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

Bradford Corporation Transport
1950
AEC Regent III 9612E
Weymann H30/26R

This was the last of a batch of forty AEC Regent IIIs with what Kev from Bradford calls the 8ft wide Weymann flared skirt body you can see why. I’m afraid it is looking a little tired in this shot taken about 1964 outside one of Bradfords bus depots. Four years latter this vehicle went to scrap, one year after that fleet number 33 was the last one of the batch of forty to go the same way.
In 1957 the seating capacity of the upper deck was increased by 3 to 33, a 10% increase, 2 extra seats I can understand easier than 3, unless the original rear seat was only for 2, if anyone has any clues on this please leave a comment.

A full list of Regent III codes can be seen here.

Bus tickets issued by this operator can be viewed here.

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Your assumption about the rear upper seat is correct. All post-war Bradford buses prior to the HKW batch originally had 30 upstair-seats (15 x 2). Most (possibly all, apart from the ex-London RTs, in which there was no room for this) had in due course an additional 3-seat unit added to the nearside rear.

Julien Melville

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The location appears to be the old Thornbury works yard which was attached to the operating depot. It was a common sight to see de-licensed trolleys and buses parked here in less than sparkling condition often with smashed windows etc. The whole complex at Thornbury still exists as a warehouse facility.
Until the end of its life under the PTE the sign over the works entrance read car works!

Chris Hough

Photo by M Standeven

Douglas Corporation
1947
AEC Regent III O961/2
Northern Counties H30/26R

A nice shot of a very early AEC Regent III taken on the Isle of Man about 1964/5. The Northern Counties bodywork that Douglas Corporation seemed to favour is quite obvious by the front upper deck.
An interesting bit of information I came up with whilst researching Douglas Corporation was from Peter Goulds very informative website was that buses which operated within the borough boundary did not require road tax, if the route took it outside the boundary then it did. Needless to say they only had enough buses taxed to do the necessary routes and the letters ‘EA’ which stood for ‘Extended Area’ accompanied the fleet number. With a change of rules in 1964 no Douglas Corporation bus needed road tax to operate. 
Now I know that the Isle of Man had and still have there own rules and regulations, but it got me thinking what the regulations were for the rest of the UK with regards road tax, MOTs and insurance. If you know please leave a comment

16/11/15 – 10:22

Something I have noticed but has not been commented on or explained is that DCT 56-59 (HMN 687-690) delivered in 1947, 60-63 (JMN 724-727) delivered in 1948 and 64-65 (KMN 835-836) delivered in 1949 had consecutive chassis and body numbers and were virtually identical, whereas the rest of the 1949 delivery, 66-71 (KMN 837-842) had much higher batches of chassis and body numbers, and were significantly different in outward appearance (gasket glazed indicators) and internal layout (one fewer seat on lower deck to create more luggage space). Was a batch of 10 chassis sent to Northern Counties in 1947, and when were the later deliveries bodied?

M Jones

Kingston upon Hull Corporation Transport
1947
AEC Regent III 0961/2
Weymann H32/26R

This is quite a nice shot of an AEC Regent III just departing Hull bus station on route 50, although only the locals would know were route 50 went as there is nothing on display for its final destination. This I think would of been rather an annoying system if you were a visitor to the area as the only thing you could be sure of is that if you wanted to go to the ‘Market Place’ you were safe on this bus because that is where it is going via. I think this practice was more prevalent for some operators of mainly town services, operators of longer distance services usually had larger destination blinds showing places they went via. If you know of any operators who had strange practices regarding destination information please leave a comment.

Yet another cracking photo! Service 50 went to the pier via the old town were it connected with the Humber Ferry service which ran across to New Holland on the south bank. The service ran until July 1981 when the Humber Bridge was opened.

Paul Morfitt

Doncaster Corporation were even better on destinations: no route numbers and the blind often just showed the final destination with a single via if needed to distinguish different routes there: in at least one case (Skellow via Owston Park), the bus didn’t really go to Skellow, but stopped short at Owston Park: the via was patched out much later. Well… if you didn’t know where the bus was going, everyone would tell you!

Joe

The blind showing, Market Place, was what was known as a "via" blind showing one major part of the route, as there was only space for one line of text, this type of blind appeared during the war, as the larger figures on the blinds were the primary means of identifying the route. All native "Hullensians" knew which route they required by the number. These blinds also appeared until the advent of the "G" registered series of Atlanteans, when a true destination blind appeared.

Keith Easton

Interesting, Keith. I wonder if this was part of the wartime initiative to confuse enemy infiltrators – especially relevant in east coast ports. As you will know signposts and railway station nameboards were removed for this reason.

Stephen Ford

Yes, Stephen, I’m sure that there was an element of what you said, but the main reason for using large numerals was more mundane. As you may be aware, during the wartime blackout conditions, bus operators were required to reduce the brilliance of external displays, consequently the size of the numerals was increased in order to improve visibility at night from a distance. For the same reason trolleybus blinds, which were in black on white, were replaced by black blinds with white numerals.

Keith Easton

03/02/11 – 17:11

On the subject of uninformative destinations Eastern Counties with their use of the word Service as a destination took some beating just as useless was the use of the company title as a destination also a popular ECOC wheeze! Of course the SBG were a breed apart with their extensive use of paper stickers and nothing but a number displayed on the destination screen!

Chris Hough

03/02/11 – 20:04

Lincolnshire Road Car and Western/Southern National were also adept in later years at wasting the "via" screen on the company name or "Service No."

Stephen Ford

04/01/18 – 06:51

Another quirk of the situation in Hull was that at the time Hull Corporation showed only a route number and ‘via’ blind, the local country operator, East Yorkshire, showed a destination and (usually) ‘via’, but no route number! So Hull folk had to be adaptable, especially if they lived on one of the several routes that were shared between the two operators.

George R

06/01/18 – 06:56

Until about 1936, Portsmouth Corporation had only a small number box and destination box. After this, a larger via box/ route indicator, plus destination box appeared on the vehicles. Sadly, the destination box displayed PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION and the destination was relegated to the via box with all the places the same size letters. Postwar, the destination box actually showed the destination! Let’s remember, too, that both route letters and numbers were used, but these changed according to the direction. 17/18 or A/B, the latter very unhelpful to holidaymakers at a seaside resort!

Christopher Hebbron