Southern Vectis Omnibus Company
1968
Bristol RESH6G
Duple Northern C45F

KDL 885F is a Bristol RESH6G with Duple Northern C45F body. Fleet number 301 in the Southern Vectis fleet, she is seen at the King Alfred Running Day in Winchester on 1 January 2010. Please note that the 2015 event has moved away from New Year’s Day and will be held on Sunday evening 3rd May and Bank holiday Monday 4th May instead – and in the hope of better weather!

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

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23/02/15 – 07:50

Very clean, crisp lines and a sympathetic application of livery. Altogether a pleasing coach – and an unusual body choice for a Tilling company, although Southern Vectis always seemed to display a certain disregard for centralised purchasing policy. Perhaps it’s to do with being an off shore island!

Petras409

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23/02/15 – 08:50

Thank you, Petras. Sadly, the Isle of Wight isn’t far enough "off shore" to qualify as a tax haven, although I think my neighbour’s children have the right idea. They went to Cowes a couple of years ago and, when they were in the queue for coming back to Southampton, the elder one said to his brother "We’re waiting for the ferry back to England."

Pete Davies

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23/02/15 – 14:34

In the mid-1970’s, I managed the telephone billing section of Portsmouth Telephone Area, based in Southsea, which covered the Isle of Wight. On one occasion, I dealt with an irate customer living on the IoW, who said she wasn’t satisfied with my reply on the telephone and was ‘coming over from the mainland’ to see me in person. I think that local authority re-org in 1973, which took the IoW out of Hampshire and gave it its own council, gave them a sense of inflated importance!

Chris Hebbron

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23/02/15 – 14:34

There were nine coaches built with this body/chassis combination, four for Hants and Dorset, four for Eastern National and this one. The only other two RESH chassis had ECW bus bodies fitted out for DP, delivered to Midland General. There were also a few RELH with Duple Commander bodies, with Hants and Dorset and Eastern National again amongst the operators.

Gary T

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23/02/15 – 15:50

I’ve found a photo of one of the Hants and Dorset quartet and although only a few months older it is an earlier version of the Commander and has unusual upper windows. www.flickr.com/photos/  
The Eastern National examples were similar to the Southern Vectis one.

Gary T

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24/02/15 – 06:17

Sorry, Chris, but the Isle of Wight was never part of Hampshire, but people got this idea because at one time education, police, fire and ambulance services were shared. At one time, the island even had a governor, but now it has a lord lieutenant just like any other county. Check on the island websites if you want to know more.

David Wragg

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25/02/15 – 06:07

When I used to work in Hampshire, I had a good relationship with my opposite number, who worked in Newport IoW. I always smiled, when he referred to us as his colleagues on the North Island.

Petras409

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27/02/15 – 07:05

Wasn’t this coach 6HLW-engined at first, and a 39-seater? I believe that after a "poor-showing" on an extended tour it was re-engined with a 6HLX, either the following year, or pretty soon after. Was it up-seated at the same time?

Philip Rushworth

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27/02/15 – 09:13

Thx for correcting my misapprehension, David. I recall its DL vehicle registration mark and wondered if it was subsumed into Hampshire’s in 1973. Maybe not, then.
Loved the ‘North Island’ remark, Petras409.
I’ve just remembered that I looked at a wall map of Southampton/Portsmouth/IoW area when aboard the Cherbourg-Southampton ferry in its last season. The map showed ‘White Isle’ in the centre. It was a brave, but misguided attempt at using ‘possession’, but the spelling????

Chris Hebbron

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27/02/15 – 13:28

The Isle of Wight was part of Hampshire until 1890. Censuses that come up in family history searches say, for example "Carisbrooke, Hampshire" and "Whippingham, Hampshire."
One of my farmer cousins at the western point of the Island admits that visiting overners are good for the economy, but reckons that there ought to be a drawbridge to keep them where they belong once they’ve gone back to the mainland.
Some time ago I asked whether anyone else could recall a single-decker with an oval back window that ran from Freshwater to Alum Bay, and I think I’ve found the answer: a Reo (not part of the Southern Vectis fleet) which ran right up till 1949. Another oval-windowed single-decker pictured on p 57 of Richard Newman’s "Southern Vectis–the first 60 years" was a Guy Chaser, DL 5277, but that was sold in 1935.
It’s gone midday: time for my nammut.

Ian T

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27/02/15 – 15:49

Apparently the Wight name of the island has nothing to do with colour, but it apparently means a separate place or a separated place. Rather apt, really. How they loved their "DL" registration code, managing to keep it during the 1974 changes and after. They lost it in the major 2001 change, but still have a unique identifier as "HW". Sorry, a bit off piste as a comment, but the above contributions reminded me of this.

