Old Bus Photos

Edward Thomas and Son – Leyland Tiger Cub – 6217 PU

6217 PU

Edward Thomas and Son
1961
Leyland Tiger Cub PSUC1/2
Duple C41F

This is a Leyland Tiger Cub PSUC1/2 with a Duple Donington C41F body that was bought initially for staff transport by the Shell Oil company in 1961. It went to Edward Thomas of West Ewell, near Epsom, Surrey in November 1968, who in turn disposed of it in December 1974 to Trevor Brown, proprietor of the Tillingbourne Bus Company. In December 1975 it was sold to Hargreaves of Newbury. 6217 PU is seen here in Tillingbourne ownership, though still wearing the livery of Edward Thomas, parked in the yard beside Gomshall railway station that then served as Tillingbourne’s operating base, to the chagrin of Guildford Borough Council who consistently pressured the company to find other premises. I always liked the Tiger Cub model, though the five speed constant mesh gearbox required proper respect for clean changes, and the Donington body (this is the second version, still with shallow windows), together with the Elizabethan and Britannia, represented  Duple UF bodywork design at its best. Thereafter in the 1960s Duple abandoned all restraint and went completely downhill in my view, initially by adopting a  bulbous front end derived from the front engined models, and later going completely overboard with a mish mash of uncoordinated styling features embellished with a truly ghastly, garish, Detroit ‘inspired’ front grille. Even when the firm finally pulled itself together and adopted the Plaxton clone Dominant design it was still just a pale imitation of the Scarborough original.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox


13/06/16 – 17:17

6217 PU_2

Whilst not the best image and taken from my slide , I can attach a picture of 6217PU repainted into Tillingbourne colours and seen in Shere village.

Keith Newton


14/06/16 – 06:07

When did the Tillingbourne livery change from the maroon?
I seem to remember, from using Guildford bus stations through to as late as 1959 that their buses and Brady,s Brown Buses were actually quite close in colour/hue.

John Lomas


14/06/16 – 11:16

Does anybody have a picture of this in Shell Oil livery? If it was in the same corporate colours as their tanker fleet it might be quite attractive.

Neville Mercer


14/06/16 – 17:43

9712 WX

On 30 September 1970, Trevor Wilcox Brown of Grayshott bought the Tillingbourne Valley operations and its GS buses From the Trice family that had started the business on Easter Bank Holiday in 1924. At first the maroon livery and Tillingbourne Valley trading name continued, though slightly changed, but in April 1972, GS MXX 364 appeared in a new livery of blue with a white roof and a yellow relief band below the windows. The company became the Tillingbourne Bus Company and the fleetname, in a bolder style, was reduced to just ‘Tillingbourne’. This then became the fleet standard but, over subsequent years until the company’s abrupt demise in April 2001, the livery underwent several changes with yellow generally becoming the predominant colour. Back to the Tillingbourne Tiger Cubs. The company had three of these with Donington bodywork, the one shown above plus two from Pennine of Gargrave, 6108 WU and 9712 WX. A fourth Tiger Cub in the fleet, VCH 172, had a Willowbrook DP41F body, and came from Watson’s and Goodman’s & Tours, t/a Ford of Gunnislake. Here is a shot of 9712 WX pictured during one of my Saturday driving stints with it on the 450 Farley Green – Guildford route in 1974. This vehicle had the final and in my opinion the best version of the Donington body, with deeper saloon windows that matched the height of the windscreen. It was a very pleasant vehicle to drive.

Roger Cox


15/06/16 – 07:10

The recent picture of 6217 PU made me (excitedly) put pen to paper and before I knew it I have written a bit of a personal memoir of the Shell Refining private bus service that operated in the 1950s until the mid 1960s. I am afraid I have strayed well of the mark for an answer to the question what colour was it when new – which is what kicked off my thoughts. Perhaps you might like to start it as a new subject though it is a bit short on bus detail. I was after all, only eight when 6217 PU was new. I have referenced some other local activities too. All photos are from my collection and the one of 838 HNO was taken by the late Peter Snell who gave me a copy years ago.

Nick Webster

Nicks copy and photos can be viewed at this link ‘Shell Refining’s Private Bus Service’


 

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Richards Bros – Bedford OB – MDE 666

MDE 666

Richards Bros (Moylgrove)
1950
Bedford OB
Duple C29F

Bedford OB chassis number 140900 was new to Richards Bros, Moylgrove, Cardiganin in August 1950 with Duple Vista body 49265. After being withdrawn from service it stood idle at  the old Moylgrove depot for several years but this wonderful rebuild was returned from Cobus to Richards in October 2015. Seen here on a debut appearance at Cardigan’s Barley Saturday event. Looks good – sounds wonderful!

