For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[alastairq]

49 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

A car was embedded in the back of the bus but my dad had never felt a thing. 

Easily done in those days.

I've had a few rear-enders in buses in my time...on every occasion I had to be 'told'....

 

Last one was when I'd stopped near a rural bus stop, in one of EYMS' long Volvo deckers that we got, for operating their Classic Line branded 121 service in the 1990's....young lad had borrowed Dad's Sierra estate [nearly new too]...and roundly driven up the bus's backside.  Told the attending Police Officer he reckoned I shouldn't have been stopped!! I had come across a parked car, and was  giving way to oncoming traffic before pulling out to pass it....Young lad reckoned I shouldn't have stopped there, because the bus stop was further on!!  Needless to say, he got a Constabularial lecture....and EYMS claimed several grand for a new set of engine oil lines......a precaution really, it wasn't dripping oil, and was driven onwards, as damage was but a lightly dinged rear panel.....Sierra, it turned out, was written off...floorpan rippled, which seemed to be a common problem with them?

 

Somehow, large red double decker buses became invisible to all but intending passengers.  Even had pedestrians crossing the road, walk slap bang into the side of my bus....when I wasn't moving, of course....never actually ever 'hit' anyone walking, with a moving bus.....but more than once, had runner literally run slap bang into the side of my bus when stopped.....Oddly, it always seemed to be the bus's fault for being there, when one 'attended' and helped them to their feet?  Also often essential to immediately grab half a dozen witnesses, as a self righteous pedestrian is very convincing when questioned.....making out the bus tried to run them over?  Of course, everybody would believe the pedestrian first......Vital to protect one's corner in such instances....harsh though it may seem at first? Long before the days of CCTV, too.  That was [and still is] important...grab eyewitnesses [who don't actually have to have seen the actual incident, but can verify what one's vehicle was doing at the time?]....and take photos....always carried a small disposable camera in my lunchbag.

[Mike_Walker]

An old friend of mine once told me of how he was driving an Alder Valley FLF along the Farnham Road in Slough.  Having pulled up at a stop, his Clippie sought his assistance with persuading a passenger on the lower deck to desist from smoking.  Job done, he was just about to return to the cab when there was a pronounced thump at the rear of the bus - a car had driven straight into it.  The driver then accused my friend of reversing into him!  My friend gave him a stare worthy of Paddington Bear and pointed out that: "The engine is off, it is in neutral, the handbrake is on and I wasn't even in the cab".  After the usual pleasantries had been exchanged, he went back to his cab, pausing only to enquire: "How do you stop your car if there's no bus about?"

 

Another friend currently drives the Oxford Tube - or does when it's operating. A couple of years ago he tells me they had an incident with a pedestrian. In a similar fashion to Alastairq's story above, a jogger ran straight out a park into the side of one of their vehicles whilst it was making a pick up so hard he knocked himself out!  After he came to, it was agreed by all parties, including the attending police officers, that the Tube had done him a favour. If it hadn't been there the jogger would probably go straight into the busy road and been mown down.

[great central]

6 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

An old friend of mine once told me of how he was driving an Alder Valley FLF along the Farnham Road in Slough.  Having pulled up at a stop, his Clippie sought his assistance with persuading a passenger on the lower deck to desist from smoking.  Job done, he was just about to return to the cab when there was a pronounced thump at the rear of the bus - a car had driven straight into it.  The driver then accused my friend of reversing into him!  My friend gave him a stare worthy of Paddington Bear and pointed out that: "The engine is off, it is in neutral, the handbrake is on and I wasn't even in the cab".  After the usual pleasantries had been exchanged, he went back to his cab, pausing only to enquire: "How do you stop your car if there's no bus about?"

 

Another friend currently drives the Oxford Tube - or does when it's operating. A couple of years ago he tells me they had an incident with a pedestrian. In a similar fashion to Alastairq's story above, a jogger ran straight out a park into the side of one of their vehicles whilst it was making a pick up so hard he knocked himself out!  After he came to, it was agreed by all parties, including the attending police officers, that the Tube had done him a favour. If it hadn't been there the jogger would probably go straight into the busy road and been mown down.

 

What is it with joggers? I nearly had one  for a hood ornament this morning on my way to work.

Perfectly adequate pavement yet trotting along in the gutter of a semi, not that well lit, rural road. Dressed all in grey at around 05.45, just saw a shadow before he came into my headlights!!

[leopardml2341]

A good few years ago I was doing some p/t driving and had just dropped off some coach trippers at the excursion bay in Bolton Bus Station (the first two bays on the 'runway') just off the main road. Often car drivers would pull into those bays to collect their returning families etc,. despite there being the 'No Entry Except Buses' signage.

