Old Bus Photos

Hants & Dorset – AEC Regent V – 975 CWL – 3475

Hants & Dorset - AEC Regent V - 975 CWL - 3475

Hants & Dorset Motor Services
1958
AEC Regent V LD3RA
Park Royal H65R

975 CWL is an AEC Regent V of the LD3RA variety. She was new in 1958 and has a Park Royal body seating 65. New to City of Oxford as their 975, she is seen in the yard of the Hants & Dorset depot in Southampton, still in Provincial (Gosport & Fareham) green and cream but with Hants & Dorset fleetname in NBC style. It’s April 1975 and she is between duties on the 47 Winchester service.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies


16/03/14 – 09:42

A beautifully balanced classic design. What were BET and PRV thinking when they let those dreadful steel framed monsters loose on the world. I cannot believe it was impossible to produce a better design – just because they had steel frames. As was pointed out recently, sticking a Beverley Bar outline on a Bridgemaster worked wonders at East Yorkshire.

David Oldfield


16/03/14 – 09:43

It’s a long time since I submitted this, because so many of you have been sending in far better views, but I have a vague recollection the original text said that she is preserved.

Pete Davies


16/03/14 – 11:55

With only 65 seats in a 30ft body, the legroom must have been quite generous!

Chris Barker


17/03/14 – 07:45

I have this listed as preserved in Kidlington but have never seen it.

Ken Jones


17/03/14 – 17:33

Yes — preserved awaiting restoration.

Philip Lamb


17/03/14 – 17:34

This picture sums up for me the confusion of the early NBC era. It’s a green Hants & Dorset bus, but it’s not H&D Tilling green. It’s in Provincial green/cream, but not their traditional style. It’s a BET origin bus operating for a former Tilling company. (OK, Hants & Dorset operated some AEC Regent III’s earlier). In the background is a Lodekka, presumably a Hants & Dorset bus, but in red, not in green! Well, it did all settle down of course to just red or green in NBC shades, until Confusion Stage 2 arrived with deregulation. Hants & Dorset survives (sort of) under the fleet name "Damory Coaches", operating some stage services in Dorset in a rather non-descript grey livery. It’s part of Wilts and Dorset, which is part of Go Ahead. Yes, times have moved on. The Regent V in the picture does still look good, and was splendid in it’s original City of Oxford livery.

Michael Hampton


18/03/14 – 08:23

Very generous, Chris, most 30ft deckers of this layout were usually around the 73 seat mark.

Ronnie Hoye


18/03/14 – 10:55

These buses were known in Oxford as "Queens’ due to their size and indeed majestic appearance. 65 was later to become the standard COMs seating capacity for double-deckers with centre gangway in the upper saloon until the arrival of the first Fleetlines, following the first batch of Bridgemasters which seated 72. Subsequent Bridgemasters and the Renowns had a shortened rear overhang and were all 28-ft long 65-seat forward-entrance vehicles — not quite as roomy as the Queens! The five Lolines were forward-entrance 63-seaters.

Philip Lamb


18/03/14 – 10:57

I have always presumed that the reason for 65 seats in a 30ft body was in order to comply with an agreement with the staff in respect of maximum capacities – such agreements were common at the time. Having said that, Oxford’s first Bridgemasters (306-15) were 72-seaters – there may have been a ‘no standing passengers’ agreement, or restrictions on which routes they served. Anyone know the full story?
Later Oxford Bridgemasters (316-28) and all the Renowns (329-71) were short 65-seaters.
Oxford purchased sixteen 30ft Regent Vs in late 1957/early 1958 – eight with Weymann bodies (964-71) and eight Park Royal (972-9). All were H37/28R while with Oxford.
As far as I am aware, all the above sixteen went for further service with other operators after sale by Oxford. Stevensons (of Spath) upseated 966 and fitted platform doors, making it H41/32RD. Laycocks of Barnoldswick fitted doors to 968, but left the seating as it was – as 968 was replacing an accident-damaged 53-seater, the capacity perhaps wasn’t seen as critical. Were any of the others upseated, or fitted with doors?

David Call


18/03/14 – 13:48

Michael, the Hants & Dorset Lodekka with the T style indicator display you mention is XPM 47, new to Brighton Hove & District.

Pete Davies


18/03/14 – 17:26

Thank you, Pete D for the info about the red Lodekka in the background – doesn’t it just add to the glorious (or inglorious) mix of events at that time? Although of Tilling origin, it’s original colours were neither tilling red or green, but a handsome red and cream!
Also, a correction. I have passed several Damory vehicles today, and all were a deep blue, quite smart if admiring modern vehicles. Perhaps the grey was a passing phase, or my poor memory.

Michael Hampton


19/03/14 – 07:27

No, Michael – our successors in title to the Hants & Dorset "COMPANY" name, if not the fleetname, are like the rest of the ‘Go South Coast’ group in that they don’t seem able to keep a livery for long. Could be Worst (f), of course!!!

Pete Davies


19/03/14 – 07:28

969 gained platform doors when owned by Leon of Finningley.

Keith Clark


19/03/14 – 16:27

On an isolated trip into Damory country some years ago, I seem to recall seeing the buses in light grey and white, perhaps another passing phase, Michael!

Chris Hebbron


20/03/14 – 17:21

I don’t recall seeing any grey, Chris, but certainly turquoise has appeared in the past!

Pete Davies


22/03/14 – 08:23

I did a double-take when I saw this photo as I thought Pete Davies must have been standing next to me when he took it. However, my photo of this bus in the same place has a different route number and different vehicles in the background. H&Ds vehicle shortage was so bad at this time that I used to cycle to Shirley Road and Grovesnor Place every Sunday morning to see what had turned up that week – this one was a surprise though. I believe it lasted 5 weeks before the crews blacked it! I was told that the cab window had a habit of randomly dropping out over the bonnet!

Phil Gilbert


22/03/14 – 15:37

Phil G, most of my views at this location were taken during the working week, rather than at weekends, and usually during the lunch break.

Pete Davies


24/05/14 – 08:30

I used the ‘-CWL’ Regents in the late ’60s when travelling on the old ‘3’ service that ran along Walton Street, and they shared the route with (mostly)Renowns and Bridgemasters until the sudden arrival of the first ‘G’ reg., N.C.M.E. bodied Fleetlines that must have been the last ‘true’ Oxford’ double-deckers to keep both the old livery and the single-panel front route-number/destination display. With the Daimlers, a new, racier, ‘go faster’, ‘Oxford’ transfer appeared, smaller and less ‘stuffy’ than the old one. As for the roomy Regents, I always thought that the curvy bodywork of the second, Park Royal, batch helped redeem the plainness that came with the tin front: I never thought that any of these buses would survive their (routine) early retirement by C.O.M.S. and it was a surprise to find that ‘975’ may still be around as another potential showcase for the attractive old ‘Oxford’ livery (the ‘magic’ of the scheme was lost, in my view, when the it became a plain, two-colour affair).

I’ve been away from the Oxford area for decades and came across the correspondence on the ‘long Regents’ by accident. If my observation about ‘975’ gets posted, could I ask if anyone can explain why Oxford was flooded with ‘alien’ two-man double-deckers (such as Aldershot & District’s Loline 1s and East Kent’s Regent Vs) in the late ’60s? Was this an early manifestation of the N.B.C. homogenisation that would bring the inevitable Bristol VRs, or was their some kind of operational crisis that required a ‘loan out’ from other operators.

John Hardman


25/05/14 – 09:28

Re vehicle shortages in Oxford. In 1981/82 I was working in "The City" and attended a talk given by the head of City of Oxford M.S.
He said that every time the hourly pay rates increased in the Cowley car factory, the mechanical/engineering staff left Cowley Road depot for more pay. So it could well have been a lack of engineering staff, until the next pay rise on the bus side of the equation.
Eventually COMS moved the engineering facility to Witney, so as to make it uneconomical to commute to the car factory in Cowley.

Dave Farrier


25/06/14 – 08:19

Dorset Transit buses were white, light grey and orange- there were a couple of Leyland National 1’s at least- not sure if there were other types. I have seen pictures of them parked up amongst Damory vehicles, but don’t know if there was a connection.

Mark


02/05/16 – 06:40

Reference the vehicle shortages, that was indeed the case – engineering staff shortages. It became a major embarrassment at Oxford (and further afield) in the early days of NBC. So they flooded the streets with unconventional vehicles (for Oxford streets) that were running well while the maintenance was transferred to other companies.

Alan O. Watkins


975 CWL Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


16/10/17 – 07:02

Just a note to say that 975CWL is still alive, albeit still awaiting finishing off. 75% of the major work has been completed but other projects have recently had priority and I would also like to see 975 completed before I "pop off"
Regarding the vehicle shortages, yes staff was a part off the problem but a major factor was the lack of AEC engine parts, notably 470 & 505 pistons and liners which were in very short supply and caused most of the COMS fleet of Reliances and Swifts to be off the road at the same time. Also a lot of the cooling systems were in bad shape due to the resistance to using anti-freeze in the early sixties……………and it came back to bite them!
When a new Chief Engineer was appointed in 1973 there was much needed investment carried out in the Engineering department with new facilities for annual MOT preparation made at Chipping Norton Depot, not Witney although this depot was also enlarged to cope with the extra allocation.
In 1973 25 Fords were introduced to replace the Reliances………but that is another story!

Grahame Wareham


 

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Maidstone & District – AEC Regent V – VKR 35 – 6735

Maidstone & District - AEC Regent V - VKR 35 - 6735
Copyright John Stringer

Maidstone & District Motor Services Ltd
1956
AEC Regent V MD3RV
Park Royal L30/26RD

During the mid to late 1950’s a number of BET operators seemed to switch their double deck allegiance to AEC Regent V’s. Though Maidstone & District had bought a number of AEC Regal single deckers before and just after the Second World War, their preference in double deckers had been for Leyland TD’s, Bristol K’s, then Leyland PD2’s and Guy Arab IV’s.
In 1956 they bought a number of VKR-registered Park Royal-bodied Regent V MD3RV’s, with the smaller AV470 engine, synchromesh gearbox and vacuum brakes. Some were highbridge, some lowbridge – all with platform doors.
I recall when I was a child in the late 1950’s one of the highbridge variety used to appear each year in my home town of Halifax – parked on the spare ground off Broad Street opposite the then new Crossfield Bus Station – on a countrywide tour promoting holidays in Kent.
This lowbridge example was snapped on 13th July 1970 in Bexhill-on-Sea whilst I was on a family holiday staying in Pevensey. It had originally been numbered DL35, but by this time was renumbered 6735.
A couple of years later my own local operator Calderdale Joint Omnibus Committee surprised everyone by acquiring four of these Mk. V’s – lowbridge VKR 36 & 37 and highbridge VKR 472 & 479 – to temporarily augment the fleet after the merger with Todmorden J.O.C. All retained their M&D livery, the lowbridge pair being allocated to Todmorden where their livery fitted in reasonably well. Sadly the last survivor – VKR 479 – was withdrawn just as I passed my PSV Test so I never got to drive it. A pity – the sound effects were wonderful!

Photograph and Copy contributed by John Stringer

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


08/02/13 – 13:24

Lovely shot, John. As AEC’s biggest fan, I have never been a fan of medium weights (particularly deckers) nor a big fan of the troublesome wet-liners but M & D’s vehicles always looked magnificent in their superb, dignified traditional livery. Some people stuck very happily with (heavy) Guys but M & D and East Kent moved, initially, to medium weight AECs – although both graduated to heavy weight AECs – as did Aldershot and District from Dennis to AEC. Was the initial move part of the paranoid race to medium/light weights in the ’50s only to accidentally discover the delights and benefits of AECs?

David Oldfield


09/02/13 – 07:09

The reason East Kent moved from Guy to AEC was that their Chief Engineer thought that the 6LW engine was not powerful enough for 30 feet double deckers. In typical Gardner fashion they neglected to take their customers into their confidence and let them know they were developing the more powerful 6LX. Guy did not know this and neither did East Kent and so AECs were ordered.
All is revealed in an article by John Aldridge in Buses Annual 1980.

Paragon


09/02/13 – 07:10

Many years ago at Sandtoft trolleybus museum, preserved VKR 37 was present at an event. I can’t remember why, but I was invited to drive it with a full load of visiting enthusiasts on a circuit of the place and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was of course reminiscent of the identical chassis of the six Samuel Ledgard Regent Vs (1949 – 1954) in which I’d driven and conducted many thousands of miles – each – and was a happy case of "deja vu."

Chris Youhill


09/02/13 – 12:16

Thanks Paragon.

David Oldfield


10/02/13 – 07:49

I have always found the AV470 and AH470 to be remarkably potent for their size. "Perky" is the word I’d use. Devon General’s Regent Vs in particular seemed to take everything in their stride – and they had a lot to take!

