Plymouth City Transport
1938
Leyland Titan TD5c
Leyland L53R

The chassis of ADR 813 was new to Plymouth City Transport in 1938, but it received its present Leyland L53R body in 1953. As all I have read about Leyland’s body manufacturing facilities says they finished in 1953, this must, surely, have been one of their last. The chassis is noted in the PSVC listing for 2012 as being a Leyland Titan TD5c, which was probably very useful on Plymouth’s hills! We see it at Winkleigh on 6 October 1996.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

07/07/16 – 09:15

Leyland ceased body production in December 1954. The last coach body was built for Wilkinson of Sedgefield, the last bus bodies were on a batch of PD2s for Trent.

Phil Blinkhorn

07/07/16 – 09:15

This very bus appears in the (now) very ancient book, "Building Britain’s Buses", in which some school boys are given a guided tour of the Leyland works. Ian Allan published it, but there is no publication date. However it is clear from the photos and text that Leyland’s body building plant was operative at the time of writing this book. The caption to the photo, which shows ADR 813 in the Customer Inspection Department, gives no indication that the bus is a re-body. Midland Red LD8’s are in the background. Because of that caption, it was many years before I understood that this was a re-body rather than an all-new bus. It must have been quite un-nerving to see a PD2 look-alike approaching, only to find pure Leyland TD5 sounds as it pulled away! As even the picture in this view is 20 years old, I do hope that this bus still survives.

Michael Hampton

07/07/16 – 16:13

Thank you, Phil and Michael, for your comments. I can’t speak in respect of recent developments, but this bus was alive and well last time I visited Winkleigh, in 2012.

Pete Davies

07/07/16 – 16:13

What a wonderful combination, but are we sure that its a TD5c as the normal Autovac is usually replaced by a much deeper device on torque converter chassis. I may well be wrong in always having assumed that this was universally the case.

Chris Youhill

07/07/16 – 16:14

A further thought. I wonder if the radiator shell was not replaced as part of the rebodying contract because Leyland didn’t want a TD5 totally in PD2 clothing.

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 06:32

Many operators removed the torque convertors from their Leyland Titans c.1945-47, replacing them with standard Leyland gear boxes for the TD series. If Plymouth did this, perhaps that would account for the replacement of the deeper autovac by a standard size? I don’t have any lists for Plymouth, so this is just a guess. But Southdown and Portsmouth along with others took this option – possibly Leyland put on a "special offer" to cover this change in the early post-war period.

Michael Hampton

08/07/16 – 06:33

In contrast to Pete’s comment about the hill climbing usefulness of the TD5c, I was always under the impression the torque-converter fitted Leylands were very poor on hills. Many operators removed them and fitted a conventional crash gearbox and that could be the case here. The ‘c’ suffix was not always removed from fleet listings when this occurred. I remember riding on the Lytham St Annes Leyland Lion which was still torque-converter fitted at a Heart of the Pennines Rally at Halifax several years ago. The driver insisted on an alternative ‘low level’ route to the mountainous climbs this event always featured as he knew it wouldn’t make it!

Philip Halstead

08/07/16 – 06:33

Chris, presumably by the time of the rebodying the torque converter had been replaced by a conventional transmission. The deeper Autovac was in fact a dual unit containing the hydraulic converter fluid as well as fuel header tank and, after conversion, would have been replaced by a conventional Autovac.

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 06:34

I’ve seen a few mentions on this site of the SCT61 website. A look on there shows that, while ADR 813 WAS a TD5C, the rebodying included replacing the gearbox with a conventional one, so I suppose ordinary TD would be the correct caption now.

Pete Davies

08/07/16 – 07:46

I believe the convention is for the chassis designation to remain as built with a note regarding modifications, for one thing the chassis plate would almost certainly retain the original designation. An example of this would be Halifax’s Daimlers which were fitted with Leyland engines, which remained as CVG6 with Leyland engines and not CVL6, which would be an enthusiasts’ designation as such a model didn’t (to my knowledge anyway) exist.

David Beilby

08/07/16 – 09:06

Thanks everyone for clarifying the torque converter query, and for telling me something I certainly didn’t know – that the large tank also included a normal Autovac – I believe the rather intriguing maker’s name of the converters was "Smiths-Lysholm."