 

Being acutely aware of this I went 'round the back' to check before I reversed slightly to pull out around the bus now stopped in from of me.

 

All clear, went back to drivers seat engage reverse and CRASH much to both my consternation and the passengers still on board (though I was soon to find out the cause of their surprise).

 

I had not, as feared, reversed into a newly illegally arrived car; in my blind area, a car had stopped for a pedestrian crossing on the main road and a second had ploughed into the back of that just as I had completed my reverse manoeuvre of about six feet - Phew!

Edited January 22, 2021 by leopardml2341

[Gwiwer]

18 hours ago, John M Upton said:

The TN series Titan which, despite high hopes for big sales by Leyland only ever really sold to LT (Reading, WMPTE and I think one or two others did take a few as well, many of which eventually wound up with LT themselves!) and was more a double deck Leyland National than anything else.

I had always thought it was developed as the "double-deck National" and with high hopes of sales to the NBC.  NBC however was fully committed to the far cheaper and mechanically simpler Bristol VRT which entered all bar one of their fleets and often in significant numbers.  That decision was probably justified when one looks at the longevity of the VRT against the TN-series Titan.  

 

I first encountered London Titans out of Hornchurch (RD) garage which was pretty much Day One.  They looked, sounded and felt like a new generation of bus after the DMS / SMS / MBS years.  They rode well (allowing for London road conditions) and had pleasing rounded corners unlike some "boxy" designs which followed including the Metrobus.  They shifted.  Even the bright yellow interior panelling was OK though perhaps a paler shade might have been easier on the eyes after a night on the turps!  I liked them a lot.  I managed a few rides on the Reading ones too and eventually on the former West Midlands ones after they came to London.  

 

Their relatively short lives reflected perhaps the strife amid which they were born and the turning of heads to other suppliers.  The rest is history.  

[laurenceb]

One of our local operators ( Midland Classic ) paints their buses yellow and run on dipped headlights all day, That dosen't stop car drivers running into them

[Johann Marsbar]

On the equivalent Sunday to this 40 years ago today, Ipswich Borough Transport arranged a line up of their 3 all-over advert carrying Leyland Atlanteans for a photo session for local enthusiasts......

 

 

All of those adverts were hand painted - No vinyl wrap round ones back then!

 

After attending the photo session, some of us headed off to move a preserved trolleybus from storage at Ransomes Nacton Works to a new storage location.....

 

 

Note the concrete piers for the Orwell Bridge  under construction as part of the new southern bypass (todays A14) visible in the background, as well as the long demolished Cliff Quay power station.

Trolleybus 105 was fully restored to operating condition in the last 10 years which required the manufacture by one of our members of a full set of new wooden "utility" style bus seats.

 

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

On the equivalent Sunday to this 40 years ago today, Ipswich Borough Transport arranged a line up of their 3 all-over advert carrying Leyland Atlanteans for a photo session for local enthusiasts......

 

 

All of those adverts were hand painted - No vinyl wrap round ones back then!

 

After attending the photo session, some of us headed off to move a preserved trolleybus from storage at Ransomes Nacton Works to a new storage location.....

 

 

Note the concrete piers for the Orwell Bridge  under construction as part of the new southern bypass (todays A14) visible in the background, as well as the long demolished Cliff Quay power station.

Trolleybus 105 was fully restored to operating condition in the last 10 years which required the manufacture by one of our members of a full set of new wooden "utility" style bus seats.

 

Where is 105 now please? Also note that the tow truck is a Commer TS3 two-stroke.

[Johann Marsbar]

50 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Where is 105 now please? Also note that the tow truck is a Commer TS3 two-stroke.

 

It's on display in the Ipswich Transport Museum. When it was restored in 2014, it did spend some time that summer at the EATM in Carlton Colville where it was able to be operated, as shown in Nick Abbotts film on YouTube....

 

 

 

Ipswich Railless/Shorts trolleybus No.2, dating from 1923, was also taken up there from the ITM for one particular special event and this is shown in the video as well. That vehicle spent 40+ years as a home, being rescued for preservation in the mid 1970's. It was basically a shell, but the bodywork was rebuilt in the early 1980's and the interior was fitted out in the early 2000's, though it still lacks any electrical gear, so cannot operate.

To show its condition in 1980, have a look at this photo from when we were raising funds to restore it....

 

 

At that stage (1980) it was believed to be the oldest complete - i.e. Body & Chassis - trolleybus surviving anywhere, but there is a 1922 Packard-Brill one being restored at the Halton Radial Railway Museum in Ontario, Canada. There is a 1915 Bradford trolleybus somewhere and the Baltimore Streetcar Museum have a 1922 Brill, but both of those lack their chassis as far as I am aware.