Peter Williamson


10/02/13 – 07:50

At the time this photo was taken I was working for Southdown at Eastbourne, the destination of the 99 route, but I have to confess I was totally unaware that any of the lowbridge Regent V’s ever operated from M&D’s Hastings or Bexhill garages although several of the highbridge version were operated especially when they were new in 1956. I always thought that they were amongst the best looking buses around at the time as I immediately liked the AEC full front and the elegantly proportioned Park Royal bodywork finished in the superb livery was near perfection.
As a point of interest the 99 route did not require low height buses, coincidentally one of the areas low bridges under the Hastings to Eastbourne railway line known as Sackville arch is to the right of the picture and the junction the bus has just crossed

Diesel Dave


10/02/13 – 10:57

I agree Peter W about the valiant "perkiness" of the AV470 engines – but with one important proviso !! Their performance depended on the fuel policy and settings of the particular operator. I personally had quite a comprehensive experience of the engines with many operators. Samuel Ledgard, Wallace Arnold and others rightly believed in running them on adequate supplies of diesel and on other favourable settings – the same applied to the ex South Wales Regent Vs bought by Ledgard and those particular four had a phenomenal and delightfully noisy performance. In contrast the one hundred and fifty "light" Mark Vs bought by Leeds City Transport were just impossible – seemingly running on an even greater proportion of fresh air than LCT’s usual policy of "cutting down" they were a frustrating embarrassment and time keeping with them was impossible. On a good day the odd one might be capable of slightly exceeding 30 mph and on any kind of gradient, heavily laden in particular, they were the personification of that famous little saying "Wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding." Throughout my career I was always happy to see the good points of any model but as an exception I have to say that I loathed 760 – 909, especially the last fifteen which were eight feet wide and it showed in every way.
Just in case this prolonged rant has given the wrong impression may I just reiterate that the 470 engine was a fine power unit in general and when properly treated, which fortunately it usually was.

Chris Youhill


10/02/13 – 12:24

I can well understand, Chris Y, your frustration of driving a vehicle whose normal lively performance you were fully aware of, but which was dumbed-down in the interests of economy and possible maintenance advantages. But did those ‘advantages’ really come through, if the engine had to be ‘flogged’ mercilessly to achieve any sort of acceptable performance???

Chris Hebbron


10/02/13 – 13:22

I know what you mean Chris H, but in the case of the LCT batch (for batch read enormous class) there was no possibility of flogging the engines – not that I ever would as I didn’t believe in such abuse – as they were governed to such a degree. The misguided policy was nowhere better demonstrated than with the huge number of air operated preselector Mark 3 Regents (9.6 litre) that we had. The abuse of these by a large number of self opinionated and arrogant "fast men" was heartbreaking to suffer. The standard practice of these twentieth century Luddites was to leave the accelerator hard down at all times while slamming the gearchange pedal down and back at full revs. Any, debatable, fuel saving was far outweighed by constant expensive damage to gearboxes, prop shaft joints and diffs and bodywork by these dreadful and unpunished "drivers" many of whom sported lapels full of "safe driving awards" – which in the case of those individuals meant that they’d managed year after year to avoid hitting anything while slinging the conductors and passengers around the bus like rag dolls. This state of affairs was in no way helped by the practice of having regular crews who worked together all the time – while some were conscientious there were far too many "Bonnie and Clyde" types who were expertly adept at early running ("Time pinching") and every other variety of avoiding work. Not content with this deplorable attitude, they reinforced their "championship status" by constantly loudly sneering and jeering at any of us who were seen as "always late" – because of course we were doing the job as properly as conditions allowed. Once, as a one man operator, I handed a bus over several minutes late to one of the chief offenders who loudly bellowed "I thought they must have altered the timetable Chris" – I replied, equally loudly, "I didn’t think you knew what a timetable was" – a look of shocked silence was all he could manage to that !!
This may seem like dramatic exaggeration but I assure the reader that if anything its an understatement.

Chris Youhill


10/02/13 – 14:32

A lot of the problems with rear engined buses with semi-automatic gearboxes could be ascribed to the same gung-ho attitude that Chris mentions in respect of the Leeds preselectors; it became far too easy to change gear without paying attention to engine revs. It also coincided with a period when recruiting bus drivers was difficult, and the calibre of staff taken on was distinctly lower than ideal.
On the question of timetable adherence, while I was at Reading we had one (long-service) driver who was renowned for running late, in the hope that an inspector would regulate him and provide him with an unscheduled break while waiting to resume service at a correct time. Unfortunately, he also had the reputation of being able to catch up time if necessary – he was never known to be late at the end of a shift – so he was generally left to his own devices. The public of course suffered from an erratic timetable.

Alan Murray-Rust


11/02/13 – 07:06

I recall the Portsmouth Corp’n Daimler CWA6’s being abused by treating the greachange pedal as a clutch, but suspect this was because only nine buses in the fleet were like this and drivers were not trained on the unique vehicles.
In the late 1980’s, as an admin bod, working for BT, I needed a side-loading van and all that was available was a Commer/Dodge 15cwt PA van with a petrol low compression 1.7 litre engine, developing 49bhp. For half the day, it had a full load, then was empty. Said to reach 70mph, but actually about 63, it never reached more than 53mph and my foot was on the floor all day. If you went round a bend at any speed, however, the front wheels, which were closer together than the rear one, make the vehicle dig in, initially quite scary. Fuel consumption was terrible. My son, also working for BT, asked if I would not park the vehicle on our drive overnight as his mates would laugh at him! When I took the vehicle back the next day, I asked the MT Workshop when it was last serviced – they said they’d done it especially for me! They then asked me if I’d kindly park the vehicle in the scrap lane, a wise decision!

Chris Hebbron


11/02/13 – 07:07

Chris Y is correct about the Leeds lightwieght Regents which flattered to deceive being quite attractive buses externally.
Not only did they have little or no pulling power but from a passenger point of view were amongst the most uncomfortable buses to run in Leeds.
The seat squabs were wafer thin with little filling while the interiors were a monument to the lets get as many as we can on it school of management.
As they aged the windows gave off a most un-syncopated rattle when idling that made normal conversation next to impossible. Being lightweight they had an alarming tendency to lean in the opposite direction to travel on corners in at least one instance depositing me on the floor!

Chris Hough


11/02/13 – 10:14

Chris Hebbron – you are quite right in saying that abuse of the spring operated gearboxes in Daimler CW vehicles was widespread. In the particular case of Portsmouth lack of familiarity may well have been an acceptable explanation, but certainly not elsewhere. However, as opposed to air operated gearboxes, the spring system had a "kick back" trick up its sleeve – both metaphorically and mechanically !! Any wear in the linkages from the cab quadrant to the gearbox, or failure to set the quadrant accurately, could and often did result in the pedal flying back under full pressure to twice the normal "resting" position, causing painful and often nasty foot and leg injuries. Nevertheless the "fast men" would still subject the transmission and body components to the same abuse as suffered by the air models.
I never drove a Commer/Dodge van. As a bystander though I often reflected on how attractive they looked, and also on how the very obvious narrow front wheel track looked decidedly dubious !!

Chris Hough – how very well you put the situation of the lightweight Leeds Mark V Regents. In the list of their awful shortcomings I’d forgotten about the dreadful seat "cushions." The behaviour of the buses on corners and roundabouts was terrifying to any level headed driver – for in addition to passenger discomfort there was no proper seat for the driver either !! If I remember rightly – its a long time ago – the seat cushion was adjustable fore and aft, but not for height?, and the meagre "backrest" was permanently fixed on the cab rear bulkhead. I’m not narrow minded, but the front nine passengers in the lower saloon were subjected to what amounted to an obscene (must have been JUST legal I suppose) lack of knee room. The rearward facing seat for five and the front two forward facing seats compelled occupants to "interlock" their knees to an unacceptable extent – mind you, this at least meant that they could all sway as a solid congregation – "safety in numbers" – on the bad corners and cambers. Perhaps the worst site of all may have been Westgate roundabout on the Park Lane junction – this roundabout was dangerously wrongly cambered for all vehicles, and it was common for the "Toy Mark Vs" when in whatever hurry they could muster to scrape first the platform edge followed after a terrifying lurch by the offside rear corner panel.
I remain convinced, as do many others, that the dreadful October 1969 accident in Harehills would not have occurred with any other type of bus. The vehicle was descending the gently sloped Stoney Rock Lane with a full load of 68 souls when the nearside front wheel caught up a "Road Works" "A" board which had blown down in the wind. The wheel jammed the board into the mudguard and – this awful scenario takes some imagining – the vehicle immediately turned sharp left 90 degrees into a side street of terrace houses, attempted to overturn, and did so by slithering down the front walls of the houses, crushing the top deck to half height on the way. I believe that every passenger was injured, many seriously. This type of incident just shows how potentially dangerous were the old uncovered light bulbs which protruded into the saloons. Once again, this topic has veered away considerably from the Maidstone and District subject, but justifiably I hope in a general discussion of the model’s various versions.

Chris Youhill


14/02/13 – 10:49

VKR 479

Here is the highbridge version VKR 479 masquerading as Calderdale J.O.C. 362. Still in its former owner’s livery and looking rather down at heel – especially with its adverts ripped off like that – it it seen parked up at the bottom of the old Cross Field Bus Station in the Spring of 1973, not long before its withdrawal from service. These were not at all popular with conductors because of the platform doors which had to be operated by them by a button above, and so required them to be there at every stop – as of course they were supposed to be according to the rules, but rarely were in practice !

John Stringer


15/02/13 – 05:54

I’m a bit surprised about the door controls John, on the PMT Daimlers of the same year, the driver controlled the doors from the cab although there was a set of door controls on the platform for the conductor to use if necessary.

Ian Wild


15/02/13 – 08:42

Any doubledeck bus with a Manual set of Rear Platform doors would also require the conductor to be present on the platform at each stop, or am I missing something here

Andrew Beever


15/02/13 – 12:02

As I said in my original caption, I obtained my PSV licence (both Driver’s and Conductor’s) just after these had been withdrawn so never actually worked with one, and cannot say whether there were controls for the doors in the cab or not. It was just what others told me. All Halifax’s back loaders had been open platformed, and maybe in the interests of safety and legality there may well have been a notice posted forbidding drivers to operate the doors, and insisting that only the conductor should operate them from the platform. (I’m just clutching at straws here really) The trouble is now that amazingly there is hardly anyone to ask who was driving at that time – there are only to my knowledge three drivers with longer continuous service now than me. Phew, that’s a frightening thought !
What Andrew is ‘missing’ is perhaps an appreciation of the difference between what the law required, and the reality of what many employees actually thought should happen !

John Stringer


15/02/13 – 13:22

Picking up on Johns point of the difference between law and what actually happens. Not long after I started at Percy Main we had an industrial dispute. It was decided we would work to rule, so this meant an overtime ban, and you then have to work within two sometimes conflicting sets of rules, i.e, Company and Road Traffic Act, but where there may be a conflict the RTA takes precedence. The RTA states that the conductor can only give the driver the signal to start from the platform, whereas the company would expect them to do it from any convenient bell push on the vehicle. Working to rule, if the conductor is upstairs, he/she would then have to return to the platform before they can give the signal to start, once on the platform, the company would then expect them to look out for intending passengers, so does that little old lady just leaving the shop want to board my bus? I’d better wait and see, result? chaos and timetables completely out of the window.

Ronnie Hoye


15/02/13 – 13:23

This is just anecdotal since I had no first hand experience but I think on some half-cabs with platform doors there was a switch to open them from the cab when the vehicle had stopped but the conductor had to close them.

David Oldfield


15/02/13 – 17:58

Dredging my memory after almost half a century, I seem to recall that the rear (electric sliding) passenger door on the Aldershot and District Loline I was operated from the driver’s cab, and duplicate buttons were installed on the platform for conductor operation as necessary.

Roger Cox


16/02/13 – 07:21

The rear platform doors on the preserved South Yorkshire Albion could be operated by either the driver or conductor. The master switch for them however was in the cab well out of reach of the conductor

Andrew Beever


16/02/13 – 11:20

Ronnie, the sensible RTA ruling on starting signals was, to all intents and purposes, universally ignored out of sheer necessity. To obey the ruling would have resulted, as you rightly say, in scheduled timings being completely unachievable even at quiet times – and passengers would soon have become tired of being bashed about as conductors strove to reach the platform at each stop. The only times where, as a driver, I NEVER pulled away when a conductor rapped on the cab rear window with a coin or, even worse stamped on the cab roof from the front of the top deck. I was occasionally treated to abuse or sulkiness by those who tried this practice, but as far as I was concerned they could put their foot through the floor and it would have made no difference – just think of the size of the witness audience in the event of a platform accident !!

