Western Welsh Omnibus
1961
AEC Reliance 2MU3RA
Willowbrook DP41F

Delivered in 1961 to Western Welsh, WKG 284 is a dual purpose AEC Reliance with Willowbrook body. WKG 284 would last with the company until 1972 when it then passed to Gelligaer UDC. It has been restored by the RE-Liance Bus Preservation Group and was photographed from an open top vehicle arriving at the recent rally at the G & W Railway at Toddington.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones

A full list of Reliance codes can be seen here.

15/09/13 – 09:39

Yet another beautiful restoration. With the PMT Leopard we also revisited the problems with the AEC wet-liner engines (470 and 590). What needs to be reiterated is that, especially with the 470, the engines pre-dated universal motorway usage and for all their foibles they were sufficient unto the day. AECs virtues always far outnumbered their vices.

David Oldfield

16/09/13 – 06:35

As David O says, another beautiful restoration, captured admirably by Ken. What has always puzzled me about this operator name was that I only ever saw services in south east Wales, not in the west. I see from that encyclopaedia site that there were operations in Tenby and parts of the West Country in the early days. I suppose they were hived off in the interests of "rationalisation".

Pete Davies

16/09/13 – 09:15

The "Western" in the company’s name refers to the Great Western Railway who were a major shareholder and contributed their existing services to the Combined operation. The same logic applied to the naming of Southern National (part owned by the Southern Railway), Southern Vectis (ditto), and Western National, plus of course Eastern National where LNER were a major owner.

Neville Mercer

16/09/13 – 13:10

In 1929, Great Western Railway bus services in South Wales were merged with those of a company called South Wales Commercial Motors. A new company, Western Welsh Omnibus Co. Ltd, was formed with a GWR share-holding.
This was during the period of large-scale acquisition of bus interests by the railways.

Geoff Kerr

17/09/13 – 05:10

Thank you, Neville & Geoff!

Pete Davies

17/09/13 – 05:12

The AEC 470 engine vehicles didn’t need a motorway to show up problems, David! On service work, minor cylinder head gasket failures, not enough to affect performance, would instantly cause an air lock in the heating system with the inevitable bookings of ‘cold heaters and demisters’. Oh that the cause could be rectified as quickly as the report could be written. The horizontal 470 was the bane of many an operations engineer’s life – wonder if the vertical version was any better? I never came across one to find out.

Ian Wild

17/09/13 – 05:14

Does anybody know (or care to suggest a reason) why, when Western Welsh elected to display route numbers, they chose yellow-on-black rather than white-on-black? . . . whilst retaining white-on-black for destination blinds?

Philip Rushworth

17/09/13 – 08:55

Philip, it’s an interesting question, especially as most indicator displays are now of the dot matrix or led system, and yellow on black. Why, indeed, would Western Welsh have gone the way they did?
When, roughly, did they go to this formation?
For the latter half of my working life, I was dealing with bus operations in particular but other elements as well, of traffic management in Southampton. Some of that work was dealing with disabled parking bays. One of my colleagues, the signs specialist, observed one day about the need to place a white or silver stripe round some (strangely, not all) sign posts, for the benefit of folk with defective eyesight. According to the manual, for instance, a bus stop pole ‘shall’ be either black or silver. How many of other colours do you see? Quite a lot, especially if operators provide and maintain their own. Some still do!
It provided a contrast. This is why many steps have an edge of different colour. One "Circular" he received mentioned the fact that, in conjunction with RNIB, it had been found yellow was an even better contrast, especially at night. A lot of people say they are waiting for "the number 62". They don’t want any others in the range of bus services that might serve a particular part of their town. They want the "62". Could Western Welsh have been among the first operators to realise that the yellow gives a better contrast when prospective customers are looking for a certain number?
Could they, perhaps but unlikely, have been the guinea pig operator for testing blinds? No, surely not, as this firm and Red & White had by then been merged into National Welsh.

