London Passenger Transport Board
1937
AEC Regent O661
London Transport Chiswick H30/26

The STL – the letters stand, rather confusingly, for ‘Short T Long’ – was introduced into London area service firstly by Thomas Tilling in October 1932 and then by the London General Omnibus Company in January 1933. The STL Regent then became the standard double decker for the new London Passenger Transport Board which came into being on 1 July 1933. The chassis was the latest version of the AEC Regent which took advantage of new regulations that allowed for the extension of the overall length from 25ft to 26ft on a wheelbase of 16ft 3ins, and an increase in the rear axle loading from 9½ to 10 tons. The LPTB STL class then reached a total of 2647 by the commencement of war in 1939, and a further 34 unfrozen chassis were added from the end of 1941. Twenty more buses complemented the STL class in 1946, but these were very different beasts from the LPTB specification, being standard post war AEC Regent II machines with provincial style Weymann bodywork. An example of which can be seen here
The STL class underwent several specification changes over its production run and subsequently in service – engine changes (petrol/indirect injection diesel/direct injection diesel) and many bodywork swaps, some arising from the attrition of wartime. STL 2093, DLU 92, seen above during the HCVC Brighton rally of May 1971, was a 1937 chassis powered by the AEC A171 indirect injection 7.58 litre diesel driving through the AEC D132 four speed spring operated preselector gearbox. It was initially bodied by Park Royal, but, being damaged in an air raid, it was sent to Birmingham City Transport for repair in 1944. By 1949 the body was deemed past further use and it was scrapped in February of that year. STL 2093 then received the Chiswick built body from 1939 vintage STL 2570, the chassis of which was then selected to join the expensive and ultimately fruitless SRT conversion programme, under which newer STL chassis were ‘upgraded’ to carry the heavier RT bodywork. Sadly, not only were the SRTs under powered but, more seriously, they couldn’t stop, and the whole wasteful exercise was abandoned ignominiously. This OBP entry contains comments on the SRT debacle. www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/
Meanwhile, now carrying its Chiswick body, STL 2093 soldiered on, even seeing a short spell during 1949 as a Green Line coach on route 703 at Swanley, until its withdrawal from passenger service in 1954 along with the rest of the pre-war/wartime STL class. It was then sold in 1955 to Reliance Services of Newbury who in turn passed it on to a private owner for preservation in May 1958. This was Dennis John Cowing, a chemistry master (and transport enthusiast) at Selhurst Grammar School in Croydon, a master contemporary with my own attendance in a less elevated capacity at that establishment. Mr Cowing rallied the bus for many years and he is driving it in the 1971 picture, but, by 1976, the structure of the vehicle had degenerated alarmingly and it passed into the ownership of Prince Marshall for full restoration. That has since proved to be a mammoth undertaking, currently in the hands of the former Cobham, now Brooklands Museum, where it has more recently been displayed as a bus victim of the blitz.
www.londonbusmuseum.com/

I have gleaned information from various sources for this note, but, as ever, Ian’s Bus Stop has been invaluable.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

26/03/20 – 06:43

One of my favourite buses, in roof-box form, along with the Bluebird LT’s. A shot which brings out the best of its design and in a condition which suggests it’s only been on the road for a few weeks after delivery to LT. Only the parked Ford 105E gives the game away! Yours, Roger? My last glimpse of a working STL was in June 1955. When waiting at traffic lights, one passed across me. It must have been a garage hack on one of its last journeys.

Chris Hebbron

29/04/20 – 06:19

This bit of Pathe newsreel, taken in 1946, includes shots of many LT types including STLs. I was surprised that so many horse drawn vehicles were still extant and also by the number of private vehicles on the road in addition to London taxis in a time of petrol rationing. Some of the pedestrian behaviour is decidedly death dicing. www.youtube.com/watch? 

Roger Cox

30/04/20 – 06:03

A wonderful piece of film there Roger with a fascinating array of buses but strangely, given the date of 1946, I spotted only one utility, GYE 51. Were utilities kept off central London routes to any extent?

Chris Barker

02/05/20 – 06:36

A real cornucopia of LTs (one open staircase, with half its windows still boarded up), STs, pre-war STDs, STLs all still with their white discs on the back, and, surprise, surprise, the lone surviving TF9, on a ‘SEEING LONDON TOUR’ and still in its pre-war livery.T wo ex-army lorries, one a 3 ton Bedford OY model, which I recall as being ubiquitous post-war.
Very pleasurable to watch – thanks Roger.

