Maidstone & District
1958
AEC Reliance 2MU3RV
Harrington B42F

By the mid 1950s, bus patronage was beginning to show signs of serious decline, and the Traffic Commissioners were empowered to grant dispensation for the use of buses with more than the traditional 20/26/30 seats on (what was then called) OMO operation. The first large saloons bought by Maidstone & District specifically for OMO were eleven Harrington Contenders of 1955 powered by the distinctive TS3 two stroke engine. Then, having gained experience with the all conquering AEC Reliance on coach duties, this chassis became the firm M&D choice from 1957 for OMO saloon work. Initially, the selected bodywork supplier was Weymann, then Beadle, before Harrington was chosen to build the bodies on a batch of twenty five in 1958. Here is 251 BKM, SO251 in the M&D fleet, seen in July 1973 after disposal to the dealer, Trevor Wilcox Brown, the proprietor of Tillingbourne Bus Company. This Reliance, a 2MU3RV model fitted with a Harrington B42F body, was never operated by Tillingbourne, but was quickly sold on to another dealer in Middlewich. I undertook the delivery run from Gomshall to Middlewich, and was impressed by the alacrity with which the machine tackled the hills around Amersham – I always skirted round to the west of the Great Wen – though the top speed was understandably rather modest on the motorway. The picture shows the bus somewhere around the Chipperfield area in Hertfordshire (if my high mileage memory is still functioning). En route on the motorway, I was somewhat disconcerted to find that the accelerator ceased to return to shut down the engine speed, so I pulled in at the next service area and investigated. By lifting up the inspection flaps in the floor, I established that the return action was provided by a simple coil spring linking the throttle rod to a lug on the chassis. The locating loop on one end of this spring had just snapped off, mercifully leaving the remaining part hanging down. I scoured the ground around the lorry park to see what I could find to effect a rudimentary repair and was rewarded by the discovery of a length of rigid but pliable wire. This I managed to force between the last two coils of the broken end of the spring, bent it round to secure it, and then made a loop with the other end before fatiguing off the surplus length (all done with the fingers – I had no tools with me). That bit of Heath Robinson engineering got me safely and uneventfully on to my Middlewich destination.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

17/10/16 – 07:26

Smart, purposeful looking bus.
Perhaps the Middlewich dealer sold it on to an unsuspecting operator, who may have run it with your rudimentary bit of wire doing its job, for many years, Roger!

Peter Murnaghan

17/10/16 – 09:10

A member of this batch, 255 BKM, was sold to Clynnog and Trefor Motoer Services in North Wales, where it lasted for many years.

Don McKeown

18/10/16 – 08:00

253 BKM was saved for preservation in 2008 after festering in Somerset for many years.
Now safely stored inside "somewhere in Sussex" pending restoration.

Malcolm Boyland

Reference vehicle S2 this was delivered to Tonbridge depot along with S3-4 and 5, All four from new as we already had S1 also from new. I think that it was probably because the M&D were using the idea of new busses would encourage us drivers to accept larger vehicles on one mam operation. They were right because we were also the first depot in the fleet to accept the use of double deckers on o.m.o. work.
If my memory serves me correctly these were Bristols.
I was a driver at Tonbridge from 1961 until the closure of the depot. then transferred to Borough Green and then Tunbridge Wells until the mid nineties when I had to retire due to ill health.

Mick Green

Neath & Cardiff Luxury Coaches Ltd
1960
AEC Reliance 2MU3RA
Harrington C41F

Neath & Cardiff coaches were affectionately known as ‘Brown Bombers’ and they certainly made short work of demolishing the miles along the M4. This AEC Reliance (2MU3RA083) carries a handsome Harrington C41F body (2309) and was new to Neath & Cardiff in 1960.
I am not sure if this striking (for me) livery would eventually give way to the uninspiring NBC livery. After eventual withdrawal by the NBC she still had a varied career until being brought back to the Swansea Bus Museum, on whose 2016 Running Day in original Neath & Cardiff livery we see her.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Les Dickinson

16/09/16 – 17:13

N&C were taken over by South Wales before the corporate identity was introduced.

