Bury Corporation
1965
Daimler Fleetline CRG6LX
East Lancs H43/31F

In 1965 when this shot was taken there was only two rear engined double deck vehicles the Daimler Fleetline and the Leyland Atlantean. The Fleetline had one big advantage over the early Atlanteans in that it had a flat central gangway downstairs and the step up from the ground to entrance floor level was only 1 foot. The advantage of the easy access and high seating capacity meant that the Fleetline became a very popular vehicle with municipal and company operators alike.
The first Fleetlines had the Daimler CD6 8.6 litre six cylinder engine but has soon as it went into serious production it was supplied with the Gardner 6LX 10.45 litre engine as standard with an option of the Gardner 6LW 8.4 litre both were six cylinder diesels.  The gearbox was of the four speed Daimatic direct selection epicyclic type and the braking system was air pressure. As with all Daimler vehicles the coding is fairly straight forward the ‘R’ stands for rear engine and the ‘G’ stands for the Gardner engine, I wish I knew what the ‘C’ stood for as it precedes most Daimler codes ‘CWG’ and ‘CVG’ for example my guess is ‘Chassis’ but if anybody knows better or has a good idea please please leave a comment.

A full list of Daimler codes can be seen here.

“I think the ‘C’ could stand for ‘Coventry’
It came from the dark recesses of my mind. What happened when the Fleetline moved from Coventry to Leyland? It ceased to be CRG/L and became FE. So unsubstantiated, but a reasonable guess – unless anyone else knows better.”
D Oldfield

“I think the ‘C’ could stand for ‘Commercial’
As the company at the time was called Daimler Commercial Vehicles and traded separate to the passenger car business.”

T J Haigh

The ‘C’ chassis prefix did stand for Commercial vehicle, as Daimler also made private cars. Sadly this tradition ended when Leyland in its infinite wisdom moved Daimler bus production to Leyland. These chassis were designated ‘FE’, in line with Leyland’s then practice of using the first and last letters of model names as chassis designations (eg: ON OlympiaN; TN TitaN; NL NationaL; LX LynX).

Brendan Smith

30/01/12 – 11:11

The debate goes on about how successful the RMF would have been had it gone into full scale production, but at Northern’s Percy Main depot we had both Atlanteans and Fleetlines, and for my money the Fleetline was a far superior vehicle, ‘perhaps that’s why it was killed off when Daimler became part of British Leyland’ All ours had the Gardner 6LW, the earlier ones were MCW bodied but my favourites were the later Alexander bodied vehicles, most of them were transferred to East Yorkshire when NBC came about.

Ronnie Hoye

28/09/12 – 07:49

This style of East Lancs body for rear engined double deckers only appeared on this batch for Bury and an almost contemporaneous batch of Fleetlines for Coventry.
They were well proportioned vehicles as can be seen here

Phil Blinkhorn

28/09/12 – 14:13

…..and three batches of PDR1/2s for Sheffield with Neepsend bodies…..

David Oldfield

28/09/12 – 14:15

Phil, Warrington also had Fleetlines with this style of East Lancs bodywork Atlanteans to the same design but built in Sheffield by Neepsend were bought by the corporation. Both the Fleetlines and Atlanteans dated from 1965-1966. An example of the Warrington Fleetlines appears at this link.

Chris Hough

28/09/12 – 18:02

David/Chris,
You are right about the Neepsend bodies for Sheffield and Warrington. I managed to eliminate part of my script after typing in the link to the Coventry photo and didn’t notice until I just read your replies.
If you go back to my original post, it would have continued:
"The photo shows Coventry 22 – but though the design is the same (in all but detail) the body is by Neepsend and is one of a batch where East Lancs produced 9 and Neepsend 13 and Coventry split delivery of chassis in a staggered way between the two plants (see Peter Gould’s list for Coventry 1966). Sheffield received vehicles of this design from Neepsend as well and, strangely, Warrington also received Neepsend produced vehicles. Is this a case of congestion at East Lancs or was this really designed to be built in Sheffield?"