Pete Davies

17/09/13 – 16:48

The smaller AH410 revealed the same problems as its larger capacity cousin. The Aldershot and District Reliances repeatedly incurred air locks in the cooling and saloon heating system, due, in no small measure, to the failure of the seals in the wet liners. Driving one of these buses on the very busy Cove services during a wet winter night with ineffective, cold demisters was, almost literally, touch and go insofar as forward vision was concerned. That a firm the size of AEC should prove incapable of producing reliable wet liner engines suggests a significant malaise in the design department. The much smaller Dennis company managed to make trouble free wet liner engines in petrol and diesel forms from the 1930s onwards to the end of its engine production programme. The first AEC wet liner engine was the "bootlace" or A172 motor of 6.754 litres which appeared in 1935, and this design, which had had a reputation for wet liner and gasket failures throughout its life, was the basis for the postwar AEC family of wet liner engines. It now seems incredible that, in decades of development, AEC could never cure the faults.

Roger Cox

18/09/13 – 05:41

One of our Depot Engineers with quite a number of Reliance 470s on his allocation became so desperate that he acquired two of those windscreen heaters with two rubber suckers used on cars in pre-demister days. These were duly fitted one to each screen of an errant Reliance, wired in series (couldn’t get 24volt versions) in an attempt to warm the cold air being pumped out by the demister and thus provide some degree of windscreen clearing. Not a success!! (but 10/10 for innovation!) Let’s not forget that the Leyland 0.350 fitted to the Tiger Cub etc was not too successful in the head gasket department either, made worse by the use of a single cylinder head.

Classy livery and practical too. NBC had a lot to answer for!

Ian Wild

25/09/13 – 07:27

Western Welsh used yellow route numbers to denote one-man operated services.

Nigel Utting

26/09/13 – 06:40

Thanks Nigel! But I’m now going to leaf through "Glory Days: Western Welsh" and "Shades of Red, White and Grey" to see if I can find any Renowns or crew-operated Atlanteans with yellow number blinds . . . which would put paid to your idea! (Although I hope it doesn’t.)

Philip Rushworth

27/09/13 – 06:55

You probably will, Philip – although that was the original intention, in time it rolled out across the fleet. Seemed a strange way of doing things, but there we are.

Nigel Utting

03/10/15 – 03:58

Western Welsh introduced 3 digit Route numbers in 1959. The first digit identified the depot the route was primarily operated by e.g., 2XX worked by Bridgend 8xx Haverfordwest.
The 24 Leyland Tiger Cubs with Park Royal B43F bodies SBO 240 to 263 Fleet Numbers 1240 to 1263 were the first fitted with destination indicators containing number roller blinds. Western Welsh used yellow route numbers from the outset. Services worked by OMO carried a black triangular flap with yellow lettering on the nearside front which could be inverted when working conventionally with a conductor.

Western Welsh’s operating territory covered the whole of South Wales and Monmouthshire with the notable exception of Swansea (South Wales transport). At its formation in 1929 the Great Western Railway services were based in Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, North Pembrokeshire, Neath, Abergavenny and Brecon. Those of South Wales Commercial Motors were based in Cardiff and Bridgend. Expansion into the Eastern and Western Valleys of Monmouthshire was achieved in 1933 and South Pembrokeshire as late as 1956 with the acquisition of Green’s of Haverfordwest. The only service into England was the Brecon to Hereford 730 service introduced in 1962 following closure of the Rail service and was an extension of the Brecon Hay on Wye service hitherto.

Stuart Davies

14/12/15 – 06:27

I worked as a turner at Ely garage in the seventies, and since then have wondered what the strange type of red the buses were painted was called. Anybody know? Also most of the buses had a diamond painted on their rear showing which depot they "belonged" to. Yellow was Ely, blue either Barry or Bridgend, Cross Keys black.

Ed

28/06/16 – 06:27

The colour the buses were painted in the 1970’s was National Bus Company ‘Poppy Red’.
This was one of the two standardised NBC liveries (but there were exceptions) introduced from late 1972 under Chairman, Freddy (later Sir Frederick) Wood.
Although these two NBC colours were actually British Standard colours and should have been the same on all vehicles, in practice, due to differing paint suppliers used by different companies there was actually some discernible difference between fleets.