Chris Youhill


20/02/13 – 13:28

My memory as a passenger on many front engined vehicles with power doors (including M and D, Southdown, East Kent, as well as the Green Line RMCs and RCLs is that two sets of equipment to open and close the doors was always provided: in the cab and on the platform. Irrespective of any legal niceties, normal operation in practice, as I remember it, was for the driver to operate them almost all of the time to both open and close, with conductor operation being a rarity. The only exception to this in my experince was the Green Line vehicles where with much less changeover of passengers and thus less ticket work for the conductors, they often did operate the doors.

Gordon Mackley


15/04/13 – 07:32

DL35 and DL40 were sent to Hastings to work the increased 99 summer frequency (from one and a half hourly to half hourly) of 1970. I lived in Bexhill at this time. These vehicles were pretty rare to find, the crews disliked them and they were often ‘defected’ or whatever. I only managed to get a short town journey on one of them. They arrived in July and were only in service for barely a few weeks, if that. DL40 was being used as a training bus in the August. Other vehicles were received to work the 99. The photographer was fortunate to snap this picture considering the small amount of use these two had on this route. I got a rear view after one was defected at Bexhill garage and parked in the car park of the West Station opposite.

Roy Simmons


15/04/13 – 08:36

I am somewhat puzzled as to why the crews should dislike these vehicles sufficiently to invent defects in order to have them substituted. I have come across this immature conduct at most places where I’ve worked and I just don’t understand it. We all presumably have our favourites, mine being the Leyland PD1, but provided that there is no real operational or safety defect with any vehicle then un-necessary changeovers should not be tolerated.

Chris Youhill


15/04/13 – 10:53

I agree Chris. I hate Mk 1 Nationals, Bedford YRTs and Dennis Javelins – but I drove them without demur when I was allocated…..

David Oldfield


11/05/13 – 08:19

There are lots of derisory comments about fast drivers, I was considered a fast driver and being a ex conductor new all about rough drivers, there is a difference between fast and rough. Conductors always enjoyed having me as there driver and there were lots of good comment’s from my passengers about my time keeping as well as my standard of driving.

Michael Crofts


11/05/13 – 08:56

True, Michael. Fast and bad are not necessarily the same thing.

David Oldfield


12/05/13 – 07:03

As a former part-time bus and coach driver I agree that fast and bad aren’t the same thing: the key "things" are to be good (safe/smooth) and on-schedule. But really "fast" (or "slow") just shouldn’t even come into it – maintain the schedule and do it safely/smoothly. Unfortunately, I think some of today’s demands (and I’m thinking of two very recent trips on Blackpool-Preston route 75) in terms of timing/scheduling/recovery-time mean that to keep schedule involves overly-fast driving to an unacceptable degree – and that is a shameful position in which to put drivers (I couldn’t have got through gaps at speeds which those chaps on the 75 did – mind you, I learned on a PD3, and perhaps Solos have better brakes).

Philip Rushworth


12/05/13 – 09:04

Couldn’t agree more, Philip. As another part-timer, I refused to drive a route for a friend who ran a tendered service for county which had ridiculous timings – and specified vehicles far to large for the rural roads. [Yesterday, I saw the operator who now runs the route using an even bigger (12m) vehicles. Madness.]
I’m now off to drive an RML at the Slough running day. Now that WILL be fun.

David Oldfield


12/05/13 – 11:35

I agree entirely with all these mature comments about "fast" driving. Sadly, there exists a very strong ethic that the ONLY criteria of good driving is to be on time, or early, no matter how unreasonable the schedules, the traffic and – someone has to dare to say it – the sabotage (intentional or otherwise) of any possibility of punctual running by a sizeable proportion of the passengers. Like many of our friends here I always totally refused to drive badly or to abuse the vehicles (even the odd ones which I loathed) and was therefore "always late" – but I was not a slow driver at all.
Many "honourable and customer concerned" operators are hypocritical to a criminal degree, and as a result of the ethic I mentioned are able to take advantage of drivers who dare not stand up and say "Its unsafe and it simply cannot be achieved with safe and legal driving."

Just two examples I can give from many hundreds in my own experience :-

At one time it was necessary, for engineering reasons, to close Crown Point Bridge in Leeds for around eighteen months. The bridge was on the main route from the south into Leeds bus station. On our services 410/411 from Doncaster to Leeds the running time from Pontefract to Leeds (14 miles and extremely busy) was a ridiculous an inadequate forty minutes. The road closure however meant an extra mile each way right through the entire centre of the congested City – this could easily take fifteen minutes at peak times. SYRT was still a private concern at the time, and the other main operator over the Bridge was the Caldaire Group (West Riding). Friends, please don’t try to guess how much extra running/recovery time was granted but let me astonish you – not one second, and not one extra vehicle !!!! This scandal was enjoyed with glee no doubt by the hypocritical operators and was, of course, facilitated by the glorious and very misguided "fast men." We’d better say nothing about all the "ring the bell once and remain seated until the vehicle has stopped" and all the other desirable but impractical measures.
The second case which beggars belief was in my coaching days for a highly respected concern in Leeds. At the time the speed limit for coaches was 40 mph anywhere, and there were no motorways and few bypasses and, crucially, no M25. I did a tour from Leeds to Eastbourne involving three meal stops – coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. The latter was thirty minutes in St. Alban’s including discharging and reloading 40 passengers in the middle of the town and their consumption of their tea and their comfort visits – and no parking facilities for the coach – I had to pay a dear old chap 2/6d to park in the yard of the London Transport garage nearby – and of course no tea for me. Now to the crux of this incredible saga – which will be all the more astonishing to those who know the Greater London area. Assuming prompt departure from St. Albans (quite impossible of course) the time allowed to reach the Sea Front hotel in Eastbourne was TWO HOURS via Central London. Luckily I knew the area from personal experience – pity any driver who didn’t and I had had no route learning or warning at all – but nevertheless arrived over two hours late to face the understandable wrath of the Proprietress – a splendid lady who ran an immaculate establishment with Swiss watch efficiency.
I could write a series of books about these scandals which, since 1986 De-regulation, have become increasingly widespread particularly in the local bus service sphere – all of course in the interests of "greater choice and quality for the customer."

Chris Youhill


13/05/13 – 07:26

Chris, just write a book . . . any bloody book! I’ve read so many of these "busman’s books", and they’ve all been fascinating . . . but I just feel that yours would be something special. Can I take issue with one point raised in previous submissions to this thread? Running late on a high-frequency urban service (which I know must have been your experience at LCT) is quite different – from the passenger’s perspective (my perspective in the context of my previous comment) – when running (15+) minutes late on an hourly service . . . "is it coming, isn’t it?". (And I won’t even tell you what fun I had just trying to work out from where in Blackpool the 75 left from – and we wonder why passengers deserted buses . . . )

David: I’ve just noticed your post – I trust you had fun. I’ve only once driven an RMC [sic]: at the Chiswick open day in 1984(?) – whilst the cab was basic everything seemed just properly "set up", a real "driver’s bus". God! what a shock Midland Fox’s ex-Harper PD3 was – though not as much a shock as their ex-LT DM/Ss were . . . nice high driving position, but a manual parking brake in 1972? and that suspension? but it would never have occurred to me to "fault" any bus. But it was a hobby, fun – if I’d had to do it day-in-day-out would I? although clearly Chris Youhill would have.

Philip Rushworth


13/05/13 – 11:21

Yes, Philip, its was fun, running on networks of routes from the 1950s and ’60s. Slough on a Sunday in 2013 is like Monday to Friday rush hour in the ’60s (and you didn’t have to allow for photo opportunities then). I just ploughed on at a safe speed. One journey I picked up at each stop into Slough, the next I made up time with no-one between Slough and Langley. Then to Beaconsfield where I was meant to connect with another vehicles. He was over 15 minutes late and we left 10 minutes late – but again made up time on the open road to Slough. It was meant to replicate the ’50s and ’60s with a fully timetabled network of routes. It certainly does. All credit to Peter Cartwright and his team for yet another successful day.

David Oldfield


14/05/13 – 17:20

Thanks indeed Philip for that humbling vote of literary confidence – I often thought of writing the book you suggest, would love to have done so and should have done – but it would be a lot to take on, timewise, now at "this stage in the ageing game !! However I did help my friend Don Bate with his ten year exhaustive research which culminated in his superb book "Beer and blue buses" about Samuel Ledgard. Don being on the engineering side of the Firm I was able to provide him with much information about the traffic and public side of the operation, and to compose many of the captions for the pictures.
I can well understand how you feel about whether or not you would have done the job as a regular occupation – you are of course spot on in stressing that I wouldn’t have had any doubts, and I didn’t.
Although my knees were knocking with terror and stage fright, I would gladly go back to that Friday teatime at 4.43pm when I stood in Burley in Wharfedale waiting to take over my first ever double deck service bus for a busy late turn – I was sure that all the passengers would know full well that I was on my first trip and would be waiting for me to make a hash of it. As the bus arrived, an unavoidable ten minutes late due to the Leeds traffic etc, my mixture of fear and excitement mounted – I had two minutes in which to travel three busy miles to Ilkley, turn round, and set off for the peak period in Leeds. Always a PD1 devotee I shall always be so thankful to ex Bristol ECW bodied LAE 12 – it must have known my predicament and pulled out all the stops to save the day, performing even better than its usual commendable speed and pulling power – and the gearbox was like silk. After the two hour round trip, during which we (the bus, me, and the conductor as a team) pulled back all the deficit we arrived in Ilkley on time for our meal break. My life’s ambition had been achieved and I doubt if I’ll ever be as happy again.

Chris Youhill


15/05/13 – 07:35

Chris, from what I can work out you’ve been: conductor, WYRCC; conductor, Ledgard; driver, Ledgard; driver, LCT; Inspector, LCT; then I don’t read much from you – was it all too painful? – so, I’m guessing, Inspector, WYPTE; then to South Yorks, driver; and finally Arriva, driver. What a journey! Your passion as both an enthusiast as a professional shines through your every contribution, as does your ability to write. If you haven’t got the time to write it all down then just dictate your thoughts into a "Dictafone" (showing my own age here) and somebody will knock them out. Whenever I drove a bus the thoughts going through my mind were: the brakes are poor/the brakes are fierce/where are the gears?/I can find the gears and stop nicely! and bonus… nobody is drunk/threatening to hit me. That’d be about the limit of my book – everything else just got lost amongst the fug of keeping going/stopping/staying alive. I’m a teacher: what attracted me into teaching? – "Please Sir" (yes, really). What attracted me to buses . . . you’ve worked this out: "On the Buses". LWT has a lot to answer for.

Philip Rushworth


19/05/13 – 12:06

Well Philip, you won’t be surprised to hear that I can remember my whole career "On the buses" quite clearly, so here it is in full.
SAMUEL LEDGARD Conductor
WYRCC Conductor
MURGATROYD’S Coach driver (a few weeks only by mutual arrangement)
SAMUEL LEDGARD Conductor and driver.
WALLACE ARNOLD Bus, coach and tour driver and Traffic office.
LCT later WYPTE Driver (crew and OPO) Inspector (Road and garage)
SOUTH YORKSHIRE OPO and COACH DRIVER (all one rota)
CALDAIRE (WRAC)
BRITISH BUS
COWIE
ARRIVA (These five operators all owning Pontefract depot in rapid succession of course)
The above were all full time jobs, but in addition I did much part time contract, private hire and tour work for Independent Coachways of Horsforth, which was founded by a close friend of mine – with a Ledgard Reliance/Burlingham Seagull UUA 791 and considerable support from former Ledgard clients – my friend had worked at SL before the closure of the Company.

Chris Youhill


20/05/13 – 07:11

Chris, your storey now seems even more interesting: if you don’t share it with us, just share one thing for now – where exactly (by today’s building plan) was Ledgard’s "Moorfield" depot, and where was the WYRCC depot. OK that’s two things!
So. AEC produced a medium-weight Regent. What set it apart from the "heavy" Regent? for how long did it last? and why did it "fade away"? . . . and why didn’t Leyland produce a medium-weight Titan, or – for that matter – Daimler a medium weight CV/CC/CS?

Philip Rushworth


20/05/13 – 09:03

At the risk of treading on Chris’s toes. The MD2/3RA medium Regent had the AV479 (7.58 litre) engine; the heavies were successively the D2/3RV with the 9.6 litre A218 engine, the 2D2/3RA with the 9.6 litre AV590 and the 3D2/3RA the 11.3 litre AV691 engine.

David Oldfield


20/05/13 – 11:33

PS: Why didn’t Leyland or Daimler build a medium weight? The devil in me says they had more sense – but I’ve always preferred the heavy option. [Low stress on mechanical parts and long service intervals.] Mind you, strictly speaking Daimler did produce a medium weight. The CV5G wasn’t common. but there were enough around. I never went for the medium weight options on Bristols and Guys either – far better the Bristol engines or the 6LW or even 6LX, never 5LW. I thought that was false economy. Leyland’s medium weights were single deckers like the Tiger Cub whose engine was admired, but noisy, but lacked torque and long life. It became better when it gained the 0.600 and morphed into the Leopard L1/2.