Michael Hampton

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27/02/15 – 16:51

Michael, the ‘Oxford Names Companion’ states "Wight, Isle of (the county). Vectis c.150, Wit c.1086 (Domesday Book). A Celtic name possibly meaning ‘place of the division’, referring to its situation between the two arms of the Solent". This ties in nicely with your "separated place" explanation. I like your comment "How they loved their "DL" registration code", but as a young enthusiast I did too, even though I lived ‘up North’. Those lovely IoW registrations, the ‘Cuddles’, ‘Diddles’, ‘Fiddles’, Middles, ‘Piddles’, ‘Tiddles’ and Widdles’ – wonderful one and all.

Brendan Smith

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28/02/15 – 05:54

I see that Brendan and I seem to share Benny Hill’s "lavatorial" sense of humour!

Pete Davies

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28/02/15 – 05:55

On a recent holiday coach tour from East Yorkshire we had a very able driver who lived on the IoW on the round the island tour he never stopped talking on driving off the ferry at Southampton he welcomed us back to the North Island.

Ken Wragg

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28/02/15 – 05:57

Philip, this coach was indeed originally fitted with the smaller Gardner 6HLW engine when new. As you comment, it was soon re-engined with the larger 6HLX unit. Apparently this followed an embarrassing incident whereby passengers on a coach tour had to disembark, in order for 301 to reach the top of a hill. As a young enthusiast, I was very fortunate in seeing this beautiful coach in Harrogate when quite new, and still have a not very good black and white photograph of it, parked on Esplanade, at the bottom of Cold Bath Road. Whether it had the more powerful 6HLX engine by then I do not know, but given the steepness of some of the hills around the area, I sincerely hope that it had!

Brendan Smith

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28/02/15 – 09:48

Is that tale of the 6HLW engine being defeated by a hill verifiable? 6LW engines powered 30ft long double deckers in pretty hilly territory all over the land without trouble. I can accept that the performance of the RE with the 112 bhp 6HLW might not have been sparkling, and some gradients may have required bottom gear, but I remain a trifle suspicious of the story.

Roger Cox

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28/02/15 – 12:05

Yes I know what you mean Roger, but the story is told in Duncan Roberts’ ‘Bristol RE – 40 years of service’ book, which is a well-researched publication. West Yorkshire’s Bristol MW coaches (with 6HLW engines) seemed to manage trips around the Dales without too much drama, but then they had ECW aluminium-framed bodywork. I have a suspicion that Duple like Plaxton at the time, were still using composite bodies, which were quite a bit heavier. It is interesting to note that West Yorkshire’s ECW-bodied RELH6G coaches performed well on the Yorkshire-London services, with fully rated (150bhp) Gardner 6HLX engines. However, when WY’s first Plaxton-bodied RELH6G coaches arrived, within a short space of time they were deemed to be ‘sluggish’, and were re-engined with Leyland O.680 units rated at 168bhp, to improve performance. Maybe the same fate had befallen 301 – that of heavier coachwork?

Brendan Smith

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01/03/15 – 06:56

Brendan, that is quite correct about the Duple bodies being composite steel/wood construction, and therefore relatively heavy. The caption to the photo in Duncan Roberts’ book, in which he related the proverbial story about the passengers having to get out and walk up an hill in Scotland, also mentions the construction of the Duple bodies. As I understand it, Duple didn’t adopt all metal frames until the advent of the Dominant.
In practice, even the ECW-bodied RESLs with 6HLW engines were considered to be sluggish. Southern Vectis had a number of those, and they apparently gained a reputation for causing people to miss ferries!

Nigel Frampton

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02/03/15 – 07:30

Thanks for the information on Duple bodies Nigel, and also that on Southern Vectis’ sluggish RESL6Gs. I’ve since reflected on Roger’s quite justifiable suspicion relating to the tale, and the comments on 301 in Duncan Roberts’ book. It is quite possible that the coach did struggle on the hill, and the driver did what he thought best under the circumstances. Conversely, the coach did actually manage the climb fully laden with passengers and their luggage, albeit very slowly in first gear, with the driver later commenting on its performance to colleagues on his return. No doubt it would not have taken long for the tale to "develop" as a consequence. Hmmm! We need Miss Marple on the case.