Rob F

13/11/16 – 07:05

The BS Code for Poppy Red is 04 E 53

Paul Lloyd

03/11/17 – 07:35

A belated thanks to Paul Lloyd and Rob F. for their answer to my ‘What colour question’. Poppy red it is and shall be so evermore.

Ed

04/11/17 – 06:46

Well, Ed, not for evermore, because the Poppy Red usually faded into a strange and slightly odd pinky colour with the effluxion of time!

Chris Hebbron

04/11/17 – 06:47

Until it began to fade, as it very quickly did, and degenerated into "poppy orange".

Roger Cox

05/11/17 – 07:19

Regarding the yellow route numbers, the suggestion that they were specifically intended to identify one-man-operated services seems unlikely. You have to remember that, at that time, OMO (or OPO) was being introduced gradually – very gradually, in the case of some Western Welsh depots – so that it was very unlikely that any bus would have been used solely on OMO work.
Even into the mid-1970s, the unions at some depots refused to allow OMO with any vehicle with more than 45 seats; at other depots, such as Cardiff, the larger single deckers could be OMO, but there were several crew workings which also used these vehicles, particular at less busy times. Most of the early Atlanteans were rarely, if ever, used for OMO.
I suspect that the better contrast of yellow against a black background would have been the reason for using yellow numerals – although it would have been more logical to use it for all of the content of the destination blinds. However, it may have been more complicated to produce – as I understand it, the traditional blinds were white linen, with black paint. Thus, at night, the lights shone through the blind – but using yellow linen might have been more complex, or more expensive. Probably the latter!

Nigel Frampton

20/11/17 – 06:46

Yes Roger Cox and Chris Hebron, you are correct, I Forgot the Post Office van syndrome. I live in North Rd. Cardiff, and very occasionally I see a Western Welsh double decker heading Northward. Usually in the evening. Laugh you may, but to see this machine trundling out of the mist, a machine which was an integral part of my young days, and, I thought, gone forever, can be a little bit scary. Is this bus known to any of you bus people? I’d like to have a close look at it. See where we ‘fitters’ used to sit in the top deck, eating our sandwiches.

Ed

22/11/17 – 07:22

Nigel Frampton and others earlier on, mentioned coloured blinds versus white lettering on a black background. Just after the war, London Transport’s Green Line services had traditional white on black blinds, with GREEN LINE added. Before long, the blinds changed to black lettering on a yellow background (minus GREEN LINE) and remained so thereafter. Of course, these services also had unique buses/livery/route number ranges/bus stop style, all of which would have helped potential passengers to use them.

Chris Hebbron

Barton Transport
1957
Leyland Tiger PS1/B
Willowbrook L61RD

This evocative shot was taken at the 2011 Heart of the Pennines event, and shows the splendid Willowbrook-bodied Tiger rebuild of 1957 arriving at The Piece Hall in Halifax. Not only did it look great, it sounded great too. Barton’s wonderful fleet had many of these rebuilds.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Les Dickinson

31/05/13 – 06:40

And luckily Les, we have the sound of one of them right here on this site. Time for another listen on the ‘Old Bus Sounds’ page!

Chris Barker

31/05/13 – 07:00

Yes, the Barton rebuilds, the Willowbrook batch were modern-looking with clean lines, but then, see how the rear wheels were set well in, betraying their 7`6 heritage. Looking around inside, they were obviously an economy product – very basic lightweight construction and lots of brown paint, but surely that was their specification and in that respect they delivered. I first encountered this one parked outside Loughborough Central station years ago, and was amazed to realise it had survived, a Barton rebuild!!
Never thought I would see one again.

Later, I encountered it again, and I attach one of my pics, here at the LVVS open day in November 2010, where it was a regular performer on trips into Lincoln City Centre but here parked among representatives of many past decades. Needless to say, I contrived to be aboard for some of these journeys, and the sound effects revived old memories. On the straight sections, it managed to trigger off the 30mph warning signs.