Phil Blinkhorn

29/09/12 – 18:06

Can somebody clarify the relationship between East Lancs and Neepsend. Did East Lancs buy Neepsend to gain additional capacity? if so it seems to have been a bit of waste of time as – to my recollection – Neepsend didn’t last all that long as a body builder . . . which raises the question, what became of them? And what were Neepsend doing before they started assembling East Lancs bodies? – would general metalwork fabrication be a good guess?

Philip Rushworth

30/09/12 – 07:47

The entire share capital of East Lancashire Coachbuilders Ltd was bought by Cravens Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd of Sheffield in 1964. Cravens itself was a subsidiary of the John Brown group of Clydebank, though the founder, John Brown, was himself born in Sheffield in 1816. Although it had made tentative forays into the bus building business between the wars, Cravens was by then primarily a constructor of railway rolling stock. Because the East Lancs premises in Blackburn were of constricted size, Cravens set up a subsidiary in the Neepsend area of Sheffield to increase the productive capacity of the bus bodybuilding side of the business. Neepsend built bodies to East Lancs designs from 1964 before closing completely in 1968.

Roger Cox

30/09/12 – 07:48

There is a deal of confusion on a great number of sites regarding just who were Neepsend and what they did.
It seems that the long established Sheffield firm of Cravens, which over the years produced trams, railway carriages and bus bodies bought East Lancs around 1960.
They set up Neepsend on Penistone Rd, away from their main site, at about the same time initially, as I understand it, as an overflow site (some local forums say that some BRS "Noddy" vans were built there but these were all supposed to have been built by Star Bodies, the BRS in house builder).
There are reports on some local Sheffield forums regarding a building collapse at the property damaging some vans in production.

Phil Blinkhorn

30/09/12 – 07:49

At the time both East Lancs and the former Craven plant in Sheffield were owned by John Brown engineering The company decided to use the Sheffield capacity to build bodies to East Lancs design.

Chris Hough

30/09/12 – 07:50

In 1964 the John Brown Engineering Group bought out the road vehicle body building part of Cravens – the railway part went to Metro-Cammell – and recommenced bus building in Sheffield at Neepsend as an overflow to their newly acquired East Lancs operation.
I was a regular visitor on business to the Blackburn operation up to and beyond the fire. The whole place was cramped and would have horrified a modern health and safety inspector.
If my memory is right there was an extension completed well before the fire which probably meant the demise of Neepsend, though the clutter remained.

Phil Blinkhorn

30/09/12 – 07:51

Further to my last comment Cravens actually bought a stake in East Lancs rather than the other way round in an effort to get back into bus building. This was achieved by a purchase of shares from the bank which was acting as executor of the will of one of the company founders. However the size of the factory and poor quality killed the project off by 1968.

Chris Hough

30/09/12 – 10:37

I have a hazy memory that the Neepsend factory was purpose built, because it had partly "glazed" doors on to Penistone Road through which the skeletons of buses could be seen. It always seemed a bit of a mystery why this was there, then.

Joe

18/01/18 – 05:25

I rode on LEN 101 ( Lenny ) many times when it was brand new at Bury, Ride like a bouncy castle , Drivers got sea sick & the cab was small & overheated being next to the engine, Plagued with mechanical faults, particularly the brakes, It was used sparingly & was on the Bury – Walmersley (37) run, so it wasn’t too far away when it broke down i’m told, A good ride downstairs, but not upstairs, We were told it was bought from the bus show, An untested prototype ?? Seems there were many variations of it,

Ian S

14/11/19 – 05:42

An ex Bury driver I used to know said that that Wulfrunian was the worst bus he ever drove in his 19 years on the buses, through Bury Corporation, Selnec and GMT.
Others he didn’t like were two 36 foot East Lancs bodied Leyland Leopards which had been new to Bolton and were transferred to Bury after Selnec took over, 6054/5.