Chris Hebbron

03/05/20 – 06:21

Well spotted, Chris B. As Chris H can confirm, GYE 51 was Brush highbridge H30/26R bodied Daimler CWA6 D62, allocated to Merton garage. Pretty certainly it is seen here on route 88, Acton Green – Clapham Common – Mitcham which did run through central London via Marble Arch and Parliament Square. That route is reputed to have given rise in Victorian times to the term, "The Man on the Clapham Omnibus". The Daimlers were based at Merton and Sutton garages, apart from a brief period when a few were painted green and allocated to Romford for the reintroduced Green Line routes from Aldgate. The wartime London Bristol K types, the K5Gs were later converted with AEC engines to conform with the later K6A batch, were all allocated to Hanwell. The Guy Arabs operated mainly in eastern and northern sides of London, but Victoria garage had an allocation along with its Leyland TD7 unfrozen utilty bodied buses. The heavy 5LW powered Guys, with their ‘back to front’ crash gearboxes and rather ponderous clutches were not popular with London drivers, but the TD7s were truly detested at Victoria owing to their high gearing and the heavy engine flywheel designed to damp out rock from the flexible engine mountings. This resulted in a requirement to wait excessively for the revs to die for upward gear changes, and keeping time with the type was nigh impossible. In practice, those TD7 mountings were unreliably weak, and many other operators bolted them up solid. The whole exercise was a bit pointless anyway since the rigid mountings of the TD5 were entirely adequate for the smooth running 8.6 litre Leyland engine. Those TD7s were the first wartime buses to be sold off by London Transport, when they all went for scrap. The appearance of private hire TF9 in the film is remarkable as, by 1946, it was unique, its fellows having been destroyed in October 1940 by enemy action. The prototype TF1 did survive the war but was sold off early in 1946. The Green Line TF fleet was withdrawn and sold by 1953.

Roger Cox

03/05/20 – 06:22

Chris Barker – During my working time in London from 1951 to 1956, I worked in Shaftesbury Avenue and would often walk around the whole West End, especially Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, Trafalgar Square and although I never saw any Utility G’s (Guys), there were their cousins, the utility D’s (Daimlers) who went up these roads. They worked the 88 route, which went from Clapham Common (Old Town) to Shepherds Bush. These D’s worked out of Merton Garage. Other routes they operated on were the 77/77A, all going through Westminster, terminating at Kings Cross, plus the 137 going through Knightsbridge and Oxford Circus. I seem to recall that most of the G’s were garaged in East London, but I never recall seeing any around Holborn or the City. Others will probably help on that score. The following link maybe of interest London Transport – Daimler CWA6 – GXV 785 – D 54

Chris Hebbron

04/05/20 – 05:49

One wonders why the unfrozen STD TD7s were ever allocated to Central London. They’d have been more suited to Country Area, or at least to less challenging Central Area routes.

Chris Hebbron

31/07/20 – 09:36

GYE 51 would pass to Belfast Corporation in December 1953 becoming No.467. It would be rebodied with a new Harkness metal framed body in 1955 and would serve until 1970.

Bill Headley

01/08/20 – 06:27

The earliest of the Highbridge Daimlers were delivered to LPTB in August 1944, the era of V1 and V2 bombings, but not one of them suffered from this German onslaught. Ironically, a few of these went to Belfast, and a couple of them were destroyed in the early days of the ‘Troubles’. Fortunately, this was from the mid-1960s, near the end of their service lives.