Chris Youhill

08/07/16 – 17:13

In the early 1930s Leyland was looking to ease the lot of driving buses in what was then considered heavy traffic. Up until 1932 all its chassis featured a sliding mesh gearbox/friction clutch transmission but Daimler had introduced its preselector system and transport departments were looking to retrain tram drivers as bus drivers so something different was required.
A semi automatic torque converter which had been patented by Alf Lysholm under the manufacturing name of Lysholm-Smith was experimented with in 1932. Dr Haworth, Leyland’s Chief Engineer adopted the principle and developed it so that, at the 1934 Commercial Motor Show, the Tiger, Titan, Titanic and Lion chassis were offered with automatic transmission as an option, the first time any production bus chassis had been offered with the option anywhere in the world. The system offered a single lever with direct, converter and reverse drives plus neutral.
The vehicles were badged as "Leyland Gearless Bus". The company made its own converters but acknowledged Alf Lysholm’s base patent in its own patents.
The gearless chassis sold well and an interesting experiment took place in 1934 when London Transport sent the chassis of STL221, a standard AEC Regent, to Leyland to be fitted with the system. After several days in Lancashire it returned to London, was subsequently bodied and ran with the torque converter until August 1937. The comments from Southall have either been lost to or censored from the annals of history!

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 17:14

ADR 813 certainly still exists. It was part of the late Colin Shears’ West of England Transport Collection, so was resident at Winkleigh. ADL is still listed on the collection’s fleet list.
The usual open day at Winkleigh in October is taking a rest this year, so it won’t be until October 2017 that we will be able to see this old girl again for real.

Petras409

09/07/16 – 06:36

Phil, your little side-issue concerning LT’s STL221 being fitted with a torque-converter between 1934 and August 1937, as ever, shows LT’s illogicality at times! At about the time the decision was being taken to remove STL221’s converter, LT was taking delivery of 100 Leyland TD4’s with Leyland copycat STL bodies, the last 10 of which were fitted with torque-converters! Like STL221, they were soon discarded in favour of crash gearboxes, in 1939, to match the other 90 of the class. To add to this illogicality, if these STD’s were STL clones, why were they not all fitted with pre-selective gearboxes?

Chris Hebbron

09/07/16 – 10:37

All very interesting and valid points indeed Chris H.
Turning now to the immediate postwar period, where supply problems were definitely a feature, I’ve no doubt that the sudden arrival of hired in Tilling Group Bristols and the glorious batch of all Leyland PD1s caused much discontent amongst the drivers involved – after all I doubt if many of them were admiring enthusiasts like me !! I absolutely worshipped the STDs for their unexpected individuality in London. A large number where allocated to Victoria Gillingham Street (GM) and they appeared frequently on the long and arduous 137 route from Highgate to Crystal Palace via Streatham. As a youngster, holidaying in the latter, I was a frequent visitor to the free swings and roundabouts in Norwood Park, which involved stopping the PD1 on the steep of Central Hill – even at that tender age I had a conscience about stopping the driver at such an awkward spot. Never in my wildest dreams then did I imagine that I would one day pass my PSV test on an identical glorious PD1 in Leeds. Oh, why can’t we magically turn the clock back ??

Chris Youhill

09/07/16 – 16:32

Whilst strictly not within the scope of this thread, the mention of Lysholm Smith reminded me that the first Derby Lightweight DMUs of 1954 featured this transmission. To quote from Derby Lightweight DMUs by Evan Green-Hughes, the following may be of interest.
"The West Riding sets were made up of two cars, both of which were powered in view of the heavily graded nature of the territory in which they were to work. The well-established Leyland L600 125hp horizontally mounted six cylinder engine, as used in many buses and trucks, was specified and two were fitted to each coach. Riddles had chosen to fit the Leyland Lysholm Smith torque converter transmission which had been used in an earlier LMS three-car experimental unit. This had a double-acting clutch that either connected the engine output to the torque converter pump or directly to the output shaft and was bolted directly to the engine. The clutch was controlled by the driver who could select one of four positions,off, neutral, converter drive and direct drive.Converter drive was used for pulling away or hill climbing, whilst direct drive would be used when going downhill or when travelling along easy graded sections at speed. However, by the time the units were completed, the Lysholm Smith transmission system was already obsolete and the buses for which it was originally designed were being equipped with pre-selector transmission"

John Darwent

09/07/16 – 17:15

Chris, to answer your question re the lack of preselector gearboxes on the STD class, the STL class through its many variations generally had crash gearboxes though a number had Daimler preselector boxes. AEC and Daimler had formed ADC for a short period in the mid/late 1920s and presumably relations were such that AEC could source from Daimler. Leyland was very much its own man and presumably either would not or could not deal with Daimler and a crash box would not have been seen as disadvantageous at the time.

