Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

West Yorkshire Road Car Company
1948
Bedford OB
Beadle B30F

West Yorkshire needed a few small buses for certain routes to replace there pre-war Leyland and Dennis small buses. Bristol who were the main supplier of buses to West Yorkshire as they were controlled by the B.T.C. were not producing any small lightweight buses at the time so they ordered four Bedford OBs has the photo above.

FWX 547    Initially numbered 614 -       renumbered SP1 in April 1954

FWX 548                                 615 -                           SP2

FWX 549                               K616 -                         KSP3

FWX 550                               K617 -                         KSP4

The first two were based at Harrogate and were for the Cornwall Road route which is the destination of the bus in the photo, other local services were also undertaken in Harrogate by the two Bedfords. The other two Bedfords were based at Keighley (the "K" prefix was for Keighley-West Yorkshire) and were used on the Riddlesden service which had a weak wood canal swing bridge.
West Yorkshire also had a Bedford OB coach with a Duple C26F body built in 1947 registration FWW 596 fleet number CP1 it was based in York and was used for summer city tours. I think it was the only one based at York but if you know different please leave a comment.

A full list of West Yorkshire codes can be seen here.

Copy contributed by Chris Youhill

———

You may be right in thinking CP1 was the only one of the little Bedford OBs based at York Chris. It was one of two OB coaches supplied to West Yorkshire in 1947 (646/7: FWW596/7). A further two arrived the following year (648/9: FWW598/9), all had Duple C26F coachwork and the batch was renumbered CP1-4 in 1954. CP1 was given an overhaul in 1957 at Central Works, and alterations to the coachwork included fitting of cantrail windows and perspex roof panels for its new role as the York city tour coach. It was withdrawn in 1968, being replaced by none other than CF1 (8848 WY), one of the two Ford Thames/Duple coaches taken over with the Samuel Ledgard business.

Brendan Smith

———

CP1 is now fully restored and in the Aire Valley Transport Group collection

Chris Hough

———

Bedford OBs are just like a big car don’t you think, and the crash gearbox wine was just a great sound.

Anonymous

———

With respect Anonymous I can’t agree there – the OBs were incredible commercial passenger chassis with "hearts of oak." The amount of heavy service work that they could reliably perform with their modest 28 hp petrol engines was just phenomenal. I’ve had the pleasure, thrill even, of steadily ascending some very long forbidding hills with full loads – for example Norwood Edge from Farnley in West Yorkshire. The wartime service OWBs put in even more incredible performances than their peacetime luxury coach kin. I agree though that the melodious howl of the gearboxes in the first three ratios, followed by the "silent calm after the storm" in top was just wonderful.

Chris Youhill

Copyright Ray Soper

Bournemouth Corporation
1939
Bedford WTB
Duple B25F

This shot is from the Ray Soper ‘Gallery’ contribution A Trolleybus tour in Bournemouth click on the title if you would like to view his Gallery and comments to it.
The shot is shown here for indexing purposes but please feel free to make any comment regarding this vehicle either here or on the gallery.

———

23/02/12 – 09:47

Bournemouth 183 A Bedford OWB with a Duple body was exported to the USA after service in London. It has just been reported in the PSV sheets as changing owners in late 2006 in San Francisco.

John Ashmore

21/07/13 – 07:35

Did some of the late Bedford WTB’s have the OB bonnet style or was this an attempt to modernise the front?

Chris Hebbron

21/07/13 – 08:03

Interesting point, Chris. The OB replaced the WTB in 1939(?) and almost immediately became the war-time OWB, The OB returned in peacetime – around 1946. So is this a WTB or is it simply a pre-war OB?

David Oldfield

21/07/13 – 11:15

This style of bonnet and radiator grille was introduced in 1938 on the WTB and also on all the rest of the W-series range. These were replaced by the K, M and O-series the following year.
The WT-series had no external radiator filler cap, and high mounted headlamps, whereas the O-series had an external filler cap and lower set headlamps. This is generally a good way of telling them apart, but in later life it was not at all uncommon for operators to mix and match parts – so it is not 100% reliable.

John Stringer

22/07/13 – 11:26

Thx, John S, for the answer.

Chris Hebbron

10/11/16 – 07:30

This bus was preserved by the Poole and District Model Railway Society.
I have a couple of pictures of FEL 216 after restoration in 1967.

Bruce

10/11/16 – 10:37

FEL 216 went from Poole & District Model Railway Society to Tim Salter of Wareham in 10/98 along with sister FEL 218. FEL 218 was later (circa 98) broken up for spares, with the intention to restore 216. From what I can gather very little progress has been made on FEL 216 & it is still owned by Tim Slater.
Whilst on the subject of these Bournemouth WTB’s EEL 46 a 1938 Burlingham WTB is now just a rolling chassis after acquisition by Cyril Kenzie in 5/08, the body deemed to bad to restore. The chassis is still with Kenzie.

John Wakefield

10/11/16 – 13:50

Here are a couple of shots after FEL 216 had been preserved by the Poole and District Model Railway Society.

Bruce

25/08/22 – 05:47

Here is a picture of No.15, FEL 218, taken on an HCVC Brighton Rally in the very early 1970s. As John Whittaker comments, this bus was broken up for spares for preserving FEL 216.

Roger Cox

31/08/22 – 07:04

Just an aside, but I read that Yellow Bus, successor the Bournemouth Corporation, went bust on August 4th.

Chris Hebbron

01/09/22 – 07:03

….. and More bus stepped in and seamlessly provided replacement services. They didn’t "take over" Yellowbus in any way, just stepped up.

David Oldfield