David Oldfield


20/05/13 – 16:38

Philip, I haven’t totally ruled out the possibility of a book, but I do face the fact that time has gone by and that if I am to tackle the project I shall have to move quickly, and clear a lot of other pressing matters out of the way first. It is something I have always felt that I’d like to accomplish I must admit.
The Ledgard depot at Yeadon was at the head of a very short and narrow thoroughfare – little more than an access lane really – called Moorfield Drive. The facility was taken over when the Moorfield Omnibus Company was purchased in 1934, and the name remained in use officially but not publicly right to the end of the Ledgard operation in 1967. The original Moorfield largely wooden premises succumbed to a severe gale in 1947 and were replaced by a new brick building, The site is now occupied by the inevitable "desirable residences". Moorfield Drive is still so called, and is off the A 658 Bradford to Harrogate road close to the junction with Yeadon High Street.
The West Yorkshire Yeadon depot was bought in 1929 with the bus business of the Yeadon Transport Company and remained in use until 1957 when it was closed and sold to the Council. It was not purpose built and was located in some rather incongruous (for WYRCC) former mill premises, just off the upper eastern side of the High Street and adjoining the lovely Yeadon tarn – hence its name "Waterside Garage." Incidentally my conducting days with WYRCC were at Ilkley depot, on the site of which to the inch is now a superb Wetherspoon’s pub/restaurant – my occasional enjoyment of refreshments in there is enhanced by happy memories of how the depot was in every detail – I’ve seen other customers looking my way as if to say "That poor old soul’s not with it, he’s on another planet" – well they’re quite right of course.
I’ll really surprise them one day by ordering Bristol broth, followed by Lodekka lasagne, and finishing off with Tilling trifle.
David, no need my friend to worry about "treading on toes" as I’ve been wearing steel toecaps for years, and don’t mind at all as any information from kindred spirits is always very welcome.

Chris Youhill


20/05/13 – 16:39

Gentlemen Daimler did try a light weight version of the CV this was the CLG variant which was tried by PMT and Birmingham at least This used a 5 cylinder engine and was given a special light weight MCW body.
The comment about medium weight Regents fading away would certainly refer to their less than sparkling performance on gradients were they struggled. Leeds bought 150 of them and they were probably the worst AEC Regents in the fleet.

Chris Hough


20/05/13 – 17:57

You’re so very right Chris H – its not like me to loathe a model per se, but I have to admit that I couldn’t stand the 150 to which you refer. The first 135 7′ 6" ones were bad enough, and frighteningly unstable as well as being lifeless, but the final 15 which were 8′ 0" wide were even number mind you at least they were slightly less terrifying on corners etc. Its only fair to AEC to say though that the pathetic performance was the fault of LCT to a large extent – they seemed to think that buses would run economically on fresh air, which they won’t, and paid the price heavily in "hidden" abuse of major components, very particularly with the preselector Mark III Regents. The modus operandi of many of the worst drivers, with both models, was to set off in first gear and to leave the accelerator wide open continuously until the bus was at full speed in top gear – passengers, conductors and loose coinage were flung up an down the saloons mercilessly by the self styled "fast men" who were proud of being "always on time." Many’s the uniform lapel I’ve seen festooned with annual "safe" driving award bars – worn by some of the worst drivers simply because they’d never actually hit anything !! Just to recap, and to balance the discussion, there was little wrong with the 7.7 AEC engine’s performance provided it was given enough "oats and water" by its owners.

Chris Youhill


21/05/13 – 07:34

On the subject of fast drivers, the instructor who got me through my PSV test ‘three weeks after my twenty first birthday’ used to tell all his pupils that "you don’t have to be a slow driver to be a careful one, but speed for its own sake belongs on a race track" as for time keeping, our chief inspector used to say "there are a thousand and one reasons why you can be running late, but there is no excuse for being early"

Ronnie Hoye


21/05/13 – 10:31

Hebble, after buying 13 of the 9.6 engined Regent V between 1956 and 1960, inexplicably opted for four of the mediumweight MD3RV model in 1962. These were nice looking buses with Northern Counties forward entrance bodies with very pleasant interiors, and they sounded really well, though the earlier growling exhausts were a thing of the past by then. Unfortunately – though I would have thought, predictably – they were completely useless at hill climbing, something that Hebble buses were required to undertake rather a lot. After a while they tended to be used as much as possible on the Halifax-Leeds service which, once they had tackled the first three miles to Shelf, was less severe and once on the flat they could motor along quite reasonably. But why on earth they bought them in the first place I’ll never understand. They quickly reverted to the AV590 version after that.

John Stringer


22/05/13 – 11:05

I used to drive VKR 480 on a school contract before I went to school myself (I was a teacher!). It had been bought by John Lewis Coaches, Morriston, Swansea from Roslyn Coaches in Parr, Cornwall for a specific girls school contract. It was the first double decker John Lewis owned. It had door controls in the cab. I had no attendant on the school contract. After the last bus stop, I would close the doors until I reached the school. It was a dream to drive and have very fond memories of that vehicle!

Mike


23/05/13 – 07:47

Ronnie, my late father would have agreed with your sentiments. For quite a number of years he was a driver at West Yorkshire’s Harrogate depot, and took great pride in his driving and time-keeping. He used to say something similar about running late, but said if you were going to run early, you may as well not have bothered running the service in the first place. On the subject of time-keeping, I remember some years ago waiting for a West Yorkshire Harrogate 36 bus at the side of Lewis’s department store in Leeds. A young woman came up to the adjoining stop and looked at the timetable for her WYPTE bus. On then looking at her watch, a ‘Leeds Loiner’ waiting in the queue said "Ah wun’t waste yer time lookin’ at that love – tha’d be better off wi’ a calendar!"

Brendan Smith


26/05/13 – 07:58

The Daimler CLG5 lightweight wasn’t quite the dead end that it may appear from the fact that only two buses so designated were ever built. Some of the lightweight features were then incorporated into subsequent CVGs, sometimes (for example Manchester CVG5 4490) to the extent that these were mistaken for CLG5s. Having experienced the Birmingham CLG5 as a passenger, I get the impression that, rather than a prototype for an intended production model, it was more of an experiment in pushing boundaries, to see what they could get away with and how much weight could be saved.

Peter Williamson


28/05/13 – 07:33

Re Following on from John S. and the Hebble 7.7 Mk Vs, they also had in 1965 a batch of Reliance/Park Royal DP39F buses used mainly on local services with ZF 6 speed constant mesh boxes. Another unusual purchase.

Geoff S


28/05/13 – 09:00

Sorry Geoff. We’ve rehearsed this argument elsewhere before but the 6 speed constant mesh box in medium weights was an AEC unit, not a ZF – which was synchromesh and only used in the heavyweights.

David Oldfield


15/07/13 – 08:20

The M&D Regents were quite sprightly, but then they were quite low geared. Being only just over 7 tons they always seemed quite quick. When Roselyn coaches of Par had them Leslie Eade fitted high ratio diffs, which made them quicker at the expense of hill climbing, especially with a load up. From the cab you can’t see the platform very well…let alone hear the yells from anyone stuck in the doors!

Bob Cornford


25/08/13 – 14:51

As a student in 1962 I went hop-picking on a farm between Horsmonden and Goudhurst. Arriving at Tunbridge Wells by steam train from Lewes, I boarded one of the 8 AEC Lowbridge Regents (VKR 35-42) which operated service 97 from Tunbridge Wells to Ashford. These beautiful vehicles were part of the Wealden landscape as they trundled through delightful villages such as Brenchly, Horsmonden, Goudhurst, Cranbrook and Tenterden.

John Templeton


18/11/13 – 05:11

I never travelled on the lowbridge version but remember two trips on Highbridges. One was a Sunday school outing to Chessington Zoo, when the driver nearly made an instant open-topper when someone on board noticed this bridge!
The other occasion was when I did the full journey Gravesend-Hastings! Four hours! They seemed odd due to the synchromesh gearbox. I was used to pre-select on double decks.

John Resker


18/11/13 – 16:38

Geoff, David is correct about the six speed constant mesh gearbox in the Reliance. I, too, was under the misapprehension for years that the six speed unit in the Aldershot and District 36 foot Reliances was a ZF product. In fact it was a Thornycroft design – AEC took over Thornycroft in 1961. All the contemporary ZF boxes were synchromesh.

Roger Cox


24/04/14 – 09:25

Used to travel regularly on the lowbridge Regent Vs from school in Tunbridge Wells to M&Ds depot in Tonbridge(now gone). Six or seven deckers would be lined up 2 or 3 being lowbridge deckers it always seemed they had more than they needed for the limited service requirements.As well as the 97 to Ashford the only other route was the 101 to Leigh. The Regents performed ok but seemed to have a very flat exhaust note as if the timing was retarded. Fastest run to Tonbridge were often achieved by the rebodied K6As which flew once on the downhill. A friend even travelled to Brighton on one rather than the usual PD2. There was one K6A preserved by the M&D & East Kent Bus Club which I went to Brighton on to the HCVC run.

Patrick


17/05/15 – 06:26

We moved to Hastings in 1973 and our local route 75 was regularly worked by these vehicles. The route was one of few Hastings town services worked from Hastings depot rather than Silverhill, and as such had the same types of vehicles as on the country routes which ran from Hastings. I remember Leyland and MCW bodied PD2s appearing from time to time, a pre-war OT open-topper operating on one afternoon, and in winter even coaches which seemed to be favoured in snowy conditions, maybe for better road-holding. The route had steep hills at both ends of the town where the distinctive exhaust sound was heard to great effect.
Although it was very much a town service a few times a day the 75 went on to the village of Crowhurst, negotiating some pretty narrow country lanes on the way, where the double deckers looked rather too large for the roads.
In the morning the 08:18 departure from Wishing Tree was invariably Atlantean DH630 (nearly the last Atlantean numerically). I think the vehicle went on to the 15 service later on in the day.
Another curiosity of the route was the extra departure from the Wishing Tree in the afternoon, put on for pupils of The Grove School. This was invariably operated by a Southdown Guy Arab, presumably on lay-over in Hastings from the Heathfield group of services.
Later on the AECs were replaced by new Willowbrook bodied Leyland Panthers (still crew-operated) and both single and dual-door versions of the Strachans bodied Panthers. By then the extra afternoon journey would often be a Southdown Marshall bodied Leopard.
After London where we saw nothing but RTs for years the variety was fascinating!

Andrew Newland


28/10/15 – 06:53

I was really interested to see the photo of the M&D low bridge bus VKR 35.
As a boy I lived in Horsmonden in the early 60’s and not only made a study of all of these type of bus, all with the DL number linked to the reg no.
The route was the 97 Tunbridge Wells to Hawkhurst and Ashford.
They were:
VKR 35 TW
VKR 36
VKR 37 TW Always a bit scruffy
VKR 38 A Used mainly as a school bus – the smartest by far
VKR 39 HH
VKR 40
VKR 41
VKR 42 A
The buses were allocated to garages with little circular plates fitted to the rear of the buses donating which one, e.g. A – Ashford, TW- Tunbridge Wells.
At the time I noted some had mesh grills, some slatted, some were updated with indicators, they looked sleek, and smart, and could get a good lick on! I travelled on all of them going to school!

Geoff Radford


12/09/16 – 16:46

I learned to drive on an AEC with Maidstone & District in about 1975. I remember the number plate was VKR ??.
This weekend I saw a beautifully restored VKR 39 in Tenterden in M&D colours and discussion with the owner suggested it was not the bus in question.
Would anyone know which AEC Regent VKR ?? was the driver training bus (instructor – the long suffering Jock Chisholm)

David B


VKR 35 Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


03/10/16 – 05:44

David, as the owner of VKR 39 I recall the conversation we had. The trainer Regent in question was VKR 469, by then P3 in the fleet but originally DH 477 and in computer days 5477. I recall last seeing it in a breakers yard on South Yorkshire. P1 and P2 were the Leyland PD2’s that survived for service vehicle use, I had a hand in saving P2 (NKT 878) from the Wallace School of Motoring around 1982 when it was offered to me for £250…..but already had a vehicle, fortunately a quick appeal and it was saved. I have both the "VKR" Regents that survive from the M & D fleet and standing together they make an interesting comparison. Having restored them it has been great to hear the many positive comments like yours, many thanks, and to take VKR 39 along its former route, the 97, in its Ashford to East Grinstead form (which the VKR’s worked for around 2 years until the East Grinstead to Tunbridge Wells section was withdrawn) was a long day (4 hours or so on the timetable)! We were able to pass under the remaining "low bridge" on that route at Ashurst (Uckfield line), signed at 13 foot 3 inches, without trouble. Literature of the day states that these vehicles were 13 foot 2 inches in height, so that seems to be borne out! (and I had measured it beforehand…..two years earlier I took my other low bridge Regent XAL 784, Barton 784 under there, much to the consternation of some passengers as we approached it!).

