For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[Johann Marsbar]

One of the GM Titans seen on a trip I made to Stockport back in April 1981.....

 

[John M Upton]

3 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

One of the GM Titans seen on a trip I made to Stockport back in April 1981.....

 

I like the fact the staff car (looks like a Mk1 Ford Fiesta) has the same colours and even fleetname!

[Johann Marsbar]

15 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I like the fact the staff car (looks like a Mk1 Ford Fiesta) has the same colours and even fleetname!

Checking my other photos from that day, I've got an unobstructed view of that car.....

 

[6990WitherslackHall]

I brought this EFE Leyland Tiger Halfcab yesterday. It's in the livery of Yorkshire Traction.

 

What I want to know is when was the real thing built, specifically this variant of the coach? I know it's around the 40s somewhere but I don't know which year.

 

[Metr0Land]

The CHE series of registrations were issued from Dec 1948 to Feb 1950

[6990WitherslackHall]

1 minute ago, Metr0Land said:

The CHE series of registrations were issued from Dec 1948 to Feb 1950

So that places the vehicle's build date around that time then.

[Mike_Walker]

According to the Bus Lists on the Web site it was delivered to Yorkshire Traction (897) in May 1950, a Leyland Tiger PS2/3 with Windover 32 seat body.  In 1960 it was rebuilt and rebodied with a double deck body.

 

There is photo of it in original form at http://www.sct61.org.uk/index/operator/yt/yt897

[Gwiwer]

1 minute ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

So that places the vehicle's build date around that time then.

Almost certainly.  And for reference purposes one can say with a high degree of confidence that the vehicle dates from 1949.  

 

A very few vehicles were stored unregistered when new for a variety of reasons.  These have later entered service and been registered with a mark appropriate to their date of construction rather than date of first registration in most cases.  I believe the ruling is that this applies to complete vehicles but in the case of a chassis frame built and stored but later bodies and presented for registration the mark will be issued based upon the date the complete vehicle was presented.  

 

I think there was one quite old chassis found in a barn many years later and bodied for use which then gained a mark very much younger than the age of its frames would suggest.  

 

 

[6990WitherslackHall]

Seeing as the bus was delivered to Yorkshire Traction in May 1950. The build date must be in the same month or April depending on the day it was delivered.

[6990WitherslackHall]

And with the bus being rebuilt in 1960, the layout that the bus will be on will have to be set before then.

[PhilJ W]

The CHE registrations were issued as following. December 1948 1-22 1949 23 to 861 and 1950 from 862 onwards until March when the last one was issued. So from the above we can presume it was registered in late December 1949. It is probable that it was accepted by the operator early in 1950 and put straight into store and not being licenced until May. It is a touring coach rather than a service bus and many operators used to delicence many of their touring coaches in the winter months when there was no work for them. At that time there was a high demand for new coaches and in this case it was probably ordered a year or more before it went into service.

[6990WitherslackHall]

1 minute ago, PhilJ W said:

The CHE registrations were issued as following. December 1948 1-22 1949 23 to 861 and 1950 from 862 onwards until March when the last one was issued. So from the above we can presume it was registered in late December 1949. It is probable that it was accepted by the operator early in 1950 and put straight into store and not being licenced until May.

So the bus was built around 1949 then?

[Mike_Walker]

It had the Leyland chassis number 500202 which suggests it was built in 1950.  Therefore I would say it's strictly a 1950 vehicle.  Bear in mind, some operators would get a block of registrations issued by their local office in advance of delivery, often soon after placing the order.

[Gwiwer]

Pre-booking batches of registration marks was a common practice among mostly larger operators. It ensired their fleets would have a single block of marks and often with matching fleet numbers. 
 

The advent of the year-suffix identifier on 1961 slightly changed this. Blocks of marks could still be booked for vehicles on order but would have to be voided im favour of a new series if deliveries were later than expected with vehicles then arriving in the new registration year. 
 

That persisted until the current system replaced what was by then the year-prefix system. As the numbers now relate to the six-month registration period and will be the same on all buses new in that period nothing now matches the fleet numbering and the need for pre-booked matching marks has ceased. 
 

Very large users traditionally had their own registration series. For example *PO was a Portsmouth mark except for GPO which was a London issue for vehicles of the then General Post Office. London Transport buses for a time had *LT marks. 

[PhilJ W]

18 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Very large users traditionally had their own registration series. For example *PO was a Portsmouth mark except for GPO which was a London issue for vehicles of the then General Post Office. London Transport buses for a time had *LT marks. 

The MG car company also had the MG series of registrations. Though MG were based in Abingdon Oxfordshire MG was a Middlesex mark.

[RANGERS]

An even stranger case of registration not matching the build year occurred with E903DRG, a Plaxton Elite bodied Ford R1114. Built in 1974 and delivered in 1975, it languished together with two or three other vehicles in the stock of Jack Hughes Coach Sales before finally being sold to Bob Smith Coaches  almost 14 years later in 1988, hence the E prefix plate.

 

The coach subsequently passed to a Brylaine of Boston where it was a scrapped around 2000.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/10447863@N03/20748312699/in/photostream

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by RANGERS

[Johann Marsbar]

A couple of the more modern exhibits at the 1982 Showbus event at Woburn Abbey - 40 years ago today.....