Rob Hancock

31/05/13 – 17:58

Was the need for the extra short top deck bay structural as it spoils an otherwise well balanced design?

Phil Blinkhorn

31/05/13 – 17:59

I recall about 1964 one of these was hired for an evening educational visit from Long Eaton Grammar School to Breedon on the Hill, out beyond Castle Donington on the old A453. It was a novel experience, as the arched 13ft 9in headroom railway bridge at Sawley Junction (now Long Eaton) station precluded the use of double deckers on the service buses (3, 3C, 10 and 11) that went in that direction. [Most of you will know that the experimental lowbridge layout Dennis Loline 861HAL was a bid to overcome this obstacle, but as even 861 had to take the centre of the road to clear the bridge, its use in service was not permitted – otherwise, who knows, there might have been a fleet of them.] Anyway, back to the Tiger rebuild, our trip left Long Eaton by Derby Road to Breaston, where it turned sharp left over the Old Sawley level crossing, to reach the A453 after a detour of 2 or 3 miles.

Stephen Ford

01/06/13 – 06:23

Phil, I tend to agree with you about the extra short bay spoiling the balance of the design. These vehicles were built to PS1 length and no doubt Willowbrook used their standard length window bays and needed to stick in an extra bit to make up the greater length. The following batch however were bodied by Northern Counties to a nice four bay design and looked much neater. I liked them both though and I had some memorable journeys on them in the early 1970’s on the X42 Derby – Nottingham express via the A52 by-pass!

Chris Barker

24/08/13 – 06:17

I was looking through Eddie Collings collection of photos for something and came across the above shot. It is WAL 782 not in Barton livery, it is in preservation and looking at other shots it is at a rally, more than likely down south with the Hastings trolleybus behind it. Was it in service with another operator between Barton and preservation this may explain the different livery.

Peter

29/04/14 – 08:20

These PD1s were always second rate vehicles, still at school l travelled on one on its maiden voyage, school run, later l worked for Barton Transport Ltd and sad to say 6 weeks redundancy under Trent, urrgh, l was in the engine shop, l was for along time oil engineer (oil changes) l got top money for an unskilled job, but l could do breakdowns recovery the best later on nights running repairs emergency PSV driving, recovery and breakdowns, local and distance, l done the very last run to Skegness with a decker 823, a PD2, l hate the day Trent took us over the family and staff did not want it, have many things to remember it by and my full uniform still fits,

Bill Redfern

29/04/14 – 16:45

A (very) belated reply to Peter’s query on intermediate owners of WAL 782.
According to the PSVC fleet history, 782 was sold to Ensign in 1974; then to Williams, Llangollen, Hollis Queensferry and Cross Roads Travel, Warrington in fairly quick time, before passing to preservationists in Kent in 1978, moving within preservation by 1996 in the Medway area. In recent years it was owned by Quantock MS; I believe it is currently owned by the Barton family, as part of their collection.

Bob Gell

30/04/14 – 07:22

It looks as if it could have been in poppy red and white. Heaven forbid!

Chris Barker

25/05/14 – 14:41

I’ve been going through the "Past Comments" and found this entry which I seem to have missed previously. I note comments about her history. Above is a view of her with Durrant, Sidcup, whilst in the Southsea Spectacular on 8 June 1980. Relax, folks, not poppy red as Chris feared! I believe she was actually new to Bolton Corporation, before her time with Barton.

Pete Davies

25/05/14 – 17:41

The only information I have managed to unearth on the net says that the chassis of WAL 782 was new in 1948 to Knowles & Son of Bolton, registered CWH 262, carrying a Santus C33F coach body. One of the sources is the Classic Bus Website, which is reasonably trustworthy.
The chassis is given as PS1/1 – does PS1/B (top of this page) indicate a Barton rebuild? If so, whose designation is it? I haven’t come across any suggestion that Barton used the vehicle in its coach form, but someone with a Barton fleet history should be able to say one way or the other.