David Pomfret

Rossie Motors (Rossington) Ltd
1962
Daimler CVD6-30
Roe H41/29F

Yet another independent from the Doncaster area it would be interesting to know just how many there were in the heyday of bus transport. Rossie Motors mainly ran a regular service between Rossington and Doncaster jointly with Doncaster Corporation, Blue Ensign and East Midland must of been a busy route to make it worth while for four operators. The bus above was a thirty foot version of the Daimler CV series hence the 30 suffix code. From what I have come up with, when the 27 ft version of the CVD or G were built to the 30 foot length the code changed to CVD/G6-30 which makes sense. This vehicle is rather rare as the majority of Daimler CVs built around the time this one was were CVGs that is having the Gardner engine.
In 1980 this bus transferred to the South Yorkshire PTE (SYPTE) and was numbered 1160 in their fleet.
There are also references to the Daimler coding ending with ‘DD’ which I presume stands for double decker, so that would make the above bus a Daimler CVD6-30DD.

A full list of Daimler codes can be seen here.

19/10/11 – 06:30

I worked for Rossie Motors in mid/late 60’s. Loved this bus. Very strong & powerful engine. Good ol’ 220. A fav’ with all the crews at that time.

Andy

28/02/12 – 07:58

I believe 220 AWY still survives in the hands of Isle Coaches of Owston Ferry. There is a recent picture here //www.flickr.com/  
Sadly, it appears to be deteriorating.

John Darwent

28/02/12 – 12:13

…..next to a Thurgood Commer, John?

David Oldfield

28/02/12 – 12:13

According to Bus Lists on the Web, this was the last Daimler engined CV series bus supplied to home operators. Another Doncaster area Independent, Leon of Finningley, took delivery of 432 KAL which had a Roe H41/32F body in July 1961, and this bus was described as CVD650-30DD, which indicates that it was powered by the larger 10.6 litre engine. By inference, this suggests that the Rossie Motors bus, like the few CVDs delivered after the heyday of the Daimler engine finished in the mid 1950s – Swindon (3), Coventry, Glasgow and Potteries (1 each)- had the 8.6 litre CD6 engine. This powerplant was never noted for performance in its naturally aspirated form, so Andy’s comment from personal experience about the "very strong and powerful engine" is interesting. Was this engine turbocharged, or did the bus have the larger CD650 motor? Geoff Hilditch always maintained that Daimler gave up too early on its diesel engine manufacturing, and further development would have yielded dividends. My own experience of the Daimler engine is limited to the turbocharged version fitted to one of the Halifax Daimler CVs, and that bus went up hills like a mountain goat with its posterior on fire, so GGH might well have been right.

Roger Cox

28/02/12 – 17:29

The PSV Circle Fleet History for Potteries states that Potteries H8900 originally had an ‘exhaust driven turbocharger’ fitted to its Daimler engine. It was fitted with a Leyland 0.600 engine in 1964 – making it unique as a CVL6-30?? It ran in this mode in a quite satisfactory manner, mainly on the 12/13 Hanley to Bentilee services whilst I was at the Company in the late 60s. Except that some crews disliked the inability for conversations between driver and conductor as they could on an Atlantean. Some wanted the glass in the small window between the cab and platform…..whilst others wanted it out!! Oh dear!

Ian Wild

28/02/12 – 18:06

The suspiciously Dennis Lancet-looking front hub of GWN 432 (next to the Daimler d/d in the flickr photo) caught my eye, and a quick google reveals that it is a Lancet. Wonderful chassis; pity about the styleless body. Is it a replacement?

Ian Thompson

29/02/12 – 07:13

If you go back to the owner’s photostream there’s a detailed history of both vehicles in a caption. Here is a quick link to view it. 

David Beilby

29/02/12 – 07:17

Yes Ian, the body is apparently a Thurgood replacement as David spotted and it is a Dennis Lancet.

John Darwent

29/02/12 – 07:19

Yes, I think it was rebodied in the late fifties.
I’m sure there was an article on it in Bus & Coach Preservation Magazine a year or two back.