 

 

[Gwiwer]

Where ever you look there have been quirks and oddities in a seemingly rigid vehicle registration system. 
 

Two that arose whilst I was driving in Cornwall might be of interest. 
 

We had a batch of Mercedes 811D midibuses on order to replace the last of the then-elderly Bristol LHS type. Nothing larger could be used in some places because of severely restricted roads, tight corners or both. The LHSs would not last forever. 
 

The midis duly arrived and should have carried marks from J331NAF. The power that be (Cornwall’s then managing director Brian James) said no. He would not have buses in his fleet suggesting they were “NAF”.  
 

He had them stored unregistered for a few months until the new registration year arrived whereupon they entered service registered from K331OAF. 
 

A few years later a batch of Dennis Darts arrived wearing SCY-marks. SCY was and always had been the only mark issued by the Isles of Scilly. All the other *CY were South Wales marks.  It was assumed that an error had been made and that Truro’s SCV mark was intended. 
 

Whatever the truth of the matter those buses wore their SCY plates for all their days though never got closer to Scilly than the 32 miles across the sea from Lands End. 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Gwiwer

[Dunsignalling]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The MG car company also had the MG series of registrations. Though MG were based in Abingdon Oxfordshire MG was a Middlesex mark.

Though not exclusively. A pal of my brother had a Mini van with a xxxxMG plate. 

 

John

[PhilJ W]

3 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Though not exclusively. A pal of my brother had a Mini van with a xxxxMG plate. 

 

John

True, but this was pre-war and the plates read MG xxxx. Reversed registrations didn't come into use until the late 50's, though a lot weren't used before the year letter suffix was introduced. 

[Dunsignalling]

5 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Pre-booking batches of registration marks was a common practice among mostly larger operators. It ensired their fleets would have a single block of marks and often with matching fleet numbers. 
 

The advent of the year-suffix identifier on 1961 slightly changed this. Blocks of marks could still be booked for vehicles on order but would have to be voided im favour of a new series if deliveries were later than expected with vehicles then arriving in the new registration year. 
 

That persisted until the current system replaced what was by then the year-prefix system. As the numbers now relate to the six-month registration period and will be the same on all buses new in that period nothing now matches the fleet numbering and the need for pre-booked matching marks has ceased. 
 

Very large users traditionally had their own registration series. For example *PO was a Portsmouth mark except for GPO which was a London issue for vehicles of the then General Post Office. London Transport buses for a time had *LT marks. 

Didn't the age related suffixes begin with A in 1963?

 

ISTR some authorities that issued relatively few marks didn't bother with it and only commenced issuing suffixed numbers with B in 1964.

 

I think E suffixes were only issued in the early part of 1967 when the annual changeover was moved at the request of the car industry to coincide with their peak sales period.

 

John

[Johann Marsbar]

10 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Where ever you look there have been quirks and oddities in a seemingly rigid vehicle registration system. 
 

 

Not to mention the odd foul-up......

This Dennis arrived new from East Lancs Coachbuilders in early 1993......

 

 

....and I think I was the first person who queried why it was carrying a Blackburn registation (BV) rather than an Ipswich one (DX or PV). Turns out that someone at East Lancs had misread the communication sent regarding the number - J160 LPV - and it had myseriously been fitted with the "local" (to them) plates instead !!   

It was corrected before it was taxed and went on the road....

[PhilJ W]

There were a few hiccups with registrations at London Transports Aldenham bus overhaul works where a few buses were put on the road bearing the same registration at the same time. The usual practice was that when a bus entered the works a newly overhauled bus would leave taking up the identity of that bus. This was aided by the chassis number being on a separate plate rivetted to the chassis. So it was easily done that two buses could carry the same identity but in most cases it was identified and rectified within a day or two.

[RANGERS]

From my two decades in coach dealing and manufacture, we did have one or two oddities but one I recall concerned two vehicles which had been dealer registered on cherished plates and delivered to a major independent London coach operator on a lease arrangement that brought them back to the dealer over the winter period, during which any body repairs and remedial paint was undertaken and they were tested in readiness for their return.

 

When the first of the pair went into the workshop to be prepared for test, it was noted that the front and rear number plates didn’t match (it was a chaotic scene as those working on the rear realised they were working on a completely  different vehicle to their colleagues working on the front!).
 

Recourse to the V5 established which was correct, by which time the second was also in the workshop and had plates the exact opposite of the first one.

 

Whoever had fitted the plates when new had transposed both front ones. As drivers invariably take the number from the front of the vehicle when filling in tacho charts, every driver had probably been falsifying their tacho records during the previous year!

 

Needless to say, nobody fancied the idea of VOSA interest in the matter so the plates were quietly switched and the vehicles returned to the operator at the start of the season. Thankfully both vehicles had been used on similar work for the same period, so even if it ever was queried, the small discrepancies in mileage would have been easily explained away as delivery/ engineering/ out of scope use. It never was asked and nobody ever spoke of it, until now…

Edited September 4, 2022 by RANGERS

[John M Upton]

Here is a good one for you, 1986 Leyland Tiger with Plaxton Derwent bus body, running around (thanks to a DVLA mistake) with a 2001 51 series plate!!

 

Possibly ex MoD (and therefore originally in their completely unfathomable military registration number system) and then when it was demobbed, there was a cock up....

Edited September 4, 2022 by John M Upton