Brendan Smith

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02/03/15 – 17:50

In the postwar years up to the end of the 1950s, the eight legger lorries of Atkinson, ERF, Foden and Guy, and the classic Scammell artics were all powered by the 112 bhp Gardner 6LW. Torque is the prime factor in a commercial vehicle engine, which is where the Gardner range excelled. It is worth remembering that the vaunted 125 bhp engines of AEC and Leyland developed around 118 bhp at the 1700 rpm governed speed of the 6LW, an advantage of just 6 bhp. As Ian T says in his comment on John Stringer’s post of the United Services Dennis Loline I on this site, "112 ghp (Gardner horsepower) was worth 125 of anyone else’s". I think that the story of the 6HLW powered RE coach being totally flummoxed by a hill, like much folklore, is probably apocryphal. Turning to the matter of Duple bodywork, I personally felt that, after the neat styling of the 1950s, the Duple designs of the 1960s – the Vegas, Vistas, Viceroys et al – were uninspired in the extreme, except in respect of frontal treatment which was garishly appalling, reminiscent of the worst aesthetic abominations emanating from the car factories of Detroit. The mass of frontal metalwork alone must have added considerably to the unladen weight. Duple only partially redeemed itself with the Plaxton clones of the 1970s; the true Plaxtons still looked better.
Donning my hard hat, I now await the impending onslaught from Duple aficionados.

Roger Cox

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16/03/15 – 06:46

Roger, were you still in Halifax at the time the M62 was being constructed over Rishworth Moor/Moss Moor? For those not familiar with the area, between J23 and J22 the motorway passes under the B6114 in a deep cutting (the spoil from which was used to crate the embankment of Scammonden Reservoir, across which the motorway runs in a westbound direction immediately prior to the cutting). Creation of the cutting severed the B6114 and so, prior to the construction of the current over-bridge, a temporary road descending down the cutting, across the bed of the motorway, and up the other side was created (travelling westbound the tracks of the temporary road can still be seen clearly). The gradient of the temporary road was 1:5. Stay with me. In July 1968 Huddersfield JOC introduced its first two Countryside Tours: Tour B was designed to show the construction of the M62/Scammonden Reservoir/the B6114 over-bridge, and entailed buses climbing the temporary road. According to Cardno and Harling’s "Huddersfield – The Corporation Motor Bus Story", on the first trip "Five of the seven fully-loaded single deckers failed to negotiate ‘the big dipper’ . . . the problem was caused by the flagman at the bottom of the incline whose job it was to control the traffic to ensure that heavy motorway machinery could cross the road unimpeded. he stopped the buses too close to the bottom of the incline . . .". I remember reading, many years ago, in Julian Osborne’s "The Southdown Queen Marys", that the pneumocyclic Queen Marys could fail to start on some of Brighton’s steeper hills, and were soon transferred away to flatter territory. Now my question is this: would the fact that the RESL had a semi-automatic gearbox have affected hill-climbing ability in comparison with Rogers 6LW-engined double-deckers? I’m assuming here that Roger’s 6LW-powered double-deckers were manual, and that the Huddersfield single-deckers concerned were (semi-automatic) Swifts/RUs/Fleetlines.

Philip Rushworth

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18/03/15 – 07:09

Philip, you have raised a significant point about the hill climbing capabilities inherent in different transmission types. A friction clutch allows the driver to speed the engine a bit when pulling away on a gradient, whereas a fluid flywheel/epicyclic gearbox coupling limits the ability of the engine to rev beyond a certain level. As you say, the Southdown Leyland PD3/5s with Pneumocyclic gearboxes (dare we now call any of these full fronted Southdown PD3s “Queen Marys”?) became notorious for experiencing difficulty in pulling away from rest on steep gradients. They were relegated to flatter services and Southdown reverted to the manual transmission PD3/4 for later deliveries. However, if a fluid drive bus could get a run at a hill, allowing the engine to reach a reasonable speed before attacking the gradient, then it would go up satisfactorily. During the days of the lowest ebb of the British Leyland saga, when spare parts and new buses acquired the rarity value of hens teeth, London Country got hold of some of the ex Southdown PD3/5 machines and used them on the 409 route between Croydon and East Grinstead/Forest Row. This had some stiff gradients around the Caterham Valley, particularly Church Hill in Caterham, which has a gradient of 16%, about 1 in 6, but the approach from the bottom allowed a measure of speed to be gained before the steep ascent. These PD3/5s coped without trouble. The O600 did seem to deliver poorer torque at the bottom end of the rev range than the directly comparable AEC 9.6 litre A204/A218 and AV590 engines. The London Transport RTL was distinctly inferior on hills to the directly comparable RT. Attempts were made in 1952 and again in 1959 to allocate RTLs to the Country Bus & Coach department, but the insipid gradient performance of these machines soon led to their replacement by RTs. The Gardner 6LW was the supreme engine for low speed torque until the arrival of the 6LX, and the tale of the RE failing to tackle a hill, if true, must be put down to badly chosen gearing/rear axle ratios. In Halifax, the heavy (over 8 tons unladen) Roe bodied Daimlers of 1954 had their 6LW engines replaced by Leyland O600s, but the story is rather more complicated than one of ‘inadequate Gardner power’. At that time, as an economy measure, Halifax indulged in the practice of adding one part Coalene to two parts derv to propel its bus fleet. The 112 bhp K type Gardner delivered 10 bhp more at 1700 rpm than its predecessor, but it was very particular about fuel quality, and Coalene was never part of its designed diet. To add to the problem, this batch of Daimlers had 5.4:1 rear axles, rather high for the local Alpine operating territory. HPTD’s Leyland besotted new GM, Richard Le Fevre, replaced the Gardners with Leyland engines, and, under the new Asst. Engineer, a certain G.G. Hilditch, the back axles were changed to 6.2:1. The Orion bodied Daimlers kept their Patricroft power plants throughout their lives, as did the later and lighter, very fine, Roe bodied batch of 1956 (my favourite Halifax buses). The problem had not lain with the engines. Mercifully, the dubious indulgence of adding Coalene to the fuel died out in the early 1960s. I’ve driven 6LW powered Daimlers up the Halifax hills without difficulty, so the RE problem certainly lay beyond the engine, though I accept that such a coach would have been underpowered. Modern automatic bus transmissions employ a series of torque converters enabling the engine to rev freely in the starting ratio.