Photograph and Copy contributed by Les Dickinson


09/05/16 – 05:30

‘Looks good, sounds wonderful’ – a fair variation of a brewery advert from around forty years ago, and I’m sure the sight and sound of the reality ‘does you good’ as the advert continued. Thanks for posting. I have some (bought) views of the operator, but they don’t include this one. The livery is unusual, and may or may not appeal to some of our readers, but to the customers? Well, it was distinctive – no chance of confusion with a neighbouring or rival operator!

Pete Davies


09/05/16 – 08:25

Thanks for your input to this (and other) postings on this site Pete. There are colour photos of a number of vehicles, including a Titan, in this livery in my book. They generally suggest that the red was a a tad more maroon than here and that the blue was a shade towards air-force blue. One of Tony Moyes’ photos of this very bus shows the shades that I remember seeing on my arrival in Cardigan however a Peter Yeomans’ shot of SB BDE 800C is much closer to the colours shown above. In general these colours were used from the very early days of Richards Bros but I suspect that maybe slight variations were tried over the years.

Les


09/05/16 – 16:54

MDE 666 has not stayed in the ownership of Richards since new to them. By 12/01 it had passed to Philip James of Blaenporth for preservation/restoration but after stripping the body down Mr James did no further work on it.
In 6/09 he sold it to Cobus, who in turn sold it back to Richards after restoration.

John Wakefield


 

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City Coach Company – Leyland Gnu – FGC 593 – G1

City Coach Company - Leyland Gnu - FGC 593 - G1

City Coach Company (Brentwood)
1938
Leyland TEP1 Gnu
Duple C40C

This vehicle was the third and last TEP1 chassis and was delivered new to the City Coach Co in August 1938 as fleet number G1. City’s later Gnus were of chassis type TEC2. When new the Duple bodywork was in C40C lay-out.
The vehicle was sold to a dealer in May 1948 and then re-sold to E Wright of Southend-on-Sea (trading as Grey Luxury Coaches) in the following month, becoming Wright’s fleet number 8. Wright withdrew it in June 1951 and it next appeared with Taylor of Caterham in May 1952 as fleet number 16.
Taylor traded it in to the Arlington Motor Co dealership in November 1954 and by June 1956 it was reported to be with an "unidentified showman". Does anybody know when it was last licensed?
I bought the original 10×8 print (which now hangs in my flat!) from a second-hand stall and have no idea who the original photographer was nor where the picture was taken. Can anybody identify the location?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Neville Mercer


27/03/16 – 09:58

Ooh! 25 years or so before the Bedford VAL . . .

Pete Davies


28/03/16 – 15:07

Four-wheel steering PSV’s were a very rare breed. The Leyland Gnu (supposed to have a silent G but that all stopped with Flanders & Swann’s song) was not only a rare beast with its four-wheel steering, but also with its set back front axle, like the Maudslay SF40/Magnum, but not looking so sleek.

DTD 649

Another example was London Transport’s 1939 chassisless all-Leyland Class X7 four-wheel steering trolleybus 1671 (DTD 649) which was unique in the fleet and scrapped in 1955. It was conceived, and was successful at, reducing tyre-scrub problems on the conventional six-wheeled trolleys and considered to have light steering, but was not repeated.

Chris Hebbron


29/03/16 – 05:54

There were only ever three of the Gnu TEP1 built, the other two being 40 seat front-entrance saloons bodied by and operating for Walter Alexander & Sons Ltd.
Unlike the later TEC2 which was a PSV conversion of the Steer TEC1 lorry, not only was there a substantial front overhang, but also the radiator (of Tiger pattern) was off-set to the nearside to allow the 8.6 litre engine to be mounted further forward to improve passenger access.
Here’s an Alexander official picture of the first one: www.flickr.com/photos/  
The steering was not (unlike the VAL) power assisted.

Stephen Allcroft


29/03/16 – 05:54

Interesting that the trolleybus has a Lancashire DTD registration. Was it originally a Leyland demonstrator?

Philip Halstead


29/03/16 – 09:08

Not exactly, Philip. It was a one-off experiment with Leyland chassis and body to mimic LPTB’s trolleybus ‘house style’; a sort of demonstrator, but with LPTB very much in mind! This would not have been hard, as Leyland had built some London chassisless trolleybuses, to order, a year or two before. Electrical equipment was by Metrovick. It was run in London for about six months, then bought by LPTB, perhaps because, despite the war having started, trolleybus expansion was still running at pre-war levels in London and, with prescience, they wanted all they could get!