Stephen Allcroft

06/10/17 – 07:43

Used to love seeing these at Cardiff Bus Station (RIP) in the sixties. But surely they weren’t doing many miles on the M4 when first delivered?

Gerry

20/01/18 – 06:07

In the days when N&C were operational, the M4 motorway terminated at Tredegar Park at the western edge of Newport. The only motorway west of there was the elevated section of the M48 at Port Talbot. I don’t recall N&C operating along this elevated section. By the time that the motorway network expanded into Wales, N&C operations had been subsumed into those of South Wales Transport and Western Welsh

Frank Potter

12/05/20 – 07:04

My Dad drove the N and C buses when they were owned by Sir Godfrey Llewelyn until they were nationalised and absorbed in to Western Welsh. They were affectionally known then as the ‘Chocolate’ buses. This was in the end of war mid 1940’s

Tom C

Charlie’s Cars (Bournemouth)
1934
Albion Valiant
Harrington C32F

In my early days of working in Southampton, I worked with a fellow whose Secondary School days had been spent in Christchurch, then in Hampshire. He commented several times about the firm ‘Charlie’s Cars’, saying that one of his teachers was something of a snob who refused to use the registered name. He always called it ‘Charles’s Cars’. LJ 9501 is an Albion Valiant PV70 (Jenkinson, 1978) or SpPV70 (PSVC 2012), new in 1934, but given this Harrington C32F body in 1947. She spent several years under restoration at Cobham, but we see her taking part in the Harrington Gathering at Amberley on 3 June 2012.

This second view shows the bodymaker’s plate.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

12/07/16 – 07:40

I have fond memories of Charlie’s Cars from my youth, growing up in Bournemouth, although I expect this fine example was already withdrawn or close to it, by the time I was born!
Their garage was along the South side of Alma Road near Winton Banks. it had a large wooden sign across the entrance, at high level, with ‘Charlie’s Cars’ written on it in the house colours. The ‘sunshine’ radiator is a nice touch; was this a common feature of the period?

Grahame Arnold

12/07/16 – 12:00

I don’t know if it was a common feature on the radiator, but it was certainly on the badge. It’s the Albion logo ‘Sure as the sunrise’

Ronnie Hoye

12/07/16 – 18:00

Hebble had three Valiant coaches (two with English Electric bodies and one with Northern Counties). Whilst going through the Halifax Motor Taxation Records in about 1970 tracing local vehicles I found that one of the English Electric-bodied ones had passed just after the war to a private owner in Stainland, just outside Halifax, who was the last recorded owner, the licence having been surrended almost immediately.
Later in the 1970’s when I was involved with a bus preservation group, one of the group learned purely by chance from someone he’d met of an ‘old bus’ that a man from Halifax had kept on a farm near Allerston, on the Scarborough to Pickering road, for use as a holiday caravan. On further investigation it turned out to be this very same man from Stainland and the ‘bus’ was that Hebble Valiant – JX 507. How exciting – what a rare survivor, and when could we go and have a look with a view to acquiring it. Then it turned out that it had been dragged out of its spot only a couple of weeks beforehand and totally destroyed. It had survived all that time, and we’d missed it by two weeks. Isn’t that always the way ?

John Stringer

12/07/16 – 18:00

Thanks, Grahame and Ronnie. Whilst the feature is an element of the Albion badge, as Ronnie says, I’ve never seen it on another Albion radiator. Perhaps that’s because this is a preserved vehicle, and kept cleaner than many would be whilst ‘working’. Any offers on that?

Pete Davies

25/07/16 – 09:32

This Albion features in my Gallery compilation HCVS Charabanc trip 2011. Seen when visiting the owners private collection. It was also an entry on 2010 Trans Pennine Run.

Roy Dodsworth