David Call

30/05/14 – 13:04

The Circle fleet history of Barton confirms David’s information above – new in 1/48 as CWH 262 to Knowles of Bolton, with a Santus C33F body; to Enterprise Motors (Blackpool) Ltd in 5/53; then to Goulding and Smyth, Hooton, Cheshire and to Millburn Motors, Preston (dealer), who sold it to Barton. I doubt if it ran for Barton as acquired – more likely it was simply a source of a chassis for rebodying.
According to Alan Oxley’s book on Barton, relaxation of the double deck length to 30 feet allowed PS1 chassis from 27’6” to be rebuilt as double deckers and comply with regulations. He also states 782 and others, were standard Leyland PS1 products, which Barton coded for their own reference as PS1/B. The Circle fleet history records the chassis number as the original Leyland number with a B prefix.

Bob Gell

30/05/14 – 14:43

What do we know about Santus? I’ve never heard of them.

Chris Hebbron

30/05/14 – 15:05

Santus was a Wigan-based coach builder based in Wigan, along with Northern Counties and Massey. At one time there was a preserved Wigan Corporation Leyland Tiger (TS4?) with a Santus body. There was an article in Classic Bus magazine a few years ago about the firm. Apparently there is no connection between the Santus body builder and another firm of the same name also in Wigan which made toffees! Unfortunately I cannot now recall the fate of the Santus body-building company, only that they built saloons and coaches in pre-war days, and possibly early post-war. Can’t access the magazine article at present – Sorry.

Michael Hampton

30/05/14 – 18:13

There is a bit more about Santus on this site- a Bedford OB, it is thought (!) on the Isles of Scilly.

Joe

30/05/14 – 18:14

So, once again, my sources of information are found wanting (NOT Bolton CT!)

 
The Santus-bodied Tiger is indeed a TS4, and I attach a view of her at the WETC open day on 7 October 2012

Pete Davies

30/05/14 – 18:17

Chris, our very well informed fellow contributor to this site, Neville Mercer, has given some information about Santus under the OBP entry for Vics Tours (Isles of Scilly) – Bedford OB.

Roger Cox

31/05/14 – 08:06

Well, once again my knowledge of something somewhat obscure has been satisfied by some knowledgeable folk. Thank you all. Remarkable that Wigan had at least three bus bodybuilders. Did Wigan Corporation show local loyalty by buying examples from all three companies?

Chris Hebbron

01/06/14 – 09:33

Yes Chris, Wigan did support all three Wigan coach builders in pre-war days. I’ve checked my Leyland Society book on the Leylands of Wigan Corporation. This shows Leyland TD1′s purchased and bodied by Leyland itself, plus the three Wigan builders in 1931. Santus also figures as the builder of single-deckers on TS4 and TS7 chassis, like the one shown earlier, now preserved. I think it owes it’s survival to being used as a library for several years. However after 1936, the Corporation used only NCME and Massey, and Leyland itself for its contracts. One batch was bodied by English Electric in 1939. Post-war, the body builder spread continued to be Leyland, NCME and Massey, but not Santus. The book I referred to doesn’t mention any reason for the Corporation excluding Santus from the order book in the later 1930′s. Apparently those supplied were to and “old fashioned” appearance, but this seems to have been a Wigan requirement, and also applied to those buses supplied by the other manufacturers. This still applied to the 1937 TD4s, whose bodied closely followed the 1929 Leyland TD1 design (piano front, etc)!

Michael Hampton

Chris, Wigan Corporation did indeed show loyalty to local manufacturers, as I believe that from 1929 onwards (apart possibly from wartime allocations) it sourced chassis solely from Leyland, and bodywork from either Northern Counties or Massey Brothers, although I’m not sure how many Santus-bodied buses it operated. However, it was no doubt prudent of the Corporation to help the local economy in this way, as many of the bodybuilders’ employees were likely to use the Corporation’s buses to get to and from work etc, thus helping swell the council’s coffers.