Chris Hebbron

A. H. Kearsey
1949
Leyland 7RT RTL
Park Royal H30/26R

The London Transport RTL class, known to LT as the 7RT, appeared from 1948, and consisted of a modified Titan PD2 chassis frame to accord with features of the AEC Regent RT, enabling the interchangeability of bodywork between the two types. Though fitted with the standard O600 engine, the gearbox was the AEC preselective epicyclic of the RT class, a transmission option that was not a standard offering by Leyland to operators elsewhere. A total of 1631 RTL buses was made, though, as with the 4826 of the RT class, that number never ran together in service. The majority of RTLs had Park Royal bodies, though 32 were originally fitted with Weymann and 500 with Metro Cammell bodywork. To these were added 500 of the mechanically similar eight feet wide RTW class, all of which had Metro Cammell bodies. Under the LT Aldenham overhaul system, bodywork became swapped about between chassis on passing through the works, and tracing individual bodies to chassis during their London Transport lifetimes is complicated. With characteristic profligacy, LT went ahead with developing its new wonder, the Routemaster, from 1954, despite the fact that large numbers of brand new RT and RTL buses were then languishing in store without ever having turned a wheel in revenue earning service. Four years later these stored buses eventually took to the road in 1958, the year before the first production Routemasters began appearing in volume, and they then began displacing the perfectly sound earlier RTLs of 1948/49 after a service lifetime of a mere nine to eleven years, during which full chassis/body overhauls had been undertaken. These withdrawn RTLs, in fine mechanical and body condition, soon found favour with operators at home and abroad (many went to Ceylon) where they rendered years of reliable service. The former RTL 133, KGK 797, delivered to London Transport in February 1949, was sold in January 1959, despite having received a full Aldenham overhaul in 1956, when its original body was replaced with another, also by Park Royal. It was then bought by A. H. Kearsey of Cheltenham, together with RTLs 138/149, KGK 802/813, and all remained with that operator when it was taken over by Marchant’s Coaches in January 1968. In the August 1970 picture above KGK 797, fleet number 62, in Kearsey’s sombre grey and blue livery, is seen (if I recollect correctly, though hesitantly after half a century) in Bishop’s Cleeve. Marchant’s continued to serve this area right up to October 2019 when all its bus routes were withdrawn following issues with Gloucestershire County Council over funding. More Kearsey pictures may be found here:- www.flickr.com/photos/tags/kearsey/

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

08/03/20 – 12:29

A minor correction to the details given here by Roger. The 500 Leyland 6RT, RTW class, had Leyland bodies and not Metro Cammell ones.

John Kaye

09/03/20 – 06:32

You’re right John. My error.

Roger Cox

09/03/20 – 06:33

Did some also have Cravens bodies?

Roger Ward

10/03/20 – 06:03

I think that there were some Saunders Roe bodied RT’s as well?

Andrew Charles

10/03/20 – 06:06

The Cravens bodies, as with the Saunders bodies, were on the RT class, A.E.C. Regent III.
RT1402-1521 had Cravens bodies, whilst RT1152-1401 and RT4218-4267 had Saunders bodies.

John Kaye

11/03/20 – 06:25

The bus has generous destination panels, yet, Kearsey left the bus completely ignore every one of them!
Marchant’s Coaches, Cheltenham, are still in fine fettle, with some 7 local school bus services, private hire and mystery tours, and regular day-out tours to places like Legoland. Nice to mention a well-established family concern not in trouble or to announce its demise.

Chris Hebbron

12/03/20 – 06:07

……though they recently pulled out of local service operation, citing too much bureaucracy amongst other issues. Until, I think, the 1980s, they had an amazing network of stage routes around the Cotswolds, worked from a base at Aldsworth, the timings of which they seemed to regard as a state secrets – the recently dropped work around Cheltenham had come from other sources, notably replacing the estimable Castleways when that concern closed.

Phil Drake

15/03/20 – 06:47

Those painted-over destination boxes bothered me as well. I grew up in a place and an era when the buses I saw displayed half a dozen via points on the front, back and nearside, and showed the destination front and back, and even now TfL buses have some route information on the front. So I’m baffled – how did Kearsey’s passengers know where the RTL was going? Was it only ever on one route, which was known to everybody who was likely to use it, or did the conductor shout from the platform “We’re only going to the Town Hall today, love, but we can drop you off at the shops if you like? No sir, we don’t go to the station, not on a Wednesday!”?

Don Davis

Like it, Don; good point well made. Mind you, there were good displays, but confusing ones, too. Portsmouth Corporation, in its middle years, had double-lettered routes. ‘A’ one way and ‘B’ coming back. there was never mention anywhere of this and folk would wait for an ‘A’ return journey and ignore the ‘B,s going by! And this at a seaside resort with lots of holidaymakers. I grew up with suffix letters on route numbers in London, although they never went very high,, but Portsmouth had one route, 143, which went from ‘A’ to ‘F’. ‘A’ was the whole route, then the higher the suffix the shorter the route. Much higher than ‘F’ and the route travelled would have been about a hundred yards!
Incidentally, Cheltenham, which historically only had numbered routes, now has some with letters. I’m surprised that Gloucestershire County Council, which controls bus route numbers, hasn’t forced a change.