Roger Cox

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19/03/15 – 07:14

Coalene was a product of the Coalite company, a smelly plant I recall passing near Chesterfield whenever we visited this fine town to see friends. I have a feeling that Sheffield Corporation also used it in their buses for a while. On the whole, it was only sold ‘locally’. For cars, I always fuelled up my car in Chesterfield with ICI petrol, which I never saw elsewhere, but regretted this as it was much cheaper that other brands. I assume it was a by-product of their chemical activities.

Chris Hebbron

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20/03/15 – 07:24

Chris H, quite correct, the Coalite plant was at Wingerworth near Chesterfield. It covered a vast area and closed down many years ago but work still goes on there to this day, detoxifying the land.

Chris Barker

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17/01/21 – 07:21

Fascinating reading and I have just read the notes on the switchback diversionary route of the B6114 between Ringstone & Dean Head. The gradient was a true 1 in 5 (20% in the new mode) and the Halifax Leopards (231-238 batch etc) needed 1st gear on both sides. This was a thrilling ride to a teenage bus enthusiast in the 1968-1971 period. Even more exciting was in icy conditions – but the bus always made it – what a contrast to today’s buses!
On a Sunday afternoon, the 59 from Elland to Ripponden diverted in each direction vis Dean Head and displayed the number 58. The only regular passengers (besides me!) were 3 elderly ladies who attended the afternoon service at Dean Head Church. Very happy days – any other ageing bus enthusiasts remember travelling on this service?

Eric Sykes

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18/01/21 – 05:48

This vehicle has just undergone an internal make over at IoW Museum including new floor covering and newly re-moquetted seats.

Roger Burdett

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26/04/22 – 05:54

Very interesting to read of Coalene use in the 1960’s.
I think it may have solved a mystery that’s puzzled me for years.
As a young lad visiting relatives in Sheffield I’d always enjoy riding the buses – especially the musical AEC’s on the 75 route as they powered up to Meadowhead top.
Besides thinking Sheffield blue and cream was ‘the’ best livery, I was always intrigued why Sheffield buses had a certain smell to them? It was suggested it could emanate from the furnaces of the steelworks and it somehow ‘stuck’ to the passing buses. To be honest I think very few people I spoke with at the time had ever actually noticed!
I still remember the smell – which I found not unpleasant…..thanks to reading these posts I suspect Coalene sounds like the culprit!

Robert Wainman

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01/05/22 – 07:34

I remember seeing this coach parked in Ventnor bus station on an island visit in around 1991; it was notably vintage even then but in showroom condition.
Regarding steep hill performance, in my youth I was a daily rider on Bristol City route 3, up the steep Red Lion Hill into Knowle. Always a KSW or an older K, some Gardner 6LW, some Bristol AVW. Dependent on load, and the driver’s skill in engaging non-synchromesh bottom gear when down to walking pace, it would often fail to make it, come to a stand, and then make a spectacular hill start with much vibration and noise. Now I think of it the prospect of making a hash of it and running backwards doesn’t really bear thinking about.

Bill