Phil Blinkhorn

Huddersfield Corporation
1963
Leyland Titan PD3A/2
Roe H39/31F

Since the formation of the partly railway-owned Huddersfield Joint Omnibus Committee in May 1930, the arrangement had been that tram and trolleybus routes, irrespective of whether they ran within or without the borough, were to remain the business of the Corporation, and that all motorbus routes would be run by the JOC – a very different arrangement to JOC agreements elsewhere. When the Corporation finally made a decision to abandon trolleybuses from 1961 and replace them with motorbuses, then the converted routes would remain in Corporation control. With the introduction of motorbuses on the 30 Almondbury to West Vale route in November 1961, eight Leyland PD3A/2’s with Roe H39/31F bodies (401-408, UCX 401-408) were delivered – a new type for Huddersfield – in a streamlined variation of the livery. They were not well received at the time, being considered noisy and slow, adding considerably to the time taken to climb from Elland to Ainley Top up the steeply graded ‘Ainleys’ compared to the trolleybuses.
For the next conversions a further 16 of the same type were purchased (409-424, WVH 409-424), delivered in two batches in late 1962/early 1963. Eight similar, but shorter PD2A/24’s were bought for the JOC later in 1963, being in the JOC’s more conventional three-cream-banded livery, but then allegiance switched to Daimler products. Trolleybuses were abandoned altogether in 1968, and in October 1969 the Corporation took over the former railway-owned share of the JOC, as well as the local stage services of Hanson’s Buses Ltd, so from then the operation was all ‘Corporation’. Someone then suggested a new version of the livery should be introduced for the newly combined operation, and 419 (as seen above) was duly turned out in this scheme that can surely only be described as truly dreadful – rather like the drab Hanson all-over red with a cream front. Here it is seen in John William Street in September 1970. Thankfully, this particular idea was not adopted.
Following the formation of the West Yorkshire PTE twelve of the WVH-registered buses were transferred to Halifax (Metro Calderdale), including 419 – soon after renumbered 4419. All but one were repainted into WYPTE livery and soldiered on having quite a hard life on Halifax’s arduous routes, 4419 being withdrawn in September 1979, then sold at auction to a scrap dealer. The last one (4418) was withdrawn in February 1980 being one of the last three halfcabs in the Halifax fleet. Of the ones that remained at Huddersfield, some were sold for further service with OK Motor Services of Bishop Auckland, in whose livery they looked superb. One was later used as a static restroom and changing facility at the Beamish Open Air Museum, painted allover grey, but is believed not to have survived.

Photograph and Copy contributed by John Stringer

21/06/16 – 06:04

John says these buses were not popular when introduced. I think any motorbuses which replaced trolleybuses were on a hiding to nothing especially in such hilly terrain where passengers were used to a silent climb up the long slog to Ainley Top. The same happened in Bradford where the AEC Regent V’s got a bad reputation for noise and vibration when they took over from the trolleys on the climb up to Wibsey and Buttershaw. Bradford compounded the problem by moving to synchromesh gearboxes so in addition to the engine noise passengers were treated to the screaming whine from the gearbox.

Philip Halstead

21/06/16 – 09:06

Much as I loved trolleybuses Philip, and I did love them, if I’d been a resident of Wibsey or Buttershaw I’d have raised no objection at all and indeed I’d have been delighted, to enjoy the symphony that you mention coming from the gearboxes of the Regent Vs. If the totally unnecessary bad driving sadly so characteristic of many of the Bradford chaps on the Mark Vs had caused any injury or bruising I’d have had to follow the advice of the wonderful J. Stanley King and purchase some embrocation !! Oh to go back to the wonderful days of the 1940s/50s/60s when virtually every make and model had such character and individuality.

Chris Youhill

21/06/16 – 10:46

Indeed so, CY! We can of course sample these delights during rallies and running days, but it isn’t the same as experiencing them in normal service. Someone has commented on here in the past – I suspect it might have been Roger Cox – about having ‘steering technicians’ these days instead of drivers. All they are able to do is aim the vehicle; everything else is done automatically. When the Optare Deltas first came into service – sorry, folks! – Marchwood Motorways had some. Drivers of more traditional vehicles commented that they didn’t have even the rudimentary gear stick of a normal automatic, just three buttons: go forward, go backward, and park it. It worries me that some fleets now have them in their ‘driving schools’! Intended specifically for those ‘steering technicians’, perhaps?

Pete Davies

22/06/16 – 06:37

My memory of trolleybuses in Nottingham is that they were certainly quiet and powerful, even on steep gradients, but smooth they were not! The superb acceleration was achieved in a series of sudden sharp thrusts – reminiscent of an aircraft take-off. They couldn’t compare for smoothness with the huge fleet of pre-selector Regent IIIs.