Chris Hebbron

16/03/20 – 06:50

The mention by Phil Drake of Castleways of Winchcombe reminded me of this photo taken in November 1973 of their Leopard PSU3B/4 Plaxton Panorama C49F, apparently named Countess, new in November 1972 looking absolutely stunning in their dark blue and silver grey livery. Taken in Cheltenhams somewhat bleak bus station amongst the autumn leaves.

David Lennard

17/03/20 – 07:07

My delight with Castleways was seeing their Temsa Safari coach, which looked absolutely gorgeous in the black with gold band livery. (Photo by R Sharman).
On one occasion, I took their coach on their route to Stratford-upon-Avon. Cheltenham Bus Station, although the late 1940s reinforced concrete shelters have now been replaced by light metal glazed ones, is as bleak, draughty and lacking any comforts as it ever was. Not even a toilet. Perhaps the bus is too uncomfortably reminding them of the Great Unwashed!

Chris Hebbron

18/03/20 – 07:02

They used single deckers on their routes, and the double deckers on schools/factories and as duplicates on stage services.
They were well kept up until Marchants took over. They lost the ladies college work and other work to Castleways and started to go down hill. Marchants was always to be avoided if possible. Its only in the past 20/30 years that Marchants have improved.

A number of years ago Cheltenham and Gloucester used the same numbers, so country routes were adjusted to 3 numbers, and some renumbered, Cheltenham went to letters, Red and White forest routes renumbered.

Mike

19/03/20 – 06:39

Thx, Mike for that info.

Chris Hebbron

19/03/20 – 06:41

Chris Hebbron mentions Portsmouth’s confusing route numbers. Another seaside resort determined to baffle holidaymakers was Southport. Most routes were cross-town, and the route number went with the destination, so if you went from the town centre to Woodvale on an 11, you would return on a 10 bound for Preston New Road. Then when there was a timetable change, the routes would swap partners, and the 11 to Woodvale might return as a 2 to Marshfield!

Peter Williamson

19/03/20 – 06:52

Middlesbrough Corporation Transport used all the letters A – Z. That all changed when TRTB, MCT and Stockton were merged into TMT. Then they moved to numbers, as TRTB and Stockton used numbers. The "O" Bus or "0" ZERO was a joint Stockton/Middlesbrough Bus. 46 and 47 routes later. United then had to add a "2" so the 63 became the 263 to avoid confusion. Then it became Cleveland Transit, a disaster. Then Thatcher scrapped the buses!

Mr Anon

20/03/20 – 06:22

Castleways livery may have looked Black but was Trafalgar Blue.

Tim Presley

21/03/20 – 06:45

As my wife will testify, with a tut and a sigh, Tim, ("Do you think this colour suits me?") I’m colour blind!

Chris Hebbron

21/03/20 – 06:47

Morecambe managed without route numbers until the sixties as did Ledgard until the very end of the company.

Chris Hough

21/03/20 – 06:50

Checked to see if my comment came and then thought no that’s not right it’s Wellington Blue.

Tim Presley

Manchester Corporation
1965
Leyland Panther Cub PSRC1/1
Park Royal B43D

Delivered in April 1965 and photographed in June 1970 following the formation of Selnec is Manchester Corporation Panther Cub No 72, BND 872C. The Panther Cub was a shortened version of the Panther, the length being reduced from 36ft. to 33ft. 6ins. on an 18ft. 6ins wheelbase. With the 6.5 litre Leyland O400H engine instead of the Panther’s 9.8 litre O600H, the Panther Cub proved to be somewhat underpowered. The limited appeal of the model resulted in its being offered only from 1964 to 1968 during which 94 examples were built, though the same basic chassis with more powerful AEC engines was more successful as the AEC Swift. Manchester took eight Panther Cubs, BND 863C- 880C, Nos. 63 to 80, with Park Royal B43D bodywork, though the seating capacity was later altered on No. 71 to B36D and on No. 74 to B42D. The Corporation tried to improve the engine output on some of these buses by experimenting with turbocharging, not entirely successfully. The picture above is of additional interest in that the fleet number of BND 872C is displayed as 27 rather than 72. Was this just an inadvertent “numerical spoonerism” by the body shop?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

09/02/20 – 08:31

The legal lettering on a Southampton Atlantean mentioned, for some odd reason, PROTSWOOD Road rather than the correct PORTSWOOD. I saw in Stubbington on one occasion a road marking for GOPSROT, and there is a hotel in Southampton which ‘failed’ some years ago. The rot seems to have set in after the opening of a brasserie, spelled incorrectly after one has to assume the sign writer was distracted by the presence of a lap-dancing club opposite. Who knows what distractions the fellow applying 27 had?