Paul Baker


 

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Leeds City Transport – AEC Regent V – 952 JUB – 952

Leeds Corporation - AEC Regent V - 952 JUB - 952
Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

Leeds City Transport
1964
AEC Regent V 2D2RA
Roe H39/31R

In the early days of Tyne and Wear PTE they suffered some severe vehicle shortages, to fill the gaps buses were bought borrowed or hired in from wherever they could get them. Among the intake that came from Leeds was at least one PD3 and several AEC Regent V’s, all Roe bodied, one of the Regents is seen here standing between two Leyland Atlanteans. I think the Leeds buses must have been bought because the livery has been altered, where as the other stop gaps remained in their original unaltered liveries and displayed ‘On hire’ stickers in the windscreen. Both the Atlanteans have been re-painted in one of the ‘new’ experimental liveries for the PTE. Several layouts were tried before they eventually settled for something not a million miles from where they started.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ronnie Hoye


05/10/12 – 07:28

Slightly bizarre yellow front doesn’t detract from the timeless design. Interesting bus sandwich with a standard Alexander Atlantean on the left and a Met-Camm Alexander clone on the right. [See dome and light lay-out for details.]

David Oldfield


05/10/12 – 08:00

I’ve often been perplexed by how the phenomenon of severe vehicle shortages occurred. Both Tilling and BET, and presumably all municipal operators of any substance, had clear and established vehicle replacement programmes designed specifically to ensure shortages didn’t happen. In the 1960’s, unlike the early postwar period, there was adequate vehicle and body supply, and there was no reason why operators would be faced with a fleet problem that couldn’t have been foreseen and planned for. Reorganisation, such as the establishment of a PTE, might, I guess, have introduced new policies and direction, but the number of vehicles needed wouldn’t suddenly have changed, even if the owners, (and livery, of course), had. Takeovers, such as West Yorkshire’s takeover of Samuel Ledgard, could have introduced vehicles unfamiliar to or unwanted by the new owners, but didn’t create an insuperable overnight problem. Yet Yorkshire Woollen had sudden shortages, Ronnie refers here to Tyne & Wear’s difficulties, and there were others too. Can anyone explain, please?
A small point: many correspondents have expressed their reaction to the liveries introduced by PTEs and other new operators, but the two-tone green of Leeds, splashed with bits of orange here and there, presumably only a temporary arrangement, is nevertheless a bizarre sight. But an interesting posting. Thank you Ronnie.

Roy Burke


05/10/12 – 13:23

Couldn’t agree more, Roy. Only "know" about Sheffield – which I believe was principally an attack of the far too frequent British Leylandism combined with Bus Grantism. The Bus Grant created a big demand and later Baroness Thatcher created a bigger one by abolishing it – the operators rushing to get orders in before the money dried up. BL couldn’t cope with the rush, but there was a knock-on effect – neither were spare parts being produced in adequate numbers. Operators, therefore, could neither get new buses nor spares to keep the old ones going. Hence the shortage, and also the cannibalisation of otherwise serviceable vehicles for spares.

David Oldfield


05/10/12 – 13:25

Ronnie, as far as I recall none of the Leeds vehicles which served in Tyne and Wear, whether bought or loaned I’m not sure, were ever repainted other than the "identity" coloured panels at the front.

Chris Youhill


05/10/12 – 13:26

I understood that these Leeds buses were in fact acquired from OK Motor Services. Was there some Leylands too?

Philip Carlton


05/10/12 – 13:27

The ex Leeds AECs actually arrived in Newcastle from OK Motor services. At the time the delivery time for new vehicles from British Leyland was very poor which was one of the reasons for the success of the MCW Scania Metropolitan. In addition to the bought in ex Leeds buses Tyne and Wear borrowed from a wide variety of local authority fleets from as far afield as Edinburgh and Plymouth.
As well as Atlanteans from Bournemouth and Plymouth there was also Alexander bodied PD2s from Lothian, Leicester PD3s and Southend Fleetlines!

Chris Hough


05/10/12 – 13:28

A bit of research has provided the following info: Leyland 284 sold to O.K Motors 03/76 then to Tyne & Wear 04/76
AEC Regents 937/944/946/950/952/958 Sold as above 12/75 and to Tyne & Wear 04/76

Terry Malloy


05/10/12 – 13:29

In this view, the amended livery on the Leeds Regent looks to me to be approaching orange, rather than yellow. Is is the film, is it the conversion from slide or print into a digital form, or are my eyes being troublesome again? Anyway, green and orange bus from the Yorkshire area . . . Where have I encountered that before? (But the green’s then the wrong shade for Halifax!)

Pete Davies


05/10/12 – 13:31

There were a number of factors involved in vehicle shortages in the 1960s.
Many of the buses built immediately after the end of WW2 were coming to the end of their useful lives, so the same problems that occurred between 1945 and 1950 recurred – exacerbated by a vastly reduced number of body builders and, by 1966, the rationalisation of chassis builders under the on going development of the Leyland empire.
By the start of the PTE era double decker chassis choice was reduced to Atlantean (and the AN69 was firstly delayed and then swamped by orders from, particularly, SELNEC), Fleetline (again swamped by LT and SELNEC orders) and VR and most non ex- Tilling companies had no experience of the type.
Leopards, Reliances, Swifts and Fleetlines were the only single deck choice for many fleets – especially after many poor experiences with Panthers.
The Bristol RE did make inroads, though the Leyland empire had no great lover of the type and was focussed on the development of the still to come National.
The Metro-Scania in single and double deck form was basically experimental, the Seddon RU had just appeared and the days of the Metrobus, Dominator and the inroads from abroad were for later in the 1970s.
In the 1960s and early 1970s the industry was still very traditional. Bodies were still mostly hand built out of "traditional" materials and most body builders offered customers the ability to amend standard designs with regard to detail, sometimes with major design changes. Build times were long, delays from chassis builders caused irregular work flows and problems with new materials led to factory returns for repairs making problems worse.
Chassis building was even more chaotic. As the number of makers reduced, the pressure on Leyland, Southall and Coventry became immense. The freeing up of Bristol chassis and the availability until the late 1960s of the Guy Arab didn’t really help as their traditional operators needed to replace their fleets and, where there was capacity, most operators were loathe to move away from traditional suppliers with whom they had a good relationship, had built stocks of spares and did not want to learn different practices in the workshop and on the road.
Again, chassis were hand built, were individually delivered on the road rather than in bulk on trailers, and the range of variables was legion. In 1965 Leyland offered no fewer than 7 versions of PD2s, 9 versions of PD3s, 4 (pretty much unwanted) versions of the Lowlander and seven versions of the Atlantean.
Some of the variations were minor, others major. The average order was for between 10 and 20 vehicles so production line continuity was rare and the problem was made worse by supply chain problems, industrial disputes and the obtaining of "bulk" orders from major operators from time to time made things worse.
One example from the 1960s:
Stockport had a planned fleet replacement programme to clear the fleet of vehicles bought between 1940 and 1951. Starting with an order for 10 PD2s with East Lancs bodies in 1962, the order was repeated in 1963. A range of detail changes was made to the bodies without problems. 15 more came in 1964 but the chassis was changed to replace the St Helens front with an exposed radiator. A repeat order in 1965 again was trouble free. Each order was placed around 12 months before expected delivery.
By 1965 it was becoming obvious that delays at both chassis and body builders were growing so orders were placed for 30 vehicles half for delivery in 1966 half in 1967, again for identical PD2s with East Lancs bodies.
No vehicle was delivered in 1966, the chassis were very late and the 1967 chassis were arranged to be made at the same time. This led to knock on problems at East Lancs, which didn’t have the capacity to cope so the second batch were built at the Neepsend associate – reputedly not to the standard of the Blackburn product.
The delay in delivery had fortunately been flagged up early so, in 1966, orders were placed for the 1968 intake and only 6 months later for the 1969 deliveries.
It should be stressed that Stockport advised all tenderers at the outset that it had an on going replacement policy and it was intended to invite tenders each year from 1961 to 1968 so the industry was warned well in advance. The hard fact is that design, build and work practices just didn’t adapt to the situation. Add in the need for widespread replacements and the recipe for shortages was complete.

Phil Blinkhorn


05/10/12 – 17:34

So, the Leeds Regents came to the Newcastle area via OK Motor Services, and too quickly even for OK to paint them maroon!

Pete Davies


05/10/12 – 17:35

It should also be remembered that reliability was also a constant problem at the time many of the rear engined types were not easy to keep on the road indeed at one point West Midlands PTE went to the press about the poor build quality and after sales at BL.
Geoff Hilditch prevailed upon Dennis to build the dominator due to BL intransigence over keeping the Fleetline in build which had the effect of resurrecting Dennis from PSV oblivion. It is an interesting thought that if Leyland had done what the industry wanted and not what Leyland wanted they may still be building buses.

Chris Hough


05/10/12 – 17:37

Re David Oldfield’s comment, the 1968 Transport Act created both the Bus Grant scheme and, amongst others, Tyneside PTE, the set up date of this being January 1 1970. In common with other PTEs the Executive started work some months before actually taking over the day to day running of transport in its area and inherited orders for vehicles from its constituent parts.
Few if any of these orders would have been placed after the 1968 Transport Bill, which became the 1968 Transport Act, was published, given the already long delivery times. Some PTEs chose to extend those times by retrospectively changing specifications to meet both with the terms of the Bus Grant, which was effective for any vehicle registered on or after September 1 1968, and also any early standardisation they wished to implement.
Lead times for the available chassis, ordered at the time the Bill was published in 1967, was around 2 years. This increased further as the new decade dawned as LT and the PTEs decided to make hay by rapidly replacing older vehicles with heavily subsidised and standardised new vehicles.
As we all know 3 new PTEs were set up between 1972 and 1974 and the original PTEs were expanded to take in further operators. Tyneside became Tyne and Wear.
History immediately repeated itself, this time against the background of the 1974 three day week which badly delayed both chassis and body manufacture and a range of industrial disputes, not to mention that some of the new and very reluctant constituents of the PTEs had deliberately run down their orders and had also not spent ratepayers’ money on new Certificates of Fitness for vehicles which the new PTEs would withdraw at the earliest opportunity.
Thus by 1975/6 many operators of all kinds were faced with severe delivery delays and some PTEs started or were enhanced on a less than enviable basis with severe vehicle shortages.
The industry certainly does not learn from history. When the end of the grant scheme was signalled under Thatcher there was a rush to register vehicles before the last date and the manufacturers were faced with an embarrassing order glut, followed by a massive dearth – which led to the demise of many long established names and all but the death of a once strong indigenous industry.

Phil Blinkhorn


06/10/12 – 07:48

I agree entirely with Chris Hough’s final sentence.
Leyland had put right virtually all the unforgiveable (for a major manufacturer in the latter half of the twentieth century) major faults in the Mark 1 National, and the National 2 was a civilised and reliable vehicle, either Leyland or Gardner powered. Then arrived the unspeakable Lynx which in earliest forms gave the impression of having been designed and riveted together by engineering night school apprentices. Frequent malfunction of the air suspension system and the ZF automatic gearbox (especially in the 2 to 3 and 3 to 2 changes) caused great passenger displeasure and discomfort, and acute embarrassment and pain to conscientious drivers. Those passengers quite understandably having little or no knowledge of such matters were heard to comment loudly, in droves, "ooh he’s heavy on his brakes isn’t he" and "this is a dreadful old boneshaker isn’t it ??." The latter remarks proved the point above all else, as the culprit vehicles were often very young in years. Arriva spent, I believe, around £10,000 per Mark 2 Lynx in "mid life refurbishment" involving reupholstered seats, new lighting, new handrails etc etc – all totally un-necessary. The effect on comfort and mechanical smoothness after this farce was nil as I found when, with an open mind, I encountered my first one – scarcely had we left the bus station before I inadvertently went over a twig or something to receive a painful thump direct to the spine, and then the passengers were treated to a missed third gear, Cummins engine screaming, and then the gear engaged before the revs could die down – I momentarily just mused over what I could have spent £10,000 on. The Lynx didn’t stay long in the Volvo catalogue !!

Chris Youhill


06/10/12 – 07:49

The above postings are fascinating to someone such as myself having never been involved in the bus industry. It is a revealing tale of management failings, poor planning, poor workmanship and lack of design development.
How sad that such situations occurred not only there but of course the British motor industry was just as haphazard. The late 1960’s to early 1980’s have much to teach us if only we bother to learn. No wonder that nowadays bus construction and fleet operators are so defined/limited.
Is not also strange that the Japanese who massively shook up the motor industry here, did not influence the commercial manufacturers to anything like the same extent. I believe that only Mazda and Nissan have made even a small dent in offering commercial chassis and even then with only lightweight vehicles.
Thank you gentlemen for your memories and insight to rather dark times and difficult operating situations.

