For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, RANGERS said:

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

IMHO they should have gone with joining with National Express, who do like heritage vehicles and would've meant a much more sensible sale than to an investment group.

IIRC it had a lot to do with keeping Stagecoach's head office, instead of streamlining the management structure.

The reason the shareholders went the way they did was it paid them a substantial premium over the Nat Ex offer. From memory the Nat Ex deal gave them collectively about £450m in cash and shares, whereas the alternative DWS offer gave them about £600m in cash. The corporate and individual shareholders wouldn’t give two hoots about heritage buses, for them a 25% premium in their bank accounts was a no brainier.

Plus cash over shares any time.  

 

On a very much smaller scale, and for First not Stagecoach, we were royally shafted one year.  After learning that the Group was making a loss and that our part of the operation contributed significantly to that loss it was no surprise that there was a pay freeze.  The next year the union wouldn't be silenced on that score again.  As there was still no cash to pay us any more we were offered shares in lieu.  

 

I ended up with seven - seven - shares which was a very long way short of anything meaningful.  No voting rights, no worthwhile value at all.  When trading opened for our allocation they were virtually worthless.  In the end - after quite some time of costing the Group more to service umpteen miniscule shareholdings - they were bought back for the princely sum pf 5p.  

 

Good pay rise, that.  Not.  

[Busmansholiday]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

There are not too many of us left who have driven crashbox in service. 

Or even Bedford's infamous "Chinese Box" which was always entertaining if you "forgot" to tell your replacement driver the reverse layout and he hadn't driven that vehicle before.

The old days of not being able to feel or walk on your left leg after a shift with a manual 'box Leyland on stage service are all but gone.

[Enterprisingwestern]

11 hours ago, Busmansholiday said:

Or even Bedford's infamous "Chinese Box" which was always entertaining if you "forgot" to tell your replacement driver the reverse layout and he hadn't driven that vehicle before.

The old days of not being able to feel or walk on your left leg after a shift with a manual 'box Leyland on stage service are all but gone.

 

There's nothing to beat the fun of driving a crash box Regent III up and down Sheffield's hills, or so I'm told!

 

Mike.

[PhilJ W]

34 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

There's nothing to beat the fun of driving a crash box Regent III up and down Sheffield's hills, or so I'm told!

 

Mike.

My dad passed his PSV test c. 1962 in a prewar Bristol K5G. The instructor told him to stop on a 1 in 8 hill. He then placed a matchbox under the back wheel and then removed the tray. Then he asked my dad to pull away which he did. If the matchbox had been out of shape he would have failed.

[Busmansholiday]

11 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

There's nothing to beat the fun of driving a crash box Regent III up and down Sheffield's hills, or so I'm told!

 

Mike.

A crash box Reliance (SUT had two, 410/1) was fun on the BR (Midland Station to Tinsley MPD) or the Batchelor's contracts (broke 410 on the latter...).

[RANGERS]

48 minutes ago, Busmansholiday said:

A crash box Reliance (SUT had two, 410/1) was fun on the BR (Midland Station to Tinsley MPD) or the Batchelor's contracts (broke 410 on the latter...).

I quite liked the crash box Reliances, the gates were close together but they were a slick (clutchless) change once you got the feel for the revs and road speed. Those and the four speed manual Leopards beloved of the Scottish Bus Group must have been about the last crash box buses built, there were some R reg AECs and at least a handful of S reg Leopards.

 

Edit - Just been reminded that OGR625T, new to Weardale and built on a surplus SBG spec’ chassis, was probably the last registered in the UK

Edited November 22, 2022 by RANGERS

[Busmansholiday]

2 minutes ago, RANGERS said:

the four speed manual Leopards beloved of the Scottish Bus Group

A number of those ended up in South Yorkshire, I had the pleasure* of driving one of those regularly in stage service up and down some of the local hills. 

[BrushVeteran]

51 minutes ago, RANGERS said:

I quite liked the crash box Reliances, the gates were close together but they were a slick (clutchless) change once you got the feel for the revs and road speed. Those and the four speed manual Leopards beloved of the Scottish Bus Group must have been about the last crash box buses built, there were some R reg AECs and at least a handful of S reg Leopards.