Eric

29/02/12 – 07:20

Ian, the body on Dennis Lancet J3 GWN 432 is a Thurgood FC37F, and, as you indicate, it is a replacement, though what the original body was is difficult to establish. Gleaning info from the internet, it seems that the vehicle was originally owned by Super of Tottenham in 1950, and then later came into the ownership of Jenkins of Skewen who had it rebodied and re-registered, hence the Swansea reg plate. Like you, I find some of the full fronted bodies on vertical engined chassis decidedly uninspiring. The O6 engined Lancet was a masterpiece, and rebodying this one to look like a Bedford is the ultimate indignity.There is another picture of this coach at:- //www.flickr.com/

Roger Cox

29/02/12 – 07:24

Re Ian’s question regarding the Dennis, I see that the original flikr picture has a full description. Click on the large blue "Photo" word and the picture shrinks. It is a 1950 Dennis Lancet with a 1960 Thurgood body having originally been a half cab built by Yeates.

Richard Leaman

29/02/12 – 07:23

Its always most interesting to read the varied views of those in the know about the features of individual vehicle models. My experience of the Daimler standard engine fitted to the CWD6 and CVD6 examples was most favourable – at Samuel Ledgard’s we had two utilities with Duple bodies, and four heavier Brush models from Exeter, and of course the famous (or notorious) entire class of ten Brush ones from Leeds City Transport – the premature sale of the latter to be operated on the same roads by the independent rival caused a rumpus in the Council Chamber like Guy Fawkes would have loved to launch successfully at Westminster – an immediate resolution was passed that no such embarrassing situation should ever be allowed again !! I also drove several of the former Wallace Arnold coaches rebodied by Roe as double deckers. I always found them to be powerful and fast, and their only disadvantage was that the exhaust manifold was next to the cab and uncomfortably hot in good weather – but there again pleasantly warm in Winter – "you can’t have it all ways" as they say.

Chris Youhill

01/03/12 – 07:54

I’m sure GGH was right about the Daimler engine from an engineering point of view, but commercially there probably wouldn’t have been much point in further development. Interest in Daimler engines all but disappeared around 1950 as soon as Gardner were once again able to satisfy demand. I strongly suspect that Daimler would not have started updating the CD6 and experimenting with turbochargers if it hadn’t been for the secrecy surrounding Gardner’s development of the 6LX at the time the maximum length of double deckers was increased to 30ft. After the 6LX came on stream, the only way Daimler would have sold engines in any numbers would have been to withdraw the Gardner option. That of course is exactly what Albion did immediately after the war (with the exception of special orders) – and look what happened to them!

Peter Williamson

01/03/12 – 09:20

London Transport’s ‘D’ class contained around 10 CWD’s among a sea of CWA’s. They lasted about 4 years and, in this case, it was less to do with being non-standard and more of being more difficult to service, with the timing mechanism being at the rear of the engine. I have a feeling that the exhaust manifold was nearest the driving cab and ‘cooked’ the drivers in hot weather.
However, one of these had a chalk notice above the windscreen ‘D???, the fastest ‘D’ of all’! Anyway, with AEC engines coming spare from scrapped STL’s, out they came.

Chris Hebbron

02/03/12 – 07:23

The pioneer, at least in Britain, of employing timing gears at the back of the engine was Dennis, who also went a bit further by employing four valves per cylinder. Oil engined Dennis Lancets were very popular with independent operators, who did not have the sophisticated engineering facilities of the larger companies and municipalities, yet the quite complex O4 and O6 engines earned an excellent reputation for quality and reliability. The location of timing gears only became an issue if other aspects of the engine fell short of acceptable reliability standards, when the removal of the entire power unit became necessary for rectification. Daimler, and later Meadows also used rear mounted timing gears, but, in both cases, the quality of design and manufacture failed to achieve the necessary degree of dependability. Albion, like Gardner, used a front mounted timing chain in their 9.0 and 9.9 litre engines, but, unlike Gardner, the chain of the Albion had a propensity to stretch, so that repeated and very difficult adjustment was required to maintain performance. In the early post war period, Sidney Guy sought to compete more strongly with AEC and Leyland by offering the Arab with a larger engine than the 6LW, and he asked Albion if they would supply him with the 9.9 litre EN243. In the event this came to nothing, perhaps because of the Albion’s timing chain shortcomings, though it is possible that merger talks were already under way with Leyland. Guy then turned to the Meadows 10.35 litre 6DC630 (with rear mounted timing gears) which also proved to be a broken reed. Not until the advent of the superb 6LX did the smaller makers have access to a motor of suitable size and quality that was able to take on AEC and Leyland. Gardners also had a right hand exhaust manifold to keep drivers warm!