Richard Leaman


06/10/12 – 07:50

Over the years OK bought quite a number of buses from Newcastle Corporation and later T&W PTE, but these went in the other direction, a bit ironic when you think about it. I know OK did have a couple of Regent V’s, but I don’t know if any of these eventually made it into their fleet, although I think I’m right in saying that one of the Leeds buses diverted to Newcastle did survive into preservation, but I don’t know where it is.

Ronnie Hoye


06/10/12 – 07:51

One other point on this. Whatever the problems within the industry, political meddling, starting with Castle’s clumsy handling of British Leyland,the PTEs and the formation of the National Bus Company and culminating in Ridiculous Ridley’s deregulation in the name of choice (leaving us with an effective national quadropoly) have not only proved the correctness of the maxim "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" but have cost thousands of jobs, millions of pounds in lost export orders, diminished civic pride and taken away local accountability.
On the plus side some comfort can be drawn from the export successes of the last few years and my cousin, who is Director of Bus Operations for Go Transit in Toronto has, I’m pleased to say, contributed to this.

Phil Blinkhorn


06/10/12 – 09:01

Phil I agree with you wholeheartedly in your comments, and I am tickled pink by your very very appropriate nickname for Sir Nicholas Ridley, whose deregulation fiasco was based on the alleged success of the notorious Hereford and Worcester "trial area."
We mustn’t forget either his even more incredible sidekick Mr. David Mitchell who came to Leeds on a promotional visit and stayed at the Queen’s Hotel. Writing in the press the Government minister said something on the lines of "I looked out of my hotel window in City Square this morning at 08.45 to see dozens of double decker buses all nearly empty, and deregulation will cure all this wastage." It beggars belief that he had failed to notice eighty plus workers alighting from each of the said vehicles at the same time – would it be cynical to suggest that he knew full well what the situation was and that he was simply "helping the Government’s cause" ?? So, therein lies the root of the expensive and distressing shambles that we’ve all suffered since – as I see it the only beneficiaries of the 1986 Act have been the vinyl makers and the marketing gurus who have, at the operators’ expensive behest, turned the Country’s once mainly dignified buses (and trains) into mobile graffiti carriers.

Chris Youhill


06/10/12 – 10:54

Just as aside regarding David Mitchell. His son is the famous Andrew Mitchell him of the cycle incident at Number 10.

Philip Carlton


06/10/12 – 14:21

Ronnie The surviving ex Leeds AEC Regent V that ran in Newcastle is none other than the pictured 952. It is now under restoration at the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society A later one 980 ENW 980D is also preserved at Keighley bus museum. This one ran for AA Motor Services after sale by the PTE.

A Non


06/10/12 – 14:22

Years of dealing with politicians, local and national at home and abroad, has taught me that when those in power decide they want to do something, they generally do it and if they say something is so – it is.
In dictatorships they don’t have to prove anything to implement their ideas. In democracies they have other ways. They go out of their way to find obscure examples to prove their case, they manipulate circumstances and events so their case will fit or, as in David Mitchell’s and many other cases, see only what they want to see and take that as fact.

Phil Blinkhorn


06/10/12 – 15:05

As we all know, hindsight is an exact science. At the age of 66 I’m still a youngster to some, but I’m old enough to remember a bygone ere when buses were classified as ‘Public Service Vehicles’ and pride in the company, it’s vehicles and the service they provided was still regarded as a virtue and something to be positively encouraged. Today we live in a world run by people who "know the price of everything and the value of nothing" (Oscar Wilde) pride has become an outdated expensive and unnecessary obsession that eats into shareholders dividends and no longer has a place in today’s throw away society. I started at Percy Main at the beginning of 1967 when I had just turned 21. The Northern General Group was by no means alone in setting very high standards for itself, and throughout the industry many examples can be found where pride in all aspects of the company was still very much on the agenda. NBC and the formation of the subsequent PTE’s that followed were to change all that, at countless depots throughout the country pride was soon replaced by an attitude of ‘whats the point?’ The Tilling Group and many Local Authority Undertakings were perfect examples of how Nationalised or Municipally owned companies could and should be run, they were managed by people who knew the industry rather than a board made up of accountants, ‘experts’ and people with a political axe to grind, most of whom hadn’t been on a bus since they left school, and as for running a fleet of them ‘that’s censored’. End of rant.

Ronnie Hoye


06/10/12 – 18:44

Very true Ronnie and that goes for many other industries. Allied to the total focus on "qualifications" and little emphasis on common sense, practicalities and experience it’s no wonder so many economies are in such a mess.
I’d be the first to say that, on the other hand, working conditions for most workers have improved but the standard of service given has declined dramatically.
Going back to the photo at the top of this thread, does anyone know the reason for the nearside staircase which Newcastle specified for a while?
In October 1968 Alexander bodied Atlantean Newcastle 601 was displayed to the public in Manchester alongside Manchester Fleetline Mancunian 2048 and Sheffield Park Royal bodied Atlantean 293 and the feature drew some adverse comment.

Phil Blinkhorn


06/10/12 – 18:45

Long delivery times were also experienced in the late 1950s. Hull Corporation tendered for 5 Atlanteans on 8 December 1958 but did not receive the first two until May 1960. MCCW got the order for the bodies on 16 March 1959. (it charged £5 10s per bus for a certificate of fitness!)
But the five AEC Reliances that were ordered in February 1959 arrived in February 1960.
When Mr Pulfrey obtained authority for ten 35 foot long single deck trolleybuses with Roe bodies on a Sunbeam "Transit" chassis in November 1958 he told the Transport Committee that he had been quoted two year’s delivery.
On more than one occasion in the mid/late 1950s Walter Haigh who succeeded Pulfrey asked for permission to place orders well in advance due to long delivery times.

Malcolm J Wells


07/10/12 – 08:08

The above mentioned Nicolas Ridley will go down in history as one of the intransigent bigots of all time. I recall penning part of the London Country response to the Deregulation "Green Paper" on behalf of the MD, Colin Clubb. The LCBS input, together with the contributions from other NBC companies, was collated and edited into the National Bus attempt to introduce some semblance of reality and common sense into the impending legislation. The other parts of the bus industry, the PTEs and municipalities, also submitted soundly based comments. It was all ignored totally, such was Ridley’s blind commitment to destroy public ownership at whatever cost, and equally, to wound fatally the Transport and General Workers’ Union, with its perceived important funding role in the Labour Party. The Transport Act 1985 was barely different from the "consultation" Green Paper. The considerations of the travelling public did not occupy Ridley’s interest for a microsecond. His motivation was purely political. His previous crass involvement in the Falklands issue, and then his deliberate escalation of circumstances that lead to the miners’ dispute, show him to have been the wholly destructive force that was brought to bear upon the bus industry.

Roger Cox


07/10/12 – 08:09

I don’t know the definitive answer to that one, Phil, but I can tell what I do know. in 1975 I left Tynemouth and Wakefields to join Armstrong Galley ‘the coaching division of T&W PTE’ Whilst I was at Percy Main I was a dual crew driver, so my experience of buses with centre exit doors is somewhat limited. Newcastle Corporation ‘as it was at the time’ for some reason had the staircase on the N/S side on some of the Alexander bodied Atlantean’s with the exit door to the rear of it. To the best of my knowledge none of NGT’s were like this, and I cant remember any United D/D’s with centre exits. Anyway, after a series of accidents, including I believe a fatality, the unions at both NGT and the PTE refused to use the centre doors, some, but not all, ‘depending on cost V’s life expectancy’ were removed and extra seating added, and the remainder were made inoperative, and since then neither Northern or Stagecoach as the former PTE is now, have brought any new vehicles into the area with centre doors fitted.

Ronnie Hoye


07/10/12 – 08:10

And much of what appears above in connexion with the bus industry, also applies to the mismanagement of the rail industry. All the EU wanted was accountancy transparency by separation of the infrastructure side and the train operations side, but politicians saw an opportunity to privatise the whole system by breaking it up into component parts, rather than, at least, complete regional railways. And the industry has been in flux since 1993, Railtrack/Network Rail, using outside contractors, then in-house staff, train leasing companies, but also government-built trains, short, then long franchises, with the latest Virgin/First fiasco and Network Rail still not achieving the levels of efficiency found abroad. It’s a pity the railways were ever nationalised in the first place, for shareholder control is powerful. But having done so, the governments never exercised that firm control to ensure increasing efficiency. BTC was a giant transport bureaucracy that needed this.

Chris Hebbron


07/10/12 – 08:10

Trouble is Ronnie, and Phil, your rant has substance. Everything you say is true.
I think I’ve said before that as a young, and cocky, well qualified musician, I had my legs cut from under me (metaphorically) by the experienced men of Manchester. It did me no harm, and lots of good. With experience, I matured and improved as a musician and a teacher. Qualifications alone don’t cut it.

David Oldfield


07/10/12 – 14:45

Chris H, your remarks about the railway industry (it’s probably an age thing, but I detest the the PR truncation "Rail Station") have much force, but equally destructive has been the influence of "Left" and "Right" domestic pendulum politics, whereby governments of utterly opposed persuasion seek to undo the economic structure of their predecessors. The separation of track/infrastructure and service operation in a manner akin to the roads was envisaged in the very early days of the railway industry, and was jettisoned in favour of unified control of track and trains. The present profiteering shambles in the UK is inexcusable, and the inefficiency is reflected in exorbitant ticket prices.
Yet again, we have wandered away from the subject matter above, but don’t we get some interesting contributions to discuss?

Roger Cox


07/10/12 – 17:56

Wasn’t one Prof. John Hibbs the architect of deregulation? (and consequently the dismemberment of the NBC which was seen as necessary to ensure its success). Now John Hibbs might have been a gifted academic – and his "The History of British Bus Services" (David & Charles, 1968/1989) is a good read – but I would have thought that politicians like Nicholas Ridley et. al. might have had the nouse (good Yorkshire word there) to avoid taking practical advice on the organisation and regulation of the entire English and Welsh stage-carriage sector from somebody whose sole experience of day-to-day management of bus operations was limited to the spectacularly unsuccessful ownership of the tiny and rural Corona Coaches (of Sudbury).

Philip Rushworth


07/10/12 – 17:57

The Thatcher Government was ideologically opposed to public transport.
Two quotes illustrate this one:
‘anyone on public transport after the age of 25 is a failure’ – Baroness Thatcher.
‘all of you should be running a service individually’ Nicholas Ridley to a group of Hull drivers in 1984.
This is not an anti Tory rant but a honest recall of past events.

Chris Hough


08/10/12 – 08:31

Doubts about road service licensing had been expressed from the very beginning of the system but once the bus industry was no longer financially viable overall and unable to ‘pay its way’ the regulatory regime was bound to be questioned with greater vigour.
I know Professor John Hibbs well. He is a libertarian. His pamphlet (in the series Hobart Papers) ‘Transport for Passengers’ published in 1963 (and in revised form in 1971) provides a convincing demolition of the road service licensing as then practised and I consider this to be a seminal piece.
Looking back at the period when I was studying for corporate membership of The Chartered Institute of Transport (shortly after the second edition of Hibbs’ paper had been published) it was notable that reference to Hibbs’ critique of the system was ignored – presumably in the hope that it would go away.
Hibbs was not alone in questioning whether a system that had been introduced when the industry was young and recently developed was best suited for an industry that had matured and was in decline. Professors Michael Beesley and Stephen Glaister (along with Dr Corinne Mulley) weighed in with similar arguments.
In April 1998 I presented a paper ‘The Story of Bus Service Deregulation’ to the Yorkshire Section of The Chartered Institute of Transport which recounted the tale from the early days of the system and examined in some detail the process leading to de-regulation. This was published and is available in Proceedings, Volume 7, Number 4 December 1998 of The Chartered Institute of Transport.

Kevin Hey


08/10/12 – 11:48

I’ve devised and run enough academic and industry conferences in my life and had close dealings with the interface between a range of industries and academia around the world to know that there are three truths which hold whether the subject is nuclear physics, aviation, medicine or road transport:
1. For every academic thesis there are 100 other thesis which will disagree.
2. Academic theories which are not carefully and properly devised in consultation with those who have day to day experience in the industry concerned are generally proven, in time, to be either worthless and, at worst, destructive.
3. The appointment of people, be they academics or just from another industry, to give an impartial and independent overview and produce a report on which a government will act, on the basis of their being "experts" in management or successful in their own field, has been proven time and time again to be flawed.
The pressures of time scales imposed, the amount of knowledge that needs to be assimilated, processed and judged and the often skewed selection of the expert to fit the profile and outcome the commissioning government wants are the same whatever the complexion and location of the government concerned.
In terms of the bus industry and Ridley’s Act, I understand how a libertarian can justify the free for all that emerged in the late 1980s and into the 1990s with every Tom Dick and Harry blocking the streets with all but clapped out vehicles as they jostled to give "choice" to passengers and make fast profits by employing crews at minimal pay – as happened in, for instance, Manchester – but I wonder how the same person can justify, in their terms, the outcome of the virtual quadropoly which exists today where the small guys have been driven out of business, the big companies cherry pick routes and times of service, the Transport Bodies in the conurbations seem to be in the thrall of the operators and passengers’ needs still come well down the pecking order at a time when there is both economically and environmentally a growing need for public transport.