 

Edit - Just been reminded that OGR625T, new to Weardale and built on a surplus SBG spec’ chassis, was probably the last registered in the UK

We 'borrowed' six of these at Oxford in June 1982 whilst our brand new B51 ECW Leopards were returned to Lowestoft for body strengthening. The gear linkages were all knackered as I found out whilst on a local service one evening................much to the amusement of my passengers listening to my expletives over the gearbox noise! Other than that thy were quite tidy and managed to race up and down to London when required.

[John M Upton]

Very much a quintessential everyday Scottish bus design which is sadly lacking in model form.

 

OO has the aging EFE tooling, N scale has nothing...

[PhilJ W]

More trams than trolleybuses but none the worse for that.

It also covers the early 60's, spot the Minivan towards the end.

[Johann Marsbar]

A nice, fairly obscure, event from 1989.......

 

 

The destination area on the W&D Lynx explains what it was all about and they were met with various levels of celebration at the places that they stayed overnight on their trip.

We managed to get the Sea Cadets band out for them in Ipswich.....

 

 

The following year, some of our staff took up the challenge and did something similar in one of our Bristol B21's, but I can't remember whether anyone continued after that.

We certainly did some special days for C in N and a few other Charities when a couple of AEC Regents (1950 & 1964) were put out into service for the day.

[Gwiwer]

3 minutes ago, Johann Marsbar said:

one of our Bristol B21's

Never a common vehicle.  Was Ipswich the only UK customer?  

 

Other rare birds were the Foden NC (seven completed, only two customers I believe), Bedford JJL (four completed, all eventually owned by Brighton Corporation), bus-bodied Dennis Falcon V (just one built iirc) and the Leyland Lion (of which Nottingham took the only examples I know of) 

[Johann Marsbar]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Never a common vehicle.  Was Ipswich the only UK customer?  

 

Other rare birds were the Foden NC (seven completed, only two customers I believe), Bedford JJL (four completed, all eventually owned by Brighton Corporation), bus-bodied Dennis Falcon V (just one built iirc) and the Leyland Lion (of which Nottingham took the only examples I know of) 

 

Our General Manager at the time actually wanted to buy Bristol RE chassis' - which were still available for sale to Northern Ireland in the early 1980's - but not the rest of the UK.  Leyland finally came up with the offer of four B21 Chassis that were sitting at Brislington which had originally been destined for Israel (Tel Aviv) - though we were originally told they had been destined for Christchurch, NZ ! - and they were duly purchased and converted to right hand drive before being fitted with Alexander (Belfast) bodywork and entering service with IBT in 1985......

 

 

By late 1991, Ulserbus/Citybus had decided to get rid of their B21's, so we ended up buying all 6 for use on our Suffolkbus (country route) services. This line-up of the first 3 to be collected from Lancaster bus garage is seen at Grantham Services....

 

 

One of our original 4 has been preserved and does make occasional appearances in the area, though I'm not sure if it is on the road at the moment. One of the ex-Ulsterbus ones was also preserved, but I think that has been scrapped now.

 

We did actually have a Nottingham Lion appear here briefly when they were thinking of getting rid of them, but, in the end, neither were purchased.

 

 

.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Johann Marsbar

[Adam88]

One from Aunty today:

 

'Miraculous' Birmingham double-decker bus restoration team pick up award

Edited November 28, 2022 by Adam88

[37114]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Never a common vehicle.  Was Ipswich the only UK customer?  

 

Other rare birds were the Foden NC (seven completed, only two customers I believe), Bedford JJL (four completed, all eventually owned by Brighton Corporation), bus-bodied Dennis Falcon V (just one built iirc) and the Leyland Lion (of which Nottingham took the only examples I know of) 

Re the Foden- NC, There were 7 (plus a part finished 8th one) sold to 6 customers I believe (PMT, Derby,WMT, GMPTE, SYPTE (fitted with East Lancs bodywork), WYPTE), GM being the only one to take 2. The WMPTE and West Yorkshire ones survive in preservation, both on the road. The part finished one was broken for spares for the preserved ones.

[Mike_Walker]

Here's one of the Fodens, West Midlands 6300 ROC300R seen at Showbus at Hillingdon when new.

 

[tetsudofan]

On 27/11/2022 at 13:17, PhilJ W said:

More trams than trolleybuses but none the worse for that.

It also covers the early 60's, spot the Minivan towards the end.

 

Some great pictures of the trams running between Woolwich and the Yorkshire Grey (now a McDonalds!) roundabout via Eltham Church. 