Pete Davies

09/02/20 – 10:22

The fleet number is correct – it had been renumbered not long before when Manchester renumbered their single-deckers from 46 upwards as 1 upwards (so fleet numbers were reduced by 45). The whole batch of Panther Cubs totalled twenty with the original pair new as 61/62 (ANF 161/2B).

David Beilby

10/02/20 – 06:47

CPPTD made a success of our Panther Cubs, mainly because the city is mostly dead flat. One survives.

Dave French

10/02/20 – 06:48

Thanks for the corrections, David. I overlooked the original two. I did not know that these buses had been renumbered – Peter Gould’s LTHL listings do not record this. Apologies also for the typo in my copy. Eight should read eighteen.

Roger Cox

10/02/20 – 06:50

I didn’t know about that renumbering, and evidently I’m not alone, as Peter Gould’s fleet history in the Transport History Library says that 61-80, 81-99 and 101-110 passed to SELNEC retaining the same fleet numbers. I wonder, did the missing Panther 100 (destroyed by fire at MCW before delivery) result in a missing 55, or were 101-110 reduced by 46 instead of 45?

Peter Williamson

10/02/20 – 11:12

I suppose Portsmouth (CPPTD) could be described as making more of a success of the Panther Cub, but they were still rather short-lived compared with more traditional vehicles. Typically, the PD2s and PDR1 Atlanteans worked for around 16 years, those converted to open-top even longer. But of the 26 Panther Cubs, nine went in 1977, at just ten years old. Four more went in 1979/80. The remaining 13 were withdrawn in 1981, which may have been life-expired withdrawals, but was also influenced by the results of the then-recent MAP project. The result of that saw a "rationalisation" of services, and saw all 14 of the five-year old Leyland Nationals sold as well! The Panther Cubs did look smart when new in their traditional CPPTD livery, but I did not like the eventual transformation to an almost all-white scheme with just a red line. I wonder whether drivers, mechanics, etc saw them as a "success"?

Mr Anon One

10/02/20 – 11:13

It was SELNEC which renumbered the ex Manchester single deckers.

Mr Anon Two

11/02/20 – 06:53

To add to the comments from Mr Anon Two, according to the P.S.V. Circle SELNEC Fleet History (PC7), the vehicles transferred to SELNEC under their old numbers on 1st November 1969, and the fleet renumbering was introduced in March 1970.
Peter W asks about the Panther Cubs and the Panthers. 61-99 became 16-54, and 101-110 became 55-64.

John Kaye

11/02/20 – 06:55

SELNEC 55 was GND 101E, so there was no gap in the new numbers for the missing GND 100E.

Dave Farrier

11/02/20 – 16:26

Thanks everyone for clarification. I hadn’t noticed the date of the photo, and I was fooled by the apparent survival of the "City of Manchester" fleet name, though I must say whatever is above it doesn’t look much like the city coat of arms.

Peter Williamson

12/02/20 – 16:46

Did the registration number GND 100E signify the bus was fitted with a Ford side valve engine? If so, it is not surprising that it was missing, although not in the accepted sense of the word. Try changing the plugs!

Mr Anon Three

13/02/20 – 06:06

72/4/6/8/80 were allocated to Queens Road Depot from new. I used to travel to school on them sometimes on service no 142. There was one regular driver who always started in third gear, another started in second then slammed it into fourth without a pause. I always thought they were lively performers.
I believe 61-70 had the turbocharged engine. Some if not all of these had machines to cancel prepaid tickets which were bought in books of ten. These ten also had lever controls for the exit door, while 71-80 had the exit door controlled by an extra position on the gear lever, as later became standard on the Mancunians. All had the front door controlled by a foot control.

Don McKeown

15/02/20 – 06:31

It was 71-80 that had the turbochargers, but they were troublesome and usually disconnected. I too thought the Panther Cubs were lively performers, as long as the revs were kept up. I’m quite surprised at the widespread view that they were underpowered.

Peter Williamson