Birmingham City Transport
1948
Leyland Titan PD2/1
Brush H30/24R

HOV 685 is a Leyland Titan PD2/1 with Brush H54R body, to Birmingham’s then standard design. She dates from 1948 and we see her in the Weymouth rally on 1 July 1979. She began her service at Yardley Wood depot and, Malcolm Keeley reports in his book in the Glory Days series, most of the batch so allocated from new remained there throughout their working lives. The others were at Perry Bar. The saga of the Brush bodies is not so happy, however. There had been some earlier disagreements between the builder and the operator, the former managing to convince itself that the product was entirely the opposite of what the operator wanted. This batch appears to have been the last of the Brush bodies for Birmingham.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

05/06/16 – 09:22

Brush had a similar "conversations" with Manchester regarding fifty bodies it was building to the Manchester post war Standard design on Daimler chassis at the same time. Manchester was unhappy with Brush’s interpretation and had to keep a watching brief on the progress to ensure what was produced was identical to the drawings. As it turned out the bodies were well finished and lasted well.

Phil Blinkhorn

07/06/16 – 11:43

Can anybody please explain what the dispute between BCT and Brush was about.
Presumably the operator issued a comprehensive specification of their requirements for the builder to follow

Pat Jennings

07/06/16 – 18:48

Pat, according to his ‘Glory Days’ book on Birmingham City Transport, Malcolm Keeley reports that the rot seems to have set in – in more ways than one – when the timber frame bodies on the surviving 1929-31 AEC Regents had to have new Austerity bodies by Brush in 1943/4. There was supposed to be a decrease in price as a result of salvaging parts from the old bodies, but they had been from four different builders and the cost was actually increased.
The next chapter takes place in respect of the Crossleys ordered in 1945. They should have had Brush bodies, but delays in delivering chassis caused Brush to ask to be ‘released’. Not an unreasonable request, perhaps, but Keeley says, "After the wartime disputes over the Regent and CWA bodies, small wonder BCT ceased to employ Brush."

Pete Davies

09/06/16 – 06:45

Pete, that’s all true but the Leylands are 1948 deliveries whereas your comment finishes in 1945. If I were a betting man I’d put good money on Bush having the same approach as it took with Manchester.

Phil Blinkhorn

09/06/16 – 19:08

Phil B, I’ve spent most of the day looking in the Keeley book for his comments about this dispute, so far without success. I’m sure I didn’t dream it. I’ll post further on this in due course!

Pete Davies

10/06/16 – 05:33

Pete, you are quite right in your summary of Malcolm Keeley’s account of the Brush utility bodies for Birmingham, and the consequent decision by BCT not to use Brush any more. The account of the war-time re-bodying of the pre-war AEC Regents (p.26) describes the problems Brush had salvaging material from the old bodies by four makers, and trying to incorporate these into the fifty new bodies. Delivery was delayed because of the interruption to the production system, and additional detail design work was also needed. A major dispute broke out over the cost. (One is illustrated on p.30, and a trainer conversion on p.41). As you say in your original posting, Brush asked to be released from bodying the 10 Crossleys ordered in 1945, because of pressure of other work in their drawing office. They were already committed to 100 bodies on Leyland PD2s. Keeley, on p.48, indicates that BCT ceased to employ Brush, as you quote above.

Michael Hampton

10/06/16 – 10:21

Thank you, Michael . . .

Pete Davies

10/06/16 – 10:21

Thanks Pete and Michael. Perhaps the clue to the similarities to the dispute with Manchester lies in the drawing office.

Phil Blinkhorn

King Alfred Motor Services
1967
Leyland Atlantean PDR1/2
Roe H43/33F

Here is a Leyland Atlantean PDR1/2 with Roe H76F body, from the fleet of King Alfred Motor Services, Winchester. EU was a Brecknockshire (or Breconshire) registration before 1974, when it passed to Bristol, and King Alfred Motor Services never bought any buses from an operator in that area, so what’s going on? It is really HOR 592E and it has carried VCL 461 as well, but it has reverted to the original plate since I captured this view on 25 April 1993. This was a running day to mark 20 years since the sale of the company to Hants & Dorset.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

03/06/16 – 06:41

Here is fellow Atlantean HOR 591E seen re entering Winchester on route 11 from Basingstoke in 1970. My first experience of a journey on a Metro Scania (single decker) was on this route in the following year on one of the King Alfred examples. I was not greatly impressed with the rather wallowing standard of ride. R. Chisnell & Sons Ltd, t/a King Alfred Motor Services, ceased operation on 28 April 1973, and the three King Alfred Metro Scanias went to London Country for use on the Stevenage Superbus services. They only lasted until 1977/78, when they were less than seven years old.

Roger Cox

04/06/16 – 06:49

Fellow independents West Riding and South Yorkshire also had Atlaneans with this style of Roe body. All date from around the same time and I’ve often wondered if the small King Alfred and South Yorkshire batches were tagged onto the West Riding order.

Chris Hough

04/06/16 – 06:50

Thanks, Roger. One thing that many cannot understand about KAMS is the continuing use of a number on the destination blind after the introduction of a separate box for the number. I have read that the direction of any particular service was achieved through a simple half turn of the blind, and I’m supposing that it allowed for interchange of blinds between vehicles but, as I noted above, many find it an odd arrangement. The half turn of the blind was useful in a number of cases, such as a series of Hants & Dorset routes from Southampton, where we had Southampton Woodlands, Woodlands Cadnam, Cadnam Nomansland – all very easy for the skilled conductor to do!

Pete Davies

04/06/16 – 06:51

Pete,
King Alfred HOR592E was taken over by Hants & Dorset as number 2304 in 1973. Then passing to Bristol as number 8600 in 1979.
It passed to the newly formed Badgerline in January 1986 still as 8600 (HOR592E), being re-registered to VCL461 in May 1986.
Upon sale by Badgerline in 1990, it was re-registered to REU52E which was issued by Bristol LVLO.

Dave Farrier

05/06/16 – 07:17

In answer to Chrish Hough’s query about the similarity of livery, I suggest a look at Philip Rushworth’s views in respect of the KAMS Renowns. It seems that the good folk at Charles H Roe made more than one mistake!

Pete Davies

05/06/16 – 07:18

I think that the featuring of the route number within the destination display was simply a measure to allow standardisation of the blinds between single and double deck vehicles, and those double deckers that did not have a separate route number box, like the Guy Arab utilities. Once upon a time this practice might have been disparaged as being "overcareful wi’ munnie", but it has since gone up considerably in the world and is now graced with the name of "Recycling". There is an informative web page about King Alfred:- www.fokab.org.uk

Roger Cox

05/06/16 – 07:19

King Alfred bought a batch of four of these Roe bodied Atlanteans, as a result of a shrewd purchase, through the continuation of a batch in build for West Riding. HOR 589-592E all passed on to Hants & Dorset and, after four or five years, were transferred to Bristol Omnibus and subsequently Badgerline. 589 was numbered 8603; 590 was 8602; 591 was 8601; and 592 was 8600. Three of them were converted to open top in 1979 for service in Weston-super-Mare and later in Bath. The exception was 591 (8601), which retained its roof and seems to have been used as a driver training vehicle and general engineers’ runabout. I saw 591 at Lawrence Hill many years ago and it looked very down at heel.
In 1983, 589 was scrapped. In the same year, 591 was bought by the Friends of King Alfred Buses as a derelict wreck for £40. It was cosmetically returned to King Alfred condition for the running day in 1984. Subsequently, in 1990, FoKAB bought open top 592, which was in much better condition, both bodily and mechanically. But King Alfred had never operated open top buses, so the decision was taken in 1992 to dispose of 591 and transfer its roof to open top 592. This involved parking the two buses close alongside and all screws and fixtures were undone. Then a gang of volunteers lifted the roof and windows from 591 and slid it across to 592. Then a hasty clamber down the stairs of 591 and up the stairs of 592 to receive the roof and begin the process of fitting the roof. The story goes that, despite the two vehicles being from an identical batch, 591’s roof was about ¾ inch longer than the recipient 592. But it was persuaded into place and the remainder of 591 was scrapped.
592 had been re-registered VCL 461, but this registration was retained by Badgerline and subsequently used on a hybrid drive Mercedes minibus, which was experimentally used in Portsmouth, but that’s another story. So 592 was sold with the temporary registration REU 32E, until its proper HOR 592E could be reassigned.
So what you see in the pictures above are indeed 592, with the roof of 591, during the very short period that it operated without its proper registration. And, the lower picture, of the same roof on 591,but the rest of that bus no longer exists.
Finally, as a tailpiece the remaining member of the batch, 590 was acquired by FoKAB in 1987, but, as there are no more suitable roofs available, that remains in open top condition and is a favourite vehicle for rides around Winchester on sunny days.

Peter Murnaghan

06/06/16 – 06:46

Thank you Roger C and Peter M. It’s always good to read your thoughts. Is Peter M still attending "The Castle" or has he now retired from there? I retired from Southampton about 8 years ago.

Pete Davies

07/06/16 – 07:07

Thanks for your kind words, Pete. Now resident in Liskeard, Peter M was released from captivity in The Castle five years ago.

Peter Murnaghan

Premier Travel (Cambridge)
1944
Guy Arab II 5LW
Roe L27/28R

By 1957, Premier Travel of Cambridge was looking to replace the remainder of its rather tired ex LPTB STLs and the second hand utility CWA6s from Huddersfield, Glasgow and Mansfield. It turned to the rugged Gardner 5LW powered Guy Arab II, choosing seven ex Southdown highbridge examples with the well constructed Northern Counties UH30/26R bodywork, and these were supplemented by three lowbridge machines from Plymouth Corporation with rebuilt Roe UL27/28R bodies. Allocated the fleet numbers from 102 to 111 inclusive, these became the only Guy buses ever to enter the Premier fleet. The Guys proved to be very economical and reliable, but the Plymouth examples had severely governed engines that limited road performance, even in the relatively flat lands of their operating territory. Given its sparsely populated rural network, Premier ran very close to the breadline. Nonetheless, one wonders why the company did not simply get the fuel pumps recalibrated to the manufacturer’s standard setting, but this apparently never happened. The Guys lasted with Premier for some four to five years before being replaced by “White Lady” Leyland PD2s from Ribble. The picture shows the crew of No. 110, ex Plymouth Arab II CDR 750, taking a layover break in Cambridge Drummer Street Bus Station on 26 August 1959.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

31/05/16 – 09:35

The conductress appears to be taking the term "layover just a bit too literally!!

Chris Youhill

01/06/16 – 06:54

The Premier Travel company has a curious link with the present day state of the bus industry. In 1950, a certain John Alfred Blythe Hibbs, after working for the company in his second year as part of his degree studies at Birmingham (Woodbrooke) University, was appointed in 1950 as Personal Assistant to Arthur Lainson, the boss of Premier Travel. The precarious financial state of the company saw the departure of Hibbs in 1952, whereupon he became a ‘transport consultant’. In 1954 he completed a Masters degree thesis on the shortcomings (as he saw them) of the Road Service Licensing system. Then, in 1956, he and a partner bought Corona Coaches of Acton, near Sudbury, Suffolk, and then purchased the nearby business of A. J. Long of Glemsford in 1958. Almost exactly one year later, in August 1959, the entire business failed, and Hibbs once again became a consultant cum journalist until he found a job with British Railways in 1961 as Traffic Survey Officer, Eastern Region, at Liverpool Street. After several job reclassifications, he left BR in 1967 for the academic world where he thereafter remained, loudly proclaiming his views, until retirement. Thus, his entire practical knowledge of bus operation was gained with Premier Travel for two to three years, and then for a further three years with his disastrous Corona venture. This, then, was the "expert" whose "experience" saw him recruited by Ridley to give a cover of academic justification to the industry death knell called deregulation. You couldn’t make it up. Then, with the ‘success’ of deregulation behind him, Hibbs was then involved in the equally catastrophic privatisation of the railway system, yet another industry in which his experience was minimal. As George Bernard Shaw said, "Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach".

Roger Cox

01/06/16 – 09:13

Wonderful comments there Roger, and I fear that virtually everyone has now forgotten the scandalous Hereford and Worcester trial of 1985 – a handful of rural bus routes were allowed to be operated by "competent" small coach companies in order to prove that de-regulation would be in the interests of healthy competition and passenger benefit. Breaches of the embryo stern measures proposed were rife, but still the move went through and that’s where we are today !! A classic lesson in the need to stamp out a fresh virus before it it becomes a Nationwide uncontrollable epidemic.

Chris Youhill

01/06/16 – 17:24

My views on Ridiculous Nicolas have been aired here and elsewhere before. The man had one of the brownest noses of any of Thatcher’s sycophants and Roger’s comments come as no surprise. Having spent many years organising and operating conferences around the world for many disciplines in both academia and industry and having seen how the two interface, whenever an academic "expert" is asked to spout on television or in the press on how industry or the economy should deal with a problem, or should be run, unless I know they have years of practical experience alongside, or before, their being closeted in some think tank or hall of academe, I mentally switch off. Time after time these experts have been relied on to give their dubious weight to politicians’ hairbrained schemes, not just in the UK. The "reasoning" seems to be that the brightest brains are academics. That’s as maybe but translating theories into practice in established and sometimes in need of help industries needs real time, hands on, knowledge as well as hours sitting thinking and theorising.

Phil Blinkhorn

01/06/16 – 17:26

And back to the bus CDR 750 ended up next on a farm in Essex as a lorry and there was a article in a old Buses Annual and is now rebuilt back to a utility bus at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum.

Ken Wragg

12/06/16 – 06:48

Something has been sticking in my mind…the company replaced its "preowned" utility Daimlers with some dependable and snouty Guys: and what did we get? proudly named "Premier", a presumably solvent and possibly affordable local bus service on a shoestring, as were a number of municipalities: no leased leviathans then with their dodgem transmissions and (often) miserable drivers… right, back to reality….

Joe

12/06/16 – 09:11

Blame ‘Economics’, Joe, manifest in the form of One Person Operation. Back then, a driver was just that, able to concentrate on the job, and a conductor spent the whole time with passengers. Realistically, in modern road conditions, something like the sedate 5LW Arab would struggle to keep time, though some of the present day bus timings are absurdly fast. Even so, the operating costs of modern buses are much higher than those of the Arabs, PD2s et al of the past, yet the reliability is far lower. Years ago, a bus ride was a pleasant experience. I don’t find that to be true today.

Roger Cox