Stephen Ford

22/06/16 – 06:38

The Leyland PD3, though undeniably a reliable plodder, was never a scintillating performer, and its braking characteristics left much to be desired. During my time in Halifax, the HPTD contribution to the 43 Halifax – Huddersfield service which traversed the Ainleys en route always consisted of PD2s which ascended the long, steep gradient steadily if not spectacularly. The Halifax JOC PD3s were generally relegated to the rather less demanding Hebden Bridge – Brighouse services. The prospect of going down the Ainleys with a PD3 would not have inspired confidence in me – I suspect that third gear would have been required to obviate severe brake fade on entering Elland. The ‘streamlined’ colour scheme of the Huddersfield Corporation fleet looked quite smart to my eye, as, indeed, did the more restrained JOC version of the livery. As John remarks, the appearance of the bus in the picture is absolutely terrible. I would suspect that this idea emerged from the engineering department where considerations of painting costs rather than presentational image took precedence.

Roger Cox

22/06/16 – 06:38

Bus sounds of old certainly stick in your mind. We had Regent V’s in Rochdale but they were of a special breed. Fitted with Gardner engines and preselector gearboxes they used to bark their way up Drake Street and then at the top would give that characteristic little jump forward as the driver pressed the gearchange pedal to change up. No screaming or whining from these beauties. And oh that livery!

Philip Halstead

22/06/16 – 06:39

With all due respect to the old-timers (being one myself!) I think your remarks about steering technicians is unnecessarily harsh. With the volume of traffic on the roads and the abysmal driving standards generally anything to make the drivers job easier is to be applauded.
Would you like to drive a bus with a crash gearbox on todays roads while collecting fares and dealing with the idiots on the roads and the moaning "t’wearlies" at every stop and behind you not to mention the drunken yobs on lates? I thought not.
I have never driven an automatic bus in my life (and very few semi-automatics), but if I were city bus driving today I would be grateful to have either !

Malcolm Hirst

22/06/16 – 06:40

At Reading Buses on Friday during a break on the 2016 Royal Blue Run one of the female technical apprentices asked what the long lever with the ball on top was for ie gearlever-she was being serious!

Roger Burdett

22/06/16 – 09:39

Malcolm I know exactly what you mean about today’s road and service conditions and nowadays you are right. As one who had to suffer many new fangled fully automatic systems in the 1960s/70s though I have to say that several of these were violent in behaviour and in certain circumstances downright dangerous. Take for example the first batch of 33 foot Fleetlines of LCT which incorporated a "kick down" facility – the very title says it all. Upon approaching a roundabout if you wished to change down you had to slam the accelerator pedal to the floor whereupon the infant electronics should have selected a lower gear. this failed more often than it worked and so, aided by the legendary torque of the Gardner engine, you were propelled towards the hazard at speed in top gear, or which ever ratio had been too high as you "kicked down." On the other hand, and to be fair, all the modern systems leave me breathless with admiration as they "read" the road situation with incredible precision and change up and down imperceptively. The only exception in my experience were the dreadful Leyland Lynxes in which the ZF gearboxes regularly malfunctioned and "missed" third and other gears, causing the Cummins engines to scream to full revs in neutral and before your could ease off the gear would then engage with a violent thud – causing universal loud condemnation from the victims within "They’ve some rough drivers on this firm, we don’t know where they get them from." The same could and did occur as you braked smoothly and the ZF decided to change down in a similar fierce manner, resulting in "Oooh this fella’s ‘evvy on his brakes" from within.
Speaking now admittedly with "forked tongue" I have to say that as an enthusiast I would gladly enjoy a live gearbox on urban service work, but I realise that’s an exceptional view.

Chris Youhill

22/06/16 – 14:47

Interesting use of the word "Kickdown".
In automatic cars the kickdown was to engage a lower gear but for acceleration rather than deceleration.