Chris Hebbron


29/03/16 – 10:54

Following on from Stephen A’s post, here are some photos of Gnu models painted in City and Alexander colours; all four sides. The page is slow to load, then go 1/3rd down the page.
You can double-click to magnify. //tinyurl.com/zqgd4fh

Chris Hebbron


29/03/16 – 11:50

The City Coach Co. like Birch Bros., was partly able to keep out of London Transport’s clutches, because of its long-distance service to Southend. And the pair of them used vehicles which maximised customer payload. Birch used double deckers a lot, including Leyland Titanics and City used single-deck six-wheelers. Here is an eclectic selection of them, notably the Leyland PS2/11 with trailing front axle! //tinyurl.com/ztpnx68

Chris Hebbron


29/03/16 – 14:00

Some of those views mentioned by Chris Hebbron (29/03/16 – 11.50) have what look to be ‘Foden-ish’ front panels. Or are my eyes playing tricks again?

Pete Davies


30/03/16 – 05:42

Yes Pete, they are "Foden-ish" in their looks, but that’s the limit of it. There’s no Foden element in any of these Leylands. I suppose that a Foden designer might have seen them and worked on a similar design (or did someone working with pre-war Leyland transfer to Foden later?) But these are all fascinating buses and coaches. The images of the models in Chris H’s link is also interesting. It was worth comparing the dimensions of the NGT SE6 with those of the Leyland Gnu – two different pre-war approaches before Midland Red led the way with the under-floor engined S6 saloon in 1946 for the rest of the world to follow.

Michael Hampton


31/03/16 – 06:31

Thanks for the above Michael, but I think it was a Duple designer who styled the front of the City TEC2s and not a Leyland one, Leyland Steer cabs of the time had an exposed radiator. The post war Leyland cab strongly resmbled the Ale3xander bodied Gnus however.
Of course the Northern SE6 and SE4 were the work of Donald Sinclair who then became chief engineer at Midland Red.
And let’s not forget the Panda which was twin steering and mid-engined; originally designed for an abortive LT enquiry, it had only a short front overhang, however Alexander were keen on the twin steering concept and even wanted a twin-steer Titan…

Stephen Allcroft


01/04/16 – 06:55

These postings do generate a lot of little-known information, don’t they? " . . . and informative copy" is a very apt motto!

Pete Davies


01/04/16 – 06:56

8501 VX

The twin steer is alive & well in Melbourne Australia, a BusTech CDi

John Wakefield


01/04/16 – 14:25

John- there is a Swedish coach company called Froggy Tours, and yes I have seen them in France, which uses Setra and Neoplan double-deck coaches with 4-axles three of which steer, I think. Seen with their luggage trailers, too, they are quite a rig!