Phil Blinkhorn


08/10/12 – 11:49

Gosh! What a long and diverse discussion has arisen from my wee question about fleet shortages. To turn to Kevin’s point, however, I think most followers of this site understand very well that the financing of the bus industry by the late 1960’s had become unsustainable in its then form – I wrote a short OBP article on this very subject a little while ago. It is the subsequent political and doctrinally motivated series of disruptive and ultimately pointless reorganisations that most of us find objectionable. Professor Hibbs’ libertarian approach does not fundamentally alter the social requirement, (to those who accept that principle), to provide unprofitable bus services – only the degree of provision and the manner of subsidisation. It’s not surprising that many people just wonder what has been achieved by all the upheaval. Considering how successfully, in service terms, the array of provincial and municipal operators were working, the financial problems could have been addressed satisfactorily without it, and at much less overall cost to the public purse. The ‘old’ structure had many benefits in terms of passenger and staff loyalty and identity, (you just need to read these pages to remind yourself of that), that have been destroyed for ever. I left the industry the day before the NBC started to operate. Much that has happened since amounts, to many of us, to swapping a birth right for a mess of potage.

Roy Burke


08/10/12 – 15:21

Phil and Roy – although I can speak only as the humble holder of the RSA Diploma in Road Transport, and most of my long experience in the Industry has been, out of choice and job satisfaction, entirely practical I must say I admire your professional views entirely and I feel that you have both "hit the proverbial nail on the head" in your analysis of the present situation.

Chris Youhill


09/10/12 – 08:06

John Hibbs’ intense hatred of the Road Service Licensing system arose through his, and Bert Davidson’s, involvement with Corona Coaches of Sudbury, which the two of them purchased in 1956. He seemed to position himself as a latter day Basil Williams, set upon taking on the big operators, notably Eastern National, encircling his business. All his attempts to revise/expand his network were frustrated by objections from the "big boys", and his antipathy towards the RSL system became a passionate crusade. However, the ultimate demise of Corona was very largely due to the misguided purchase, at an inflated price, of the business of A. J. Long of Glemsford in August 1958. The subsequent death of his partner, Mr. Davidson, compounded the difficulties, and Corona went bankrupt in July 1959. Nonetheless, John Hibbs always blamed Road Service Licensing for the collapse of Corona, and in his later career as an academic, campaigned long to destroy the licensing provisions of the 1930 and 1968 Acts.
Ironically, had the Ridley style deregulation been introduced in the mid 1950s, Corona would have been wiped off the map within weeks, just as, to give one example of many, Darlington Corporation was later annihilated by unbridled, unregulated competition.
My only personal encounter with John Hibbs occurred in an extended Traffic Commissioner’s Hearing into an application by an outfit calling itself Vulcan Crown that sought to run frequent minibus services between Heathrow and central London. John Hibbs appeared in support of the application, which was opposed by the many operators who already had services between the airport and London, and also by the licensed taxi operators. In short, John Hibbs did not make an impressive witness. Vulcan Crown did not win its case.
Mr. Hibbs must now be well into his eighties, but a picture of him in youthful days may be found here.  
Deregulation was a step too far for the bus industry. Norman Fowler remedied the unfair bias in RSL applications towards existing operators by changing the emphasis in favour of applicants. Before that, applicants had to produce proof of need. As Phil points out above, we are now, thanks to deregulation, suffering the state of huge companies operating as regional monopolies, who can do precisely as they please at will. The bus passenger, unlike the air or rail traveller, has access to no official authority to pursue complaints.

Roger Cox


10/10/12 – 09:20

Some very useful discussion here.
The quantity restrictions introduced through road service licensing was an economic experiment with the very clear intention of capturing the benefits of both competition and co-ordination. This is evident from reading Ministry of Transport documents at the National Archive, the Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission into Transport 1928-30 and the parliamentary debates on the Road Traffic Bill recorded in Hansard. A good deal of the evidence from operators associations stressed the desire, nay need, that bus operations should remain competitive. The aim was for ‘light-touch’ regulation to temper what were considered to be the worst excesses of competitive behaviour rather than to remove competition.
The reality was very different. From the very beginning the Traffic Commissions sought to establish complete and detailed control over key operational facets. They specified timetables as a condition of a licence and, of course, there was no authority or system of variation – that came later. Interestingly their powers in regard to fares were permissive but the Commissioners adopted a standard approach of making a fare table a condition of a licence also, even though their legal authority for doing so as a matter of general administrative policy was less than clear. Moreover, they insisted on standardising fares and operators specifying each fare.
I have to say in all honesty that I am not convinced that Hibbs harboured ‘intense hatred’ towards road service licensing or that his objections to the system arose solely from his experience at Corona Coaches (although undoubtedly this played a part). I say this because it was after the failure of Corona that G. J. Ponsonby at the London School of Economics and Political Science persuaded Hibbs to research the effects of the Road Traffic Act, 1930 upon the development of the bus industry under a Rees Jeffreys Scholarship. It is my opinion that it was here that Hibbs developed his thinking in questioning seriously road service licensing. Up until this point there had been little critical, systematic study of the system with just a few volumes available to the scholar, such as: D. N. Chester’s ‘Public Control of Road Passenger Transport’ published in 1936 and G. Thesiger’s ‘Report of the Committee on the Licensing of Road Passenger Services’ in 1953 Report. This latter report focused on the administrative procedures of the system rather than an economic examination. I do not have a copy of Chester’s book to hand but I seem to recall that he observed that the system may in due course produce the worst of all worlds.
To come back to the point of Hibbs’ stance on licensing: in his Hobart Paper first published in 1963 and republished a decade later he suggested retaining road service licensing with some key reforms rather than calling for its abolition. This is hardly the position of someone who possessed ‘intense hatred’ of the system.
I would have to revisit Hibbs’ work to establish for sure when he moved his position from reform to favouring abolition but it may well have been following the partial de-regulation under the Transport Act, 1980.
Although Hibbs was an early advocate of de-regulation (if one ignores Professor Arnold Plant’s paper to the Institute of Transport in 1931 deploring restrictive quantity controls under road service licensing) the key factor is to be found in the way in which the idea was developed by others and embraced and promoted by ‘think tanks’, such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute. These bodies had considerable influence on Conservative Party thinking under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. Dr Andrew Tesseyman’s Ph.D Thesis ‘The New Right Think Tanks and Policy Change in the UK’ – 1997 unpublished – features bus de-regulation as one of his case studies and our ‘paths crossed’ as he was working on this around the time that I was researching the roots of de-regulation.
I agree that road service licensing saved many small, independent operators and enabled a good many of them to remain in business as they were protected from competition from the large companies, but the detailed control of every facet of operation was not the intent of the architects of the scheme and the way it developed did the industry considerable damage.
Post de-regulation Hibbs has been a stern critic of the predatory behaviour of some of the large groups, and he has long argued for road pricing in order that each motorist pays at the point of use in accordance with the space they occupy and the time.

Kevin Hey


10/10/12 – 11:49

Hibbs maybe a stern critic of the predatory practices of some the large groups but such Damascene conversions are typical of academics whose blue sky thinking has wrought havoc on industries they have tampered with.
As for advocating point of use charging on a space and time basis – this has merit only if other road transport taxes are reduced so that discretionary use isn’t affected and the tax take is demonstrably fair.
The UK, indeed the world in general, has suffered from academics and economists who have in some cases a little, in many cases no experience of having to daily manage and operate a business in the real world, provide employment and suffer the vicissitudes of competition and ever changing legislation, commodity prices and changing customer demands..
The effect of their input is visible around the world today.

Phil Blinkhorn


10/10/12 – 11:50

There has been comment above about Nicholas Ridley. Ridley occupies a position in the bus world that is the same as Sir Richard Beeching to the railways and it is very difficult to have a reasoned discussion about either of these two men because attitudes are polarised.
Andrew Tesseyman made contact with me after hearing of my work researching the path to bus service de-regulation and we exchanged notes, as it were. During the exchange Andrew said that he had a photo-copy of the speech that Ridley delivered to the Annual Dinner of the Bus and Coach Council on 15 February 1984. This was the speech that caused the hearts of many members of the audience to miss a beat and the reports in the press and trade journals at the time covered the main points of Ridley’s address but not the detail. I asked Andrew for a copy of the speech as I wished to see for myself what Ridley had said.
Ridley questioned the dispensation of road service licensing and sounded its death-knell but he then floated a range of possible alternatives ranging from complete de-regulation to administrative franchise. One is left with the impression that he was genuinely open-minded about what might replace road service licensing. I accept that this is a minority view, and one that some people in the bus industry from that period seem unable or unwilling to accept; but the fact that the view is minority in no way invalidates it.
Andrew’s research discovered that Ridley had established a departmental panel under the title of ‘Road Passenger Transport Steering Group’ (RPTSG) to examine reform of the system. This was hardly surprising as further reform of bus licensing was in the Conservative Party election manifesto. The RPTSG consisted of representatives of other government departments along with a small number of external advisers that included Professors Michael Beesley and Stephen Glaister as well as Malcolm Buchanan, a transport consultant. The group was given the remit of considering all options except retention of the status quo. The view that Ridley wished to abolish road service licensing as then operating is absolutely correct. This was Ridley’s starting point, but that is not the same as saying that he was fixed upon complete de-regulation, although one must conceded that an advisory group with Professors Beesley and Glaister among their number may have leanings in that direction.
It was this group that suggested complete de-regulation to Ridley and this taken forward to cabinet and then published as a White Paper. At this point the decision had been taken and de-regulation was unstoppable in the same way that regulation under road service licensing was unstoppable in 1930. That’s the way the process ‘works’.
Ridley did not take advice from Hibbs, well at least not directly; other academics played a critical role here as Andrew discovered. In a few years time the deliberations of the RPTSG may be available for public examination at the National Archive and we will be able to better see how the decision to favour de-regulation was taken.
Critics of this process may care to consider that it bears some similarity with the way in which ideas for bus regulation was developed after The Great War. Then the word on the lips of policy-makers was not ‘competition’ but ‘co-ordination’. An internal departmental committee was established at the Ministry of Transport with representatives from operators and their associations – in fact it was chaired by none other than Frank Pick – to consider matters of bus safety but they soon strayed into the realm of examining and developing proposals for the licensing of services. It was their final report in May 1925 – an interim report had been issued a year earlier – that laid the basis for road service licensing.
Here we see that the pressure for regulation came not from ‘think tanks’ but from operators and their associations who managed to have seats on the ‘inside’ – and in time dominate public discourse along with other competitors such as the railways who wished to see development of the bus industry curtailed. The position of the bus operators was strengthened further by the alignment of interests between capitalistic owners and organised labour in the form of the Transport & General Workers Union.

Kevin Hey


10/10/12 – 14:45

Kevin,
I don’t doubt the depth of your research and the accuracy of the information you quote, however to opine Ridley was not fixated on total deregulation flies in the face of the major tenets of Thatcherism i.e. to de-nationalise and deregulate as an article of faith rather than a reasoned and applied matter of policy where such application could be proved efficacious.
Clearly it is now a matter of history that bus de-regulation, rather like rail privatisation, was badly flawed and has left the industry in a much different state to that which was intended.
It is interesting to note that the concept of public transport as it developed in the 20th century was allied to the idea of public service – thus Public Service Vehicle.
The involvement of local councils in the provision of transport was on the basis of joint funding – from ratepayers in general and from the paying passenger in particular – with the aim of providing a service to allow people to travel at a reasonable price from and to where they wanted to be.
Some operators got it very wrong and the service was always a drain on the rates but the idea of service remained. Some got it very right.
Stockport, for instance, renewed its fleet in the 1960s, kept fares at a reasonable level and provided excellent service to all parts of the County Borough with clean and comfortable vehicles. In 1969 they handed a fleet to SELNEC, all but a handful being under 12 years old, and that handful were usefully used elsewhere in the SELNEC system to replace older vehicles. At the same time it handed over a brand new depot and engineering works and the final balance sheet showed a healthy profit which helped keep the general rate down.
Whilst SELNEC and GMT had their critics, they continued the ethos of service to the ratepayers – an ethos deregulation destroyed and replaced with profit before all.
The resulting bus wars in Manchester in the 1980s and 1990s not only gave poor levels of service but brought the industry into disrepute. The Stockport and Oxford Rd corridors became over congested with rival operators whilst other areas saw service reductions and complete withdrawal of service in the evening.
The well known debacle of UK North (trading as GM Buses) was a direct and dangerous result of deregulation.
As of September 2010 the Greater Manchester PTE (now transport for Greater Manchester) supplied information that showed no less than 343 routes had to be supported by subsidy for part of or the whole service.
Subsidising bus routes from the rates through an elected council’s transport committee operating a service which puts its losses or profits into the rates is one thing.
Subsidising tendered for services through a remote from the voter executive which selects profit making operators and then pays for operating often inconvenient evening and weekend timetables is nothing more than a nonsense.
There is nothing wrong with blue sky thinking, devising ways of improving the way an industry works or even trying new methods. Where it all goes wrong, as it has in this instance, is when political dogma, academic theory and a lack of consultation with the professionals combine.
The end result has been the elimination of accountability, the creation of a small number of powerful major operators with profit as the first motive for existence and general public dissatisfaction with buses as a means of transport

Phil Blinkhorn


10/10/12 – 14:46

From reading the comments so far we can see that as ever, if you go to the right people all the answers are there, but no one ever thinks about asking the question. I remember someone asking me years ago "do you know the meaning of the words incentive, initiative and logic?" to which I replied "yes" I was told to forget them, as in most cases you’ve got no incentive to use your initiative and logic doesn’t apply. The same person told me he thought many economists and experts were people who looked through the rear window of a car and told the driver what direction to take. Many a true word, as the saying goes.