John Lomas

22/06/16 – 14:48

I seem to have kicked over the ant-hill! I was not intending to denigrate today’s bus and coach drivers, for most of them do a fine job with the equipment they are given. As Chris says, some vehicles in the not too distant past have been dire in the way they have changed gear. First in Southampton have some Volvo double deckers (W801 series) which sound as if they are desperate for a gearchange, but I’m told that it’s actually the cooling fans . . .
I used to work for Southampton City Council on the traffic management side, and was the only one in the team who had ever driven a bus (though not on public service). Even my manager hadn’t. I took advantage of an invitation in the booking office window of the old Hants & Dorset Bus Station in Southampton – it was Hampshire Bus by then: "If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive a bus, pay us £10 and have a trial hour." It was a Lodekka trainer of the EMR…D series, crash gearbox, so double declutch every move, and a big stick. At least it gave me some idea of what the bus driver had to contend with.
With reference to Roger Burdett’s comment, I was once told about two coach drivers who had been sent to collect a pair of new vehicles. I believe they were Neoplan Skyliners. The drivers inspected the exteriors and then had a quick look inside. They were appalled by what they found, and there then followed an urgent call to office. "We can’t drive these, boss. We’re only licensed for two pedals and a wrist-flicker, but these have three pedals and a big stick! HELP!" At least the ‘wrist-flicker’ is more like a real gearchange than the three buttons I mentioned.

Pete Davies

23/06/16 – 08:53

Too true Pete – when the first "buttons" Olympian was delivered to SYRT my heart sank and my fears intensified when we were taken out on "familiarisation" runs and I found that the Company had fitted a plate over the original "1, 2 and 3" buttons taking away any emergency control from the driver. My immediate protest about legality (in which I was eventually proved wrong it seems) encourages this unbelievably fatuous sneer from the uninformed senior fitter that "We’ve blanked them off to prevent you mad drivers from thrashing it in lower gears." I still after 28 years cannot believe I heard that. When I took my objections to the General Manager I was told "Oh well if you don’t like it, take a screwdriver with you and remove the plate while you’re driving", to which I politely replied that I supposed that I should then be sacked for interfering with the bus. So it was that the famous 107 "TWY 7", which should of course have had an E *** *** number, leapt and jerked its misbehaved ZF way along, often in the wrong gear, especially in heavy urban traffic. The same "Company Luddite" treatment was afflicted upon the next two Olympians also. I retired in 2001 and I can’t for certain remember now, but possibly the offending plates were removed from the gear buttons eventually.
I’m talking now of course about the earliest versions of the "button" method and as I’ve said elsewhere the modern gearboxes are intelligent and faultless to a commendable and amazing degree, so credit where its due. To my traditional standards though, the buttons always reminded me of the "long, medium and short" wavelength buttons on old radio sets, rather than anything automobile.

Chris Youhill

24/06/16 – 05:57

The link below shows the first UK bus with three button gear control.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/

Stephen Allcroft

24/06/16 – 05:58

Chris, the ZF box, if properly maintained, was probably the best of the earlier auto systems in double deckers, though the Allison in single decks was OK. The sequence of torque converters with lock up at each stage effectively gave five gears, and the hold down buttons for the intermediate stages allowed some measure of driver control to considerable advantage. The policy you mention of plating over these buttons was stupid and insulting. If neglected, the ZF box could certainly behave in the wayward manner you describe, with thumping, rough changes at illogical speeds, but this was definitely a maintenance issue. Some of the Viscount (i.e. Cambus) Olympians of the Peterborough area displayed these symptoms, but in regular driving one did get to sense that the thing was about to change gear upwards, and easing the accelerator at that point alleviated the bang. Slowing down was another matter, and nothing could be done to minimise the savage lurch and thump of the lower gear engagement. By contrast, the Olympians at Huntingdon & District were better maintained, and the ZF gearboxes there behaved entirely properly. To my mind the worst of the earlier bus autos was the three speed Voith box that Stagecoach specified in the Volvo Olympian. With these, the engine had to be taken up to screaming full revs before the thing would change up, and, on slowing down, the lower gear would lurch in again at ridiculously high road speeds. When the bus was held in gear for more than a few seconds, such as when waiting to enter a roundabout, the Voith automatically engaged neutral, so that, when the accelerator was depressed to move off, the engine would speed up a bit before the gearbox engaged with a lurch. Several valuable seconds would thus be lost in trying to get the bus going again, and coupled with the miserable low speed torque of the Volvo engine, moving off could be decidedly sluggish and hairy in some circumstances. At Peterborough, the southern exit from Queensgate Bus Station is on a rising gradient into a fast, busy roundabout, and these Volvo Olympians were hopeless at getting out. Similar nightmares would be experienced re-entering the A1 traffic from village side roads, pulling into the A605 at Elton, crossing the A47 at Wansford……… I won’t go on. The Voith may have been simple and easier to maintain, but it was hopeless on the road. At Ramsey, our ZF Gardner Olympians would just about run for two days on one fill up. The replacement Voith Volvos had to be refuelled twice in one day. Yes, the modern transmissions do seem to behave better, but I retired (thankfully) in 2006, so I don’t have any practical driving experience with them.

Roger Cox

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

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

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’