Roger Cox

02/03/12 – 07:26

I seem to remember that when Rossie received their first two Fleetlines, this vehicle and the other, the ‘ordinary’ CVG6/30, BYG 890B, were dispatched to Charles H Roe for refurbishing and re-painting. When they came back, they had the nice ROSSIE MOTORS fleetname in gold letters (which they hadn’t had before) to match the Fleetlines. This gave Rossie four very good high capacity double deckers for a service which only required a maximum of two vehicles from each operator!

Chris Barker

05/03/12 – 07:38

Thanks, Roger and Richard,for the Flickr link. I’d better put cards on the table, head above the parapet etc and confess that I don’t like droopy-swoopy coach bodies, or any kind of "streamlining" for that matter, on traditional halfcab chassis. I feel they work better on underfloors, where the droop at the back is partly balanced by a slightly drooping front, and the Burlingham Seagull got it dead right. (Thanks to Neville M for that fine article.) Curved-waistrail bodies, with their plethora of window and panel shapes and sizes must have been far more expensive to make, repair and carry replacements for.
Roger Cox’s words "…rebodying this one to look like a Bedford is the ultimate indignity" perfectly sums up my feelings about that Thurgood body and the attitude of mind that led to its being fitted. Those two recently-posted handsome Alexander Greyhound PS2s (MWA 761 and 761) exemplify to my mind how a halfcab single-decker should look, whether bus or coach.

Ian Thompson

06/03/12 – 08:24

I think everyone is being a bit harsh about the Dennis, possibly because the full story, which appeared in B&CP in September 2009, hasn’t been told here. The point is that by the time it came to be rebodied, it was already no longer a half-cab, but merely a chassis with the remains of a burned-out body sold to a dealer as an insurance write-off. At 10 years old, it is a tribute to the quality of the chassis that anyone wanted to do anything other than scrap it. Rebodying it as a halfcab in 1960 would have been ludicrous, and I’d hazard a guess that getting Thurgood to do the job, rather than a mainstream builder, made enough difference in the cost to make it worthwhile.

Peter Williamson

06/03/12 – 12:14

Very true Peter. I am a VW man and am very sniffy about people hacking (real Type 1) Beetles about. On the other hand, many of these HAVE been saved from the scrap yard and given a second life. That being the case, fine and dandy!

David Oldfield

06/03/12 – 12:15

I am sure that most of us would agree with Ian that the traditional half cab coach design was a classic in its own right, but Peter’s comments are valid. I believe that something of the order of 900 Lancet III chassis were produced, of which only a modest number survives, and, as with all half cab coaches and buses, many of these were disposed of prematurely with the advent of underfloor engines. That Jenkins of Skewen should have had sufficiently high a regard for this chassis to have it rebodied for further service in the then "modern" age is a testament to Dennis quality. Assuredly, had the operator not done so, this vehicle would almost certainly not be still with us today. In the context of its times, having regard to the dismal contemporary efforts of Duple, Plaxton and others on Bedford and Ford chassis, the Thurgood body is not too bad.

Roger Cox

09/03/12 – 17:30

Don’t get me wrong! I’m more than grateful that Lancet GWN 432 has been preserved and admire the present owners for the effort they put into its care.
It’s just that the body’s too redolent of my pet hate, the Duple Super Vega, a topic I’d better keep off…

Ian Thompson

21/05/13 – 12:03

220 AWY is indeed with Isle Coaches at Owston Ferry, along with GWN 432 as part of their heritage fleet. They also have PUJ 783, a Burlington Seagull/Leyland Tiger Cub.

Kenton Rose

28/06/13 – 14:26

GWN 432 is now at Hornsby Motors Ashby and is to be restored for their centenary next year.