Brendan Smith

01/06/14 – 09:35

Certainly not post-war Chris H because Santus didn’t build double deckers. You really should have a look at their coaches though because they were quite unlike any others, I’ve always had a fascination for them and it’s a pity that there are no survivors but build quality put paid to that. They did body just about every chassis going though even if few of them had long lives, I suppose this Barton PS1 was typical, lasting less than ten years with it’s coach body.
It was actually revealed after the article in Classic Bus that the coach building and the confectionery business were in fact related so even though there are no remaining coaches, at least you can treat yourself to a bag of Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls!

Chris Barker

02/06/14 – 07:24

Perhaps the excessive amount of sugar in the mint balls help to speed the decay of the vehicle body. Oh, we’re wandering off topic again!

Pete Davies

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

02/06/14 – 07:26

There is an example of postwar Santus coachwork in preservation, an unusual Seddon Mk IV registered DPR 518. It’s not been active for some time and I only discovered recently that it’s owned by someone I know (albeit not too well). I understand work is progressing on it very well.
With 74 PD1s and 42 PD2s with Leyland bodies and the first postwar Northern Counties and Massey double-deckers not delivered until 1956/7 I wouldn’t actually describe Wigan as loyal to the coachbuilders of the town. They bought just a handful of single-deckers prior to 1956, all with Northern Counties bodies. They clearly liked the Leyland body.

David Beilby

03/06/14 – 07:40

Well David that will ‘learn me’ to read my books more thoroughly, and also to clean my glasses more frequently. When I fished out my book on Northern Counties again, regarding Wigan Corporation it states that from 1930 onwards "bodywork was always built in the County Of Lancashire, and more often than not, supplied by either Northern Counties or Massey Brothers of Wigan". It was the "more often than not" that failed to register I’m afraid. I should have remembered the Leyland-bodied Leyland Titan PDs, which might have prompted me to think more broadly with ‘local’ meaning Lancashire rather than solely Wigan!

Brendan Smith

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

The Northern General Transport Company
1957
AEC Reliance MU3RV
Willowbrook B43F

When it was new in 1957, this Willowbrook bodied AEC Reliance was one of three in the Tynemouth and District fleet, FT 9916/8 – 216/8 the livery was always all one colour but they never carried adverts. They were originally DP41F’s, but when they were transferred to Northern General they were re-seated as buses and I think the capacity was increased to 43. They had a lever operated manual door, and believe me your arm got rather tired if you had one of these on a busy local service route, so needless to say the door spent a lot of time left open on warmer days. As I remember them from their days at Percy Main, they had a lower trim on the front, similar to the Venture bus to the right of the picture, and they also had a trim that ran from the rear of the front wheel and right round the back of the vehicle at the same height as the top of the inspection panels, but 40 odd years on it may well be that the memory is playing tricks.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ronnie Hoye

12/03/13 – 13:16

I have to say the lack of any form of relief – trim or paint – reminds me of some other operators in the BET group. It just goes to show the level of tolerance for "individuality" that once prevailed (or still does) in some groups. The relief Ronnie mentions, even if it’s only the trim as seen on the Saro Tiger Cubs Ribble had, or the front end on the Venture vehicle in the picture, does make a lot of difference.

Pete Davies

12/03/13 – 14:08

Pete, I’ve just been talking to a former colleague of mine from Percy Main, and he reminded me of something I had quite forgotten. When they were about six or seven years old, one of these (unknown) caught fire and was extensively rebuilt, it may well have been this one, and that would explain the lack of trim.

Ronnie Hoye

12/03/13 – 14:58

It would indeed, Ronnie. Thanks for the update.

Pete Davies

18/05/14 – 06:28

The registration makes it look older as most registration offices had progressed much further in their issues by 1957 ie 3 letters, 3 numbers and some were well into reversed series. Yes, Tynemouth had its own vehicle registration office issuing one mark (FT) and up to 1957 had only issued 9917 marks!

John4521