Joe


02/04/16 – 06:33

Michael H mentioned Midland Red’s S6 model, which made me plot the stages of moving bus engines from front to back of the vehicles, a feat which took from 1932 to 1950; a mere 28 years, certainly less had the war not intervened.
John Rackham’s “Q” class vehicle first saw the light of day in September 1932 with the LGOC, with a vertical engine mounted behind the offside front wheel. This avoided the need for a high floor which later underfloor-engined vehicles suffered from. Nevertheless, apart from London Transport taking 233 single deckers and five double deckers, the remaining UK sales amounted to penny numbers. London’s had long lives, mostly going in 1952/53, many being sold on, even to Malta.
Northern General’s first 30 foot long six-wheeler SE6 (later four-wheel LSE4), designed by G W Hayter (NGT Chief Engineer) & W G Allen, was was registered in 1934 and had a true underfloor engine. This was the first of 131 vehicles, of which 24 were the four wheel SE4’s.
The Leyland Tiger FEC (LPTB’s TF class) had underfloor engines, the prototype being delivered in December 1937, with the remaining 87, delivered in 1939, but they were to to be purely destined for London Transport, although the war suppressed any opportunity to market them elsewhere. They were 27’ 6” long and seated 34, but these were Green Line/private hire vehicles. They were in store or used as ambulances, during the war up until 1946, when Green Line services resumed. Sound vehicles, the last, nevertheless, went in mid-1953, with low mileages, a victim of LT’s obsession with standardisation, using the RF.
The Leyland Panda was produced after an enquiry by LPTB, who later lost interest, hence the vehicle entering service with Walter Alexander. The chassis had an underfloor engine, like the Leyland FEC. Alexander built the body, which had 45 seats and a centre entrance.
Towards the end of the war, Midland Red R&D built some prototype chassis (S1-S5) chassis, designed to take a rear engine, but, with the arrival of Donald Sinclair, as chief engineer, from Northern General, (who oversaw the creation of the SE6/SE4), these chassis being altered to take an underfloor engine. The result was the S6, the first one of which was built in December 1946 and entering service in February 1947, the first of 100 vehicles. Again, they remained solely with Midland Red, being retired in the 1960’s. How these subsequent events might have changed, had a successful rear-engined vehicle emerged from S1-5!
It was Sentinel who first offered an underfloor-engined vehicle to the open market, displaying two complete models at the Commercial Motor Show in 1948. For the first time, here was a model which could have transformed the then current thinking of the wider bus world, but, sadly, an outmoded, thirsty engine with high fuel consumption somewhat insecurely mounted underneath, with at least engine falling onto the road, somewhat dampened enthusiasm to buy – a tragedy really.
Slightly later came the Leyland Olympic, introduced in 1949, a single-decker, with in integral body, under which was a horizontal version of the ubiquitous O.600 engine, with over 3,500 being built between 1949 and 1971. These rugged and reliable vehicles were exported around the world, proving very popular. The underfloor-engined bus had finally arrived!
Then, in September 1950, Foden succeeded in producing the first rear-engined bus in the UK, the PVRF6, but it was not a big seller.
It was another eight years before Leyland launched the game-changing Atlantean at the 1958 Commercial Motor Show.

Chris Hebbron


03/04/16 – 07:30

The first rear-engined PSV was actually delivered in 1937 – the prototype Leyland REC (Rear-Engined Cub), London Transport’s CR class. 48 production examples followed. As Ian Smith astutely points out on his website, the concept was exactly the same as the Dennis Dart of 50 years later.
Details at www.countrybus.org/CR/CR.html

Peter Williamson


03/04/16 – 08:56

The Tilling-Stevens Successor of 1937 was a true underfloor engined design, albeit one that failed, primarily because the horizontally opposed eight cylinder engine kept breaking its crankshafts. It is believed that neither of the two constructed ever ran with the eight cylinder engine, but what ultimately became of these remarkable chassis is shrouded in the mists of time.

Roger Cox


03/04/16 – 10:32

Thx Peter/Roger, for reminding me of my omissions, especially that of the CR’s, although I should have remembered the Successor, too, since there is my thread about LT1000’s second body, which was taken off the Successor’s chassis! When you consider that the late thirties relationship between LPTB and Leyland was so innovative, which, initially included the Panda, it surprises me that Leyland were so slow in marketing underfloor/rear-engined postwar. The CR was a little unreliable, true, but there was a war on before snags could be ironed out and these mainly surplus, unloved ‘babies’ after the war, were too small for ‘big boys’ work!

Chris Hebbron


31/05/16 – 06:17

I’ve found a little footage of London Transport’s 1939 chassisless all-Leyland Class X7 four-wheel steering trolleybus 1671 (DTD 649). Go to the link and start at 2:10 mins – LINK: //tinyurl.com/jfxfchl

Chris Hebbron


01/06/16 – 06:49

May I add a few points to the above entries. Under Mr. L.G. Wyndham-Shire, Midland Red produced its first rear engined bus early in 1935. Between May and October of that year, it completed 25,000 miles in service. It had a transverse mounted petrol engine, Daimler fluid flywheel and Cotal gearbox (two-pedal control), and the entrance was in front of the front wheels. It was followed by one coach and two more buses (all designated type REC) in 1935/6. Their downfall was overheating and ingress of dirt into the engines (which still sounds familiar!)
Their "conversion" to underfloor engine (one wonders how much actually remained) was probably under consideration before the war and the arrival of Mr. D.M. Sinclair. Between 1941 and 1944, they appeared, one a year, as 40 seat buses, types S1, S2, S3 and S4 with mechanical and body variations.
The S5 was completely new and differed in being of integral construction.

Mr Anon


28/05/19 – 07:02

The photo of the ex-City coach Leyland Gnu was taken by the late Richard Butler, who died recently. I believe it was photographed at Derby in the late 1950’s. Richard took many shots of buses and coaches on the fairgrounds around that time. I suspect this one was probably unique on the grounds.

Paul Redfern


 

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