Ronnie Hoye


11/10/12 – 07:14

Economics: ah, yes, the examination subject where they ask the same questions every year, but the answers are different. Remember that war is good for the economy. It stimulates factory output, which generates more production of raw material, so it encourages more circulation of money, and it reduces excess population!

Pete Davies


11/10/12 – 07:16

Two other points need to be taken up.
It is your contention that once the idea of complete de-regulation had been taken to Cabinet and the White Paper had been published, the decision to proceed to de-regulation was unstoppable.
Thatcher had an overwhelming majority and at any stage of the passage of the Bill through Parliament the decision could have been aborted or amended right up until the unusual, but still viable, method of delaying Royal Assent for further consultation, had the government been open minded on the subject.
This may have caused embarrassment but the 1980s spin doctors had no difficulty in projecting whatever reasons and explanations necessary when the admittedly few changes of policy were made.
Of course that fact is that Ridley presented exactly what the Cabinet expected to hear and what the party dogma had defined. That, and only that is the reason the Bill was unstoppable.
On the subject of Ridley’s speech of 15 February 1984 is concerned, it seems to me and many of those who heard the speech first hand that his range of options were there to deceive the listener into believing all options would be thoroughly researched and discussed. This patently did not happen and the speech was an example of an oft used political device of laying out all possibilities to deflect criticism and reassure, whilst proceeding down a specific and unwavering path.
In 2005 in his book "The Dangers of Bus Re-regulation" Hibbs said "after 20 years of comparative freedom the bus industry today has become a commercial success".
He’s right – as far as the owners and shareholders of the bus companies are concerned, but how many passengers and ratepayers would agree?

Phil Blinkhorn


11/10/12 – 11:36

Phil,
I gather from your postings that you are not a supporter of de-regulation, or the subsequent outcome; and I have the feeling that if you were having a party at home that Hibbs et. al. would not be included on your guest list.
My position is one of fascination with the processes by which ideas for regulating the industry in the 1920s and subsequently de-regulating the industry came to be developed, promulgated and ultimately produced as acts of Parliament.
Certainly Prime Minister Thatcher was driven by ideology. I think the phrase used at the time to describe her was that she was a ‘conviction politician’. Ridley was a true disciple.
There are three additional points that are worth making in this lively debate.
The first is that from the early 1970s questions began to be raised across the political spectrum about the system of bus service licensing. It is a matter of record that the Labour Government Transport Policy paper of 1976 made explicit reference to the need at some stage to examining the case for changes to the licensing regime, although I am absolutely certain that they would not have embarked on privatisation and de-regulation of the Ridley variety.
Secondly it is unfortunate that in the years immediately preceding de-regulation the Labour Party had moved decisively to the Left and the Greater London Council and some of the Metropolitan County Councils had made transport subsidy a central issue in challenging Thatcher’s doctrine. In this sense a large part of the bus industry was caught between a clash of two competing and opposing ideologies: one at local level, the other at national level.
Thirdly, following the return of a Conservative Government in 1983 Tom King has been appointed Secretary of State for Transport but in the reshuffle that followed the resignation of Cecil Parkinson from the cabinet over the Sarah Keys affair, Ridley was given the transport brief. It is interesting to contemplate some counter-factual scenarios of what might have happened if Tom King remained at Transport had Cecil Parkinson not lost his trousers.
I agree that proposal for reform can be halted at any time where a governing party has an absolute majority but the realities of our political system framed around parties means that once a policy gets ‘a head of steam’ it becomes almost impossible to stop. At some point a policy proposal passes the point of no return. This is true at the local council level too, where councillors sometimes have to vote to support policies with which they disagree; or vote against course of action that they privately favour. The situation that I describe applies across the entire political spectrum. That’s the way the system works, and it’s not ideal; in fact it’s verging on crazy but at the moment it’s the best that we’ve got and frankly the alternatives look much less appealing.
Dr Alan Whitehead, who subsequently became Labour MP for Southampton Test, made a very astute observation in regard to the intellectual arguments used by each of the two opposing political parties in the debate on de-regulation. ‘It is also clear that the Labour opposition had no real understanding of the premises to which Ridley was working, and therefore, concentrated their attacks on targets which did not exist as problems, at least from the point of view of the vision of the proposed legislation’. (Whitehead, 1995, ‘Planning in an Unplanned Environment: The Transport Act, 1985 and Municipal Bus Operations in McConville and Sheldrake (Eds.) Transport in Transition)
Certainly one can place a different interpretation on Ridley’s speech to the BCC to the one that I have set out, and I’m sure that at the time some were of the view that he was ‘going through the motions’.
What I find interesting about Andrew’s revelations relating to the RPTSG is his finding that the group consisted of representatives from a variety of other government departments. One is curious to know which other departments were at the table, and why? One cannot but wonder whether there was representation from the Treasury and if so how much the desire to curb public spending on bus subsidy further was a critical factor in shaping the deliberations of the group and the form of de-regulation that they proposed.
We may know the answers to all of these questions in a few years time if the minutes of the RPTSG are available and lodged with the National Archive.
With very good wishes

Kevin Hey


11/10/12 – 15:54

It may interest the political watchers on here, regardless of their own views, that Southampton Test – as mentioned in Kevin’s entry above – is one of the barometers. It has, for many years, been the case that which party holds Southampton Test holds the majority in Westminster. NOT THIS TIME!

Pete Davies


12/10/12 – 08:16

Of course Nicholas Ridley was the obvious choice to take over as Transport Secretary. He was the only member of Thatcher’s cabinet who could actually recognise a bus. In fact – only apocryphal – I’m told he even once considered boarding one!
To be serious for a moment: I recall in December 1968 a meeting I had with Mr AFR Carling, a senior BET Director whose role in the industry has been mentioned in these pages before. At that time, BET seemed pretty relaxed about losing their bus interests. They’d got, (I have in mind, although my memory isn’t always perfect), £35 million – about £700 million in today’s money – for their less than half ownership in businesses with declining profitability, and were rather more excited with other interests, such as Rediffusion, Edison Plant, aircraft simulators, and quite a few more. If BET had been as strongly opposed to nationalisation as they apparently were in the late 1940s, maybe the NBC would never have been born. (But maybe Phil or Kevin, or somebody else will tell me that that idea is nonsense).

Roy Burke


12/10/12 – 08:18

If deregulation was seen by the Thatcher government to be the correct path for the bus industry, why then was the biggest UK market for public transport, that of London, excluded from the magic formula? Perhaps the destructive brutality of unbridled competition, in which commercial might obliterated inconvenient competitive innovation, was a bit too much to stomach for the seat of government and the home of politically influential financial organisations. As it is, London is specially treated in respect of its financial support for public transport, which is massively and disproportionately weighted in its favour in comparison with the deregulated rest of the country. This, amongst other things, allows the current mayor to treat Transport for London as a personal public relations machine, and expend upwards of £7.8 million on a handful of absurd, vanity project "Routemasters". Elsewhere, in the deregulated provinces, county councils are cutting bus subsidies savagely. In my own county, all such subsidies have been withdrawn to save a mere £1.4 million. Deregulation, like railway privatisation, was born of political dogma, not sound commercial common sense.
That John Hibbs was a catalyst in this destructive policy is not in doubt. What does interest me is that he is described in his various writings as having "had a managerial career in the bus and railway industries before joining the academic world". Can those who claim to know him better than I confirm this? I understood that he held a minor clerical position with British Railways before venturing into his purchase of Corona Coaches. I know of no other positions held by him in the bus, or, indeed, railway industry. If anyone can prove me wrong on this subject, I should be greatly interested.

Roger Cox


12/10/12 – 08:21

When I bought the photo from a stall holder on Tynemouth market, it came as part of a job lot of about 200, the bloke on the stall said "I just want rid of them, I’ve had most of them for years and nobody seems to be interested" how wrong could he be? Its certainly created a lot of interesting comments on this site.

Ronnie Hoye


12/10/12 – 12:49

I hope that no one is saying that other people are talking nonsense and certainly I have not said that. All I am doing is placing into the public domain the findings of my published research and people are free to agree or disagree or place different interpretation upon events.
AFR Carling was a staunch defender of road service licensing. He played a prominent role in the Institute of Transport and in 1965 was honoured with an invitation to deliver the twenty-first Henry Spurrier Memorial Lecture. His paper ‘Control in Passenger Road Transport: A View of Service Licensing after 35 years’ can be considered a response to Hibbs’ IEA paper ‘Transport for Passengers’.
The reasons for BET exiting the bus industry is worthy of study. From a strategic perspective a set of businesses with profitability under pressure and the likelihood of a great deal of political intervention in the future may have been the catalyst for BET ‘calling it a day’, especially if they could see better opportunities in other business areas.
Why was London excluded from de-regulation? This is a good question. At the time Ridley justified this on the basis of allowing bus services in the capital a period of adjustment under the revised framework of the recently created London Regional Transport (LRT). It is worth saying that at this point the House of Commons Transport Select Committee looked at this and was not convinced. They concluded that it amounted to an implicit admission of the potential risks associated with de-regulation in urban areas.
This may well be true but I think what has been forgotten is that Ridley ensured that the 1985 Act contained powers to extend de-regulation to London subject to approval by Parliament. When these powers were considered in more detail in 1987 presumably with a view to de-regulating services in the capital, (by which time Ridley had been moved to the Department of Environment), they were judged unsound as they implicitly contradicted some of the statutory duties of LRT. This meant that extending de-regulation to London would require primary legislation. De-regulation in London was thus placed in abeyance although the Conservative Party did include a commitment to de-regulation London’s bus services in their 1992 election manifesto.
Had de-regulation occurred in London this would have placed bus services in a similar position to before the London Traffic Act, 1924.
In essence there are four acts of parliament that altered quantity regulation: London Traffic Act, 1924; Road Traffic Act, 1930; Transport Act, 1980 and Transport Act, 1985.
Here is the crux of the matter, I think: the first two restricted competition and to a large extent had been framed by, or at least highly influenced by the bus industry (which was in favour of them), the latter two were imposed on an industry that was against them (which mirrors the points made so eloquently by other contributors).

Kevin Hey


12/10/12 – 15:30

Sorry not to have replied to various points for the last 36 hours or so but I’ve been en route to Texas to see the grandchildren.
I’ll come back on a number of points during the next day or so when I get a minute.
Enjoying the debate!

Phil Blinkhorn


12/10/12 – 18:01

Kevin Did the BET group not attempt a sort of comeback with the minibus operator United Transport a BET subsidiary who were going to target Leeds but got cold feet when Yorkshire Rider invested heavily in minibuses and possibly tried Manchester
It should also be remembered the 1985 act that at the time the centralisation of all services was being looked at in an effort to break the power of the largely labour local authorities. Some of whom mounted a concerted campaign against abolition just prior to the advent of the 1985 act. Oddly PTEs were left alone perhaps as they were seen as slightly easier to deal with than bus owning local authorities.

Chris Hough


13/10/12 – 06:50

Take care, Phil and I look forward to reading your next contribution. The nearest I have ever got to Texas is the word Texaco at the local petrol filling station!
Turning now to Chris’ excellent observations. I can’t answer your first point as I have not followed events that closely.
On the second point concerning the retention of the PTEs I hope that I can say something useful. The development, progress, fortunes and misfortunes of the bus industry are inextricably linked to local government.
The Metropolitan County Councils (MCCs) were formed and designated as PTAs thus setting policy for their respective Executive. The problem was that local government re-organisation established a two-tier system in the great cities of the large conurbations (and other cities and towns in the metropolitan areas) that had hitherto enjoyed unitary status as county boroughs. Many of them had fought valiantly to retain a unitary system but that was not to be, and some Metropolitan District Councils (MDCs) had a very uneasