Picture R F Mack

Ideal Service (R Taylor & Sons)
1934
Leyland Tiger TS6C
Roe B36R (1949)

Parked in Beastfair Pontefract awaiting for the return journey to Barnsley is DJ 6058 which was a Leyland TS6C new to St Helens corporation in 1934 with an English Electric B32F body. Acquired by R. Taylor and Son Cudworth who ran the Ideal Service with H. Wray of Hoyle Mill Barnsley. Re-bodied in 1949 with a Roe body, the entrance was changed to the rear and four extra seat were added making it a B36R.
When Taylors sold out to Yorkshire Traction, Wray’s continued to run the service until they too sold to Yorkshire Traction. Stagecoach ran the service Barnsley to Pontefract via Upton until the 29th January 2017 and they have terminated the service at Brierley. The service from Hemsworth to Pontefract via Upton in now run by M Travel with a vastly reduced service.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Brian Lunn

17/02/17 – 06:48

To see what it looked like originally, there’s an official picture of a sister vehicle when new at: //davidbeilby.zenfolio.com/

David Beilby

17/02/17 – 08:54

Thanks for the picture David, it is interesting to see the difference. I don’t remember it any different to the Roe body, so it may have been re-bodied soon after Taylor’s bought it.

Brian Lunn

17/02/17 – 08:55

David – thanks for the link to the official photo of the St Helens version of this TS6c. However, what amazes me is the sign in the back window stating "Dick Kerr Coachwork". I realise they had an historic link with English Electric but I don’t think I’ve ever known of, or seen, reference to a Dick Kerr bus body before.

Paul Haywood

17/02/17 – 14:40

Yes, Paul, an interesting observation. I knew of the ‘Dick Kerr’ connection to trams, and the English Electric connection to both buses and trams, but it appears (if we believe Wikipedia) that the DK operation was a member of the EE group, and that the name is not a variation of Richard Kerr, but a combination of Mr Dick and Mr Kerr, so "Dick, Kerr".

Pete Davies

17/02/17 – 14:41

By the time of this picture DJ 6058 seems to have lost its torque converter, as there is no long tank visible on the front bulkhead. I guess the conversion to normal gearbox would have been made at the same time as the rebodying.

Ian Thompson

17/02/17 – 14:42

According to the Peter Gould fleet list, this vehicle (and one other of its type) were rebodied while with St Helens, and lasted until 1954 with that fleet.

David Call

Rossendale Transport
1966
Leyland Titan PD3/4
East Lancs H41/32F

XTF 98D is a Leyland Titan PD3/4 with East Lancs H73F body, new to Haslingden Corporation in September 1966. Two years later, Haslingden and Rawtenstall combined their fleets to form Rossendale Transport, in which guise we see it here. It is taking part in the King Alfred running day in Winchester on 1 January 2006. It is behind the Bus Station.

Here is a closer shot of the fleetname.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

12/02/17 – 09:11

Think the vehicle is now in Oxford area working for an operator.

Roger Burdett

13/02/17 – 07:05

Thanks, Roger. I think that, when I took the photos, she was with Quantock.

Pete Davies

13/02/17 – 15:07

XTF 98D was last known with The School Bus Company (Oxford) Ltd of Kingston Bagpuize.

John Wakefield

16/02/17 – 16:01

Kingston Bagpuize … now how is THAT pronounced? The "Kingston Bag-" part is (I hope!) straightforward, but after that? When I first saw it (on a map or a road sign), I had an attack of franglais and rhymed it with squeeze, but I think I’ve heard it rhymed with views.
It would, of course, be delightful if the word is actually pronounced like … a certain saggy old cloth cat?

Graham Woods

17/02/17 – 06:23

Graham, according to Wikipedia (not always reliable) the pronunciation of (Kingston) Bagpuize is "bag-pews" – but I didn’t know either until your question prompted me to look it up just now!

Stephen Ford

17/02/17 – 06:26

Graham: I live only 5 miles from Kingston Bagpuize, and although jokey versions such as "bagpipes" are sometimes heard, the current pronunciation is as you’ve heard it—to rhyme with "views".
It seems that Ralph de Bachepuze came over from Bacquepuis (pronounced roughly "back-pwee") in Normandy to settle in north Berkshire, so your attack of franglais was quite in order.
Southmoor, adjoining Kingston, is fortunate enough to have the half-hourly 66 Swindon-to-Oxford service, but other nearby villages—Appleton, Fifield, Hinton Waldrist, Longworth and so on—have recently lost their bus service altogether and are therefore playing their patriotic part (at least according to George Osborne’s strange logic) in reducing the "drain" on public finances which decent public transport is said to represent.

Ian Thompson

17/02/17 – 06:27

Bagpuss, I believe.

Chris Hebbron

18/02/17 – 06:53

Thanks, Stephen and Ian, and yes, Chris, that is the cat that I had in mind.

Graham Woods

25/01/19 – 07:06

I used to drive XTF 98D on weddings etc. for Nostalgia Travel (Oxford). A very fine looking vehicle. NT sorted some issues with its injectors and made it run well – but, unfortunately, they had to re-trim the downstairs seats with PVC to replace the worn blue leather covers. Also, they removed the Rossendale name from its sides.
Compared to NT’s Gardner engined Bristol FLF, the Leyland Titan cab was much noisier. Its Leyland O.600 sounded well enough at idle but, crikey, what an ear-bending racket when accelerating up to its 38MPH maximum!
The scales tipped back firmly into the Titan’s favour when considering the two gearboxes, however.

Ade B

13/08/22 – 05:34

This bus passed me on the A4074 near Benson, Oxon today (12/8/22). Looked like it was on hire – for a wedding?

Alan Brampton

Royal Household
1927
Leyland Lioness PLC1
Thurgood C26F (1938)

A view of a vehicle operated by the Royal Household has appeared in these columns already, in the form of PYY 28D, but YT 3738 appears to be a different animal altogether, being noted as bought new by King George V himself. A Leyland Lioness PLC1, with Leyland body, it dates from 1927. Originally a van, it was rebuilt by Thurgood in 1938, to the C26F layout we now see. It carried the Jersey registration J 8462 for a while. She has been resident in the museum at Leyland for a number of years, and we see it there on 19 August 2012. Was it, perhaps, a luggage van when new, and then converted for staff transport or for guests on hunting parties?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

10/02/17 – 06:58

The Leyland Lioness name embraces two distinct models. The PLC1 was a normal control version of the PLSC Lion of 1925, designed by J. G. Parry Thomas before he was lured away to the world of motor racing. The PLC1 (the ‘S’ for side driving position was naturally omitted) had the same 5.1 litre four cylinder ohv engine and four speed crash gearbox to meet the still significant demand for a bonneted bus and coach chassis. In 1926 G. J. Rackham became Chief Engineer of Leyland, the fruits of his thinking emerging in 1927 as the six cylinder Titan and Tiger designs. The Lion name continued for the updated LT four cylinder single deck range. A bonneted version of the Tiger was offered as the Tigress for a short time, but, around 1929 this model was discontinued in favour of a more powerful version of the Lioness, the LTB1 (‘B’ for bonnet – the ‘P’ for pneumatic was by then redundant) which employed the six cylinder 6.8 litre engine and other components of the Titan/Tiger, including its four speed crash gearbox. Peter Stanier’s DM 6228 is a well known example of this later type. I believe that YT 3738 was originally bodied as a shooting brake for the Royal Household of King George V rather than a van, and served for some 10 years before being sold off to Jersey for psv duties.

Roger Cox