 

It's also interesting that the Burtons building opposite Eltham Church (where the trams turned right towards the Yorkshire Grey and onto to London) is also a McDonalds now.

 

Brings back many memories of my schooldays when I travelled from Woolwich to Eltham Church on the replacement 161 bus to get to and from school at Shooters Hill.

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, tetsudofan said:

 

Some great pictures of the trams running between Woolwich and the Yorkshire Grey (now a McDonalds!) roundabout via Eltham Church. 

 

It's also interesting that the Burtons building opposite Eltham Church (where the trams turned right towards the Yorkshire Grey and onto to London) is also a McDonalds now.

 

Brings back many memories of my schooldays when I travelled from Woolwich to Eltham Church on the replacement 161 bus to get to and from school at Shooters Hill.

My grandparents house in Abbey Wood Road is just out of sight in some of the shots. They rented one of the first televisions for the coronation, unfortunately there was a 'snowstorm' every time a trolleybus passed by. 

[Gwiwer]

Just now, PhilJ W said:

unfortunately there was a 'snowstorm' every time a trolleybus passed by. 

That cut both ways.  

 

The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington was very close to the 601, 605 and 667 trolleybuses.  It was said that their passage interfered with some of the delicate equipment installed.  It was also alleged that certain miscreants within that establishment were wont to somehow increase the voltage in the trolleybus overhead such that when they passed the affected areas they found themselves mysteriously accelerating in alarming fashion.  

[PhilJ W]

22 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

That cut both ways.  

 

The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington was very close to the 601, 605 and 667 trolleybuses.  It was said that their passage interfered with some of the delicate equipment installed.  It was also alleged that certain miscreants within that establishment were wont to somehow increase the voltage in the trolleybus overhead such that when they passed the affected areas they found themselves mysteriously accelerating in alarming fashion.  

The 'Diddlers' were fitted with radio interference suppressers, two flat circular objects fitted to the roof. 

[ColinK]

GMPTE had two Dennis Falcons which were based at Atherton depot; I worked in the offices there at the same time and managed to drive them both but only very occasionally.  I did take one to the bus rally at Heaton Park but it broke down in Salford on the way home, the mechanics had to come and tow it back to the depot.  They were so unreliable that they were usually restricted to peak only workings.  Whenever I was told ‘take anything’, if I went for one of the Falcons I was always told to take something else. They were the first buses we had with push buttons for the automatic gearboxes; one day I was crossing the road from office to garage and one of our lady drivers had just got into the Falcon which was well filled with passengers, she shouted at the top of her voice ‘hey Colin, how do I drive this thing?’

[Enterprisingwestern]

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

My grandparents house in Abbey Wood Road is just out of sight in some of the shots. They rented one of the first televisions for the coronation, unfortunately there was a 'snowstorm' every time a trolleybus passed by. 

 

Funnily enough, my grandparents house in Sheffield is out of sight too!

 

Mike.

[37114]

22 hours ago, ColinK said:

GMPTE had two Dennis Falcons which were based at Atherton depot; I worked in the offices there at the same time and managed to drive them both but only very occasionally.  I did take one to the bus rally at Heaton Park but it broke down in Salford on the way home, the mechanics had to come and tow it back to the depot.  They were so unreliable that they were usually restricted to peak only workings.  Whenever I was told ‘take anything’, if I went for one of the Falcons I was always told to take something else. They were the first buses we had with push buttons for the automatic gearboxes; one day I was crossing the road from office to garage and one of our lady drivers had just got into the Falcon which was well filled with passengers, she shouted at the top of her voice ‘hey Colin, how do I drive this thing?’

One survives apparently, I think GM had 3 which all ended up with Rennies in Dunfermline.

[Derek 19B]

 Photo of a Sheffield Transport Regal II with its freshly painted advertisement on the side . Located in Pond street bus station with Sheffield midland as a back ground . The photo popped up on a football forum.

 

Happy new year

 

Derek

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, Derek 19B said:

 Photo of a Sheffield Transport Regal II with its freshly painted advertisement on the side . Located in Pond street bus station with Sheffield midland as a back ground . The photo popped up on a football forum.

 

Happy new year

 

Derek

 

Great pic.

That actual bus is nowadays preserved, and its a Regent 3!

 

Mike.