 

The Commer TS3 tow truck that we were using at the time (late '70s/early 80's) was originally a tractor unit from the Cranfield Bros. fleet, though the original registration number was not known. It ended up going for scrap as the bodywork had rotted very badly, which is a shame, as, with the benefit of hindsight, it was a historically significant local vehicle, .

We already had a Commer 2-stroke in the collection, a 1970 flatbed from Green & Skinner in very good condition, so that type is still represented and on display at the Museum.

 

As a bonus, the former TTC Packard-Brill trolleybus at Halton is shown on the left of this 2005 photo I took when I visited that museum. It looked like a motorbus as the electrical gear was placed under the bonnet.....

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Johann Marsbar
Bonus Photo!

[PhilJ W]

I hope to visit the museum later this year if it is open. I have attended the Ipswich transport and modelling festival several times. It was of course cancelled last year, any news of this years?

[Johann Marsbar]

2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I hope to visit the museum later this year if it is open. I have attended the Ipswich transport and modelling festival several times. It was of course cancelled last year, any news of this years?

I wouldn't hold out any hope of the Transport & Model Festival taking place this year either, given that they take some time to organise.  Obviously the place is completely closed at the moment, so no work has been able to be undertaken by the volunteers to prepare for any 2021 openings as yet, and this would normally be well underway by now.

As for all other venues, we will just have to see how long the current restrictions last.......

[PhilJ W]

I didn't expect the festival to run this year anyway for the reasons you stated but I asked the question just in case. Last year I was planning a coach trip using a vintage coach but of course that was stopped by covid. Hopefully things will be OK next year.

[BrushVeteran]

On 22/01/2021 at 17:16, Gwiwer said:

I had always thought it was developed as the "double-deck National" and with high hopes of sales to the NBC.  NBC however was fully committed to the far cheaper and mechanically simpler Bristol VRT which entered all bar one of their fleets and often in significant numbers.  That decision was probably justified when one looks at the longevity of the VRT against the TN-series Titan.  

 

I first encountered London Titans out of Hornchurch (RD) garage which was pretty much Day One.  They looked, sounded and felt like a new generation of bus after the DMS / SMS / MBS years.  They rode well (allowing for London road conditions) and had pleasing rounded corners unlike some "boxy" designs which followed including the Metrobus.  They shifted.  Even the bright yellow interior panelling was OK though perhaps a paler shade might have been easier on the eyes after a night on the turps!  I liked them a lot.  I managed a few rides on the Reading ones too and eventually on the former West Midlands ones after they came to London.  

 

Their relatively short lives reflected perhaps the strife amid which they were born and the turning of heads to other suppliers.  The rest is history.  

Whilst at Oxford Bus Company I bought 25 redundant LT Titans direct from London Buses in 1993 to replace a similar number of  late Bristol VRT's which were showing signs of fatigue and certain spares were becoming difficult to obtain. The Titan was undoubtedly a well constructed and designed bus built like a battleship and we kept most of them seven years, running alongside similar ECW bodied Olympians which also served the Company well. When I sold them they all went on to operate for another ten years or so with their next operators. I'm afraid the modern low-floor buses wont fair so well, inferior lighter steel and built in obsolescence of electronics reducing their operational life.

 

[Rugd1022]

Lord lummy, it ain't arf another load of old buses from London town....

 

 

 

 

[Clive Mortimore]

4 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

It's on display in the Ipswich Transport Museum. When it was restored in 2014, it did spend some time that summer at the EATM in Carlton Colville where it was able to be operated, as shown in Nick Abbotts film on YouTube....

 

 

 

Ipswich Railless/Shorts trolleybus No.2, dating from 1923, was also taken up there from the ITM for one particular special event and this is shown in the video as well. That vehicle spent 40+ years as a home, being rescued for preservation in the mid 1970's. It was basically a shell, but the bodywork was rebuilt in the early 1980's and the interior was fitted out in the early 2000's, though it still lacks any electrical gear, so cannot operate.

To show its condition in 1980, have a look at this photo from when we were raising funds to restore it....

 

 

At that stage (1980) it was believed to be the oldest complete - i.e. Body & Chassis - trolleybus surviving anywhere, but there is a 1922 Packard-Brill one being restored at the Halton Radial Railway Museum in Ontario, Canada. There is a 1915 Bradford trolleybus somewhere and the Baltimore Streetcar Museum have a 1922 Brill, but both of those lack their chassis as far as I am aware.

 

The Commer TS3 tow truck that we were using at the time (late '70s/early 80's) was originally a tractor unit from the Cranfield Bros. fleet, though the original registration number was not known. It ended up going for scrap as the bodywork had rotted very badly, which is a shame, as, with the benefit of hindsight, it was a historically significant local vehicle, .

We already had a Commer 2-stroke in the collection, a 1970 flatbed from Green & Skinner in very good condition, so that type is still represented and on display at the Museum.

 

As a bonus, the former TTC Packard-Brill trolleybus at Halton is shown on the left of this 2005 photo I took when I visited that museum. It looked like a motorbus as the electrical gear was placed under the bonnet.....

 

 

When I lived in Ipswich in the early 70s the green ones (Ipswich) were trolleys and the red ones (Eastern Counties) were buses despite there being no more trolley buses.

[Johann Marsbar]

5 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

When I lived in Ipswich in the early 70s the green ones (Ipswich) were trolleys and the red ones (Eastern Counties) were buses despite there being no more trolley buses.

 

I can remember some Elderly people still refering to the ICT buses as "Trams" in the 1970's/80's !   When the trolleybuses were introduced in the 1920's the "Trackless Tram" description was used here for several years before the word "Trolleybus" became the accepted form.

The three remaining trolleybus routes in Philadelphia, USA, are still officially described as "Trackless Trolleys" on their website/publicity leaflets today.

[Oldddudders]

The pic of the Fulwell depot trolley line is a killer. I was lucky enough to use the trolleys occasionally, using a Red Rover or even a Twin Rover, maybe. Aunt Ethel lived in Cricklewood, where there were plenty to be seen. I am sure that in January 1961, so 60 years ago, my classmate Michael Edward Vernon White and I travelled on the 660 all the way from Hammersmith to North Finchley and back. Earlier in the day we had lurked at Kingston garage and CRL4 came past on the 716A. It was like seeing royalty!

[chrisf]

I used to live in Acton and used the 660 or 666 to travel to and from school in Hammersmith.  One of my friends lived just the other side of the Shepperton branch from Fulwell depot.

 

Chris

[Rugd1022]

More of Fullwell Depot's finest....

 

 

 

 

The very last run about to depart....

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Rugd1022

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 ...snip... The three remaining trolleybus routes in Philadelphia, USA, are still officially described as "Trackless Trolleys" on their website/publicity leaflets today.

The first pull-outs when the rebuilt Philly trackless lines re-opened:

 

 

The 66 went out first.

 

[Johann Marsbar]

14 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

The first pull-outs when the rebuilt Philly trackless lines re-opened:

 

 

The 66 went out first.

 

 

I did manage to get a ride on the former 79 trackless trolley in south Philadelphia on my first visit to the place back in 2003......

 

 

They appear to have finished operating on that route 3 months after my visit, so I just timed that right!

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Johann Marsbar

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Rugd1022 said:

More of Fullwell Depot's finest....

My local.  Tram tracks and cobbles are still there.  Some trolley poles too but no overhead.  They do have hybrid buses though so some once again enter and leave on electric power.  These days it's two garages split part-way down the sheds with different operators front and back.  It's still FW at the front for London United but Abellio use AB (re-cycling the old Twickenham code) at the back but which in official documents is TF (Twickenham Fulwell).  

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

I did manage to get a ride on the former 79 trackless trolley in south Philadelphia on my first visit to the place back in 2003......

 

 

They appear to have finished operating on that route 3 months after my visit, so I just timed that right!

 

 

Route 66 in an older time, pre-SEPTA; Philadelphia Transit Company (PTC) Marmon-Harringtons outbound to City Line Avenue somewhere on Frankford Ave.:

 

And at City Line Ave loop:

 

A side sign from one of the Flyers (the type in Johann's photo) that I bought from SEPTA at their "gift shop" in the lobby at 1234 Market Street:

The red slash indicates a cutback.

 

 

They also had signs from the Kawasaki LRVs available when they replaced the rollsigns with electronic signs:

Note the green Hughes Park one is from a Norristown car and available for the same reason.

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by J. S. Bach
To correct some information.

[Johann Marsbar]

9 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

 

Route 66 in an older time, pre-SEPTA; Philadelphia Transit Company (PTC) Marmon-Harringtons outbound to City Line Avenue somewhere on Frankford Ave.:

 

I did notice the last time I was in Philly (2014) that they had dropped calling the outer terminal "City Line" and were now showing "Frankford/Knights Ave" which rather threw me, not knowing where Knights Ave is!

It still is shown on their route map as "City Line Loop" though - Wonder if they have changed the lettering on the bus shelter?

 

 

One of the circular trips I've done on past visits to Philly is M-F Elevated to Frankford Terminal, Route 66 trackless to City line, local bus to Bristol station and then a SEPTA EMU back to Center City.

 

 

[Rugd1022]