Tony Harrison

29/06/13 – 07:19

Just spotted the discussion re Thurgood-bodied Dennis Lancet GWN 432. We ran the story in B&CP, as gratefully acknowledged above, in 2009, when the coach was owned by my good friend, the late Nigel Woodward of Gainsborough. I have extracted the relevant paragraphs and included them below.
As Peter Williamson has pointed out, at the time of the rebody, a ‘modern’ body was the only way forward. The work was carried out by Thurgood as it was ‘local’ to Horseshoe Coaches (Modern Super Coaches’ parent), which had bought the chassis, Thurgood having already carried out some rebodying in this style for companies in the Horseshoe Group. The similarity to a Duple Vega results from the inclusion of a number of standard Vega parts in the body, particularly at the rear. Behind the front dash, the original front dash from its half-cab days (below the driver’s windscreen) is still in situ, complete with circular aperture to accommodate the headlamp!

Philip Lamb

21/03/14 – 18:03

East Midlands took over the Rossington Doncaster service from Red Don,think in the very early 1960s.

Robert Durrant

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

26/08/17 – 07:32

Born and bred in and resident of Rossington from 1940 to 1965 I have many fond memories of Rossie Motors and their dedication to Dainler. From 1951 to 1957 I was, along with other Rossoites, transported by Rossie Motors to Maltby Grammar School a round trip of some 20 miles, usually by a double decker but on rare and welcome occasions by a luxury (to us) single decker coach. I still recall one occasion when overnight snow lay hard packed on the steep road at the entrance to the school. After the passengers alighted the driver was unable to set off as the drive wheels spun on the hard packed snow. The problem was solved by the erstwhile passengers pushing at the back of the bus to get it going, a practice that in the present days health and safety concerns would raise more than a few eyebrows.

Fred Edgar

United Services
1950
Daimler CVD6
Duple L56RD

I fondly remember visiting Bingley’s (one of the United Servces partners) in the mid-60s and asking Mrs Bingley ("Ma" Bingley as she was fondly known to us), whether LTO 10 was operating that day, as I wanted to photograph it. No sooner said, than she shouted for her daughter (?) who was the operations manager, and said – "Put t’Daimler on’t teatime dupe, ‘cos there’s a lad here wants to take a snap of it!" As promised, LTO 10 arrived into Wakefield bus station at about 5.30pm, and I got a (not very good) shot of it. Wonderful times which can never be repeated.

Photograph and copy contributed by Paul Haywood

The above bus was originally owned by A Skill of Nottingham and was delivered in 1950. Skills were supposed to take delivery of another CVD6 with Duple body as above but it went to W Gash & Sons instead as there DD7 (LNN 353) view at this link scroll down a bit and you will find two shots.

Spencer

———

My friend Paul has revived many happy memories of our days in the Wallace Arnold traffic office. "Ma" Bingley was Phyllis and was the "P" in "W. R. & P. Bingley – she was as Paul reports a "no nonsense" lady who quite simply got things done. That she was also a competent conjurer is beyond argument. All desperate calls from WA Hunslet for heavy assistance when summer peak demands got out of hand were calmly answered with "Ow many der yer want ??" No matter how many extra coaches we needed the necessary vehicles would appear at all hours as if by magic – fresh from pit contracts or schools or wherever – all manned by chaps who knew their place and "did as Phyllis said" without question and the impossibly large seaside passengers would all be gone without a hiccup. Slightly off the Daimler topic I admit, but Phyllis deserves an accolade as one of the real legends of the Industry.

Chris Youhill

———

Great story, Paul/Chris. Keep ’em coming! The human side is just as interesting as the bus side.

Chris Hebbron

———

10/10/12 – 09:00

The above photograph is featured on the ‘sct61’ website, along with another photo of LTO 10 in the caption of which it is asserted that Skills ordered three of these vehicles and that it was two, rather than one, which were diverted to Gash of Newark. LNN 353 (Gash DD7) was apparently intended to become Skills No.30 (LTO 30) and LRR 403 Skills No.20 (LTO 20). I haven’t been able to retrieve the Gash fleet number of LRR 403.

David Call