length sliding door on the offside.

[PhilJ W]

36 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Looking through the link posted by Runs as Required I found this oddity >>

Its possibly a K8 but the wheels suggest a heavier chassis. Also note the full length sliding door on the offside.

It is an Austin K8. It was built in 1950 for Armstrong-Whitworth (later Hawker-Siddeley) for their aircraft factory at Baginton for transfering staff airside, hence the offside door. The body type is FC18F builder unknown. It was sold on to Aston's of Coventry in the 1960's.

Edited March 2, 2020 by PhilJ W

[leopardml2341]

There's also this one (the seventh).....

 

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by leopardml2341

[Gwiwer]

I took very few pictures of buses as I seldom found them an inspiring subject.  The cost of film prevented me amassing a wealth of record shots.  Back in '78 I was using a second-hand Halina Paulette 35mm and hadn't mastered the need for slow shutter speeds in lower light.  Most of what I took is only fit for the bin.  

 

But I did manage one of an uncommon Bristol RESL6L in the Southdown fleet with Marshall Camagna body and semi-automatic gearbox.  484 was one of I think 15 of these in a fleet where most saloons of the time had manual transmission and the other RESLs in the fleet were loathed by drivers for their ponderous changes and double de-clutching required.  The Camagnas were sprightly and generally well liked.  484 is in Arundel on its way to a village which always gave local schoolboys a giggle.  

 

Also in 1978 I took the camera to Kingston knowing that the last RFs hadn't long to live and captured RF507 at the Scilly Isles roundabout on a short 218 working from Kingston to Esher 

 

[pH]

55 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I took very few pictures of buses as I seldom found them an inspiring subject.  The cost of film prevented me amassing a wealth of record shots.  Back in '78 I was using a second-hand Halina Paulette 35mm and hadn't mastered the need for slow shutter speeds in lower light.  Most of what I took is only fit for the bin.  

 

 

Rick, if you still have negatives and a scanner, try scanning them and playing with the scans in some photoediting software. The results can be surprising. I've managed to produce acceptable results from negatives from which prints were never made because they looked so bad. I was using only black and white film, though. You appear to have been using at least some colour - I don't know how that would clean up.

[Busmansholiday]

On 19/02/2020 at 08:58, Owd Bob said:

A few recent finds of mine which i'm just transferring  from a 3 foot tall pile of of cds' onto my laptop. All taken at the classic shows and rallies over the past 20 years or so. Not proper old 'back in the day' pics' i know, but they maybe of use. 

 

 

Passed my PSV licence on 874 back in early 1978 when I was invoved in the group that owned it. We also took it to the Southsea Spectacular ralley and toured Scotland for a weeks holiday on it that year. Not the quickest way to get there at 37mph.

 

 

[runs as required]

I used to love that universally vilified People’s Republic of S Yorks PTE.

Looked at now it was the one with the conservationist forward looking policies - and not the mainstream privatisers.

 

I still remember the squirm of comfort descending from the bogs of Bleaklow on a winter Sunday down the Derwent reservoirs to  the comforting sight of a Weyman bodied Regent with its open platform waiting all lit-up at the lonely  terminus  by the dam

[leopardml2341]

40 minutes ago, runs as required said:

I used to love that universally vilified People’s Republic of S Yorks PTE.

Looked at now it was the one with the conservationist forward looking policies - and not the mainstream privatisers.

 

Also a leader in technology:

 

 

Bear in mind this was 1975.....

 

And it was based on 'caring for the people' rather than ticking a political box

Edited March 3, 2020 by leopardml2341

[Johann Marsbar]

28 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

 

Also a leader in technology:

 

Bear in mind this was 1975.....

 

And it was based on 'caring for the people' rather than ticking a political box

 

And don't forget these......

 

 

 

...but obviously not taken in Sheffield!

 

.

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, leopardml2341 said:

 

Also a leader in technology:

 

 

Bear in mind this was 1975.....

 

And it was based on 'caring for the people' rather than ticking a political box

 

You could have photoshopped out the obscene four letter word on the right of the photo.

 

Mike.

[Busmansholiday]

5 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

You could have photoshopped out the obscene four letter word on the right of the photo.

Ha ha, "This City is Blue...."

 

Keep smiling Mike, I have this awful feeling we have met many times in the past......

[Gwiwer]

22 hours ago, pH said:

 

Rick, if you still have negatives and a scanner, try scanning them and playing with the scans in some photoediting software. The results can be surprising. I've managed to produce acceptable results from negatives from which prints were never made because they looked so bad. I was using only black and white film, though. You appear to have been using at least some colour - I don't know how that would clean up.

 

I have always used slide film for colour.  I do have some old monochrome negatives but from 126 Instamatic cameras and a plastic box 120 with plastic lens which amounted to a toy.  I have Gimp available which is a Photoshop equivalent though most images which would be helped by that clean sufficiently with the Mac's own "Photos" software.  It is image sharpness as much as anything which prevents them looking any good and that is entirely down to the photographer not (at the time) having learned enough about exposure and having insufficient control on even the early 35mm to compensate for poor light.