Copyright Keith A Jenkinson

York – West Yorkshire
1935
Bristol GO5G
ECOC H58R

This picture was taken at York Station in 1937, and shows the vehicle, in its original livery, on the ‘Circle’ route – 1/8, Tang Hall – Beckfield Lane – Burton Stone Lane. The vertical line in the middle of the ‘bible’ indicator clearly suggests that the flap would have been turned over like the page in a book rather than being raised or lowered. However, the entire ‘bible’ would have needed to be changed some 15 or 16 times a day on this service – something of a chore for the crews.
To my shame, I have to say that, despite some of them being in service until 1952, I have no personal recollection of the Y-WY GO5Gs; the 1939 K5Gs, (and the 1938 K5Gs, after rebodying), were regularly used on routes with which I was very familiar and I knew those buses well, but I just don’t remember the GO5Gs. My only excuse is that Y-WY introduced Bristol K6Bs on the circle route – maybe in part because they had blinds – by the time I was about six years old, so the GO5G’s must have been used elsewhere in the system, (e.g. taking John Whitaker to Leeds!).
Behind Y327 is Y413, an ex-West Yorkshire lowbridge Leyland TD1; opposite is Y329, another GO5G.
My thanks to Keith A Jenkinson for his kind permission to use the picture.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roy Burke

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09/05/11 – 07:57

There is something about the character of Bristol buses…old ones anyway. Business like, efficient, and thoroughly economic, and absolutely oozing with character. This photograph just sums it up for me. My Bradford based memories are of the lowbridge variety, so it was always a pleasure for me when, as a child, we went to, or through York, as the highbridge version was a rare treat.
Thanks for the memory Roy!

John Whitaker

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

West Yorkshire Road Car Company
1936
Bristol JO5G
ECOC B32F

Bristol JO5G 925 is seen operating on a local service in Harrogate about 1950. This bus was one of sixty built by the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company in 1935/36 and is of the square back style. The previous posting of West Yorkshire JO5G 970 shows the round back style body of the 1937 batch. 925 was in service up to August 1952 and all the square back “Js” had gone by the end of October 1952.
Harrogate was also the headquarters for the West Yorkshire Road Car Company and mecca for the bus enthusiast. It always seemed to me to be a place of bus contrasts with the oldest in the fleet usually on the town local services and the newest buses generally operating on the prestigious 36 Leeds to Ripon service. Perhaps this was West Yorkshire trying to impress their United cousins at Ripon.
I made many visits to Harrogate in the fifties using the WY Skipton to Harrogate 76 service from Burley-in-Wharfedale and well remember my first sighting of the prototype Bristol Lodekka 822 (DX1) as well as the pre-production Lodekka with an open platform and later numbered DX2. Other strange buses to seen in Harrogate were the Morris/Beadles 618/619 (SM1/SM2) on town local services but my favourites were the many Bristol JO5Gs to be seen on various routes. These were very exciting days for a young bus enthusiast and never to be forgotten.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Richard Fieldhouse

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24/04/11 – 15:04

The photo of 925 is nostalgic beyond belief for me as I so well remember these earlier "J"s in Bradford’s Chester Street Bus Station when I was a boy. They were obviously older buses than the "rounder" BWT Js and the following L types with similar bodies. There was always one parked (in my memory anyway!) on the little adjacent piece of land on the right as one exited the bus station, and it always seemed to have the "Have you Macleaned your teeth today" advert on the back. Other memories of these wonderful machines were on trips to Baildon, and to Dick Hudsons on the Bingley to Eldwick service. Oh to be able to ride on one again! They were amongst the most characterful and attractive buses of all time. Wonderfully efficient buses too, from an operational viewpoint.
Thank you to Richard for this superb memory jogger.
It may be of interest to other enthusiasts to know that I am currently preparing a readable WY fleet list from info. taken from various publications Hopefully, this will be included in the fleet list section on this website.

John Whitaker

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24/04/11 – 15:06

My sentiments exactly Richard. From 1941 – 1947 I travelled to and from Ben Rhydding School on the Bristol Js, prewar Ls, Dennis Aces and Lancets.
The two "square backed" ones allocated to Ilkley at the time were 946/7 AWX 798/9 and I loved them. Later, when I was a conductor at Ilkley from 1960 my favourite route was the 76 Skipton – Tadcaster. It was a five hour round trip (wonderful) and took five "cars" to operate it – it was shared by Harrogate, Ilkley, Skipton and Wetherby depots (and by GRASSINGTON who used the Skipton depot "car" for one round trip.) I too loved the atmosphere of Harrogate and you always had the feeling that the Company’s excellence was concentrated there – indeed anyone who had to go there on a disciplinary charge (as opposed to local depot action) knew full well that they might come back via the Labour Exchange. If you were travelling from Burley in 1960/1 I may well have issued you with a ticket or two !!

Chris Youhill

Copyright Keith A Jenkinson

York – West Yorkshire
1937
Bristol GO5G
ECW H54R

It was John Whitaker’s amusing recollection, (posting of East Yorkshire Leyland PD1), of his agonising journey from York to Leeds on a 1935 York-West Yorkshire GO5G that prompted this submission. It is taken from Keith A Jenkinson’s excellent book ‘York City Buses’, (my grateful thanks to the author for his kind permission to use it). It is actually from the 1937 batch of 4 vehicles, but apart from small differences to the window corners, it’s external appearance is virtually identical to the 1935 batch. The picture shows the vehicle at ECW before it entered service, in the pre-WW II livery and is, no doubt, rather smarter than the bus on which John had his small adventure, but I thought he – and hopefully others -  might be interested to see how it would have looked in its prime. Even ECW were capable of small mistakes, however; the registration number is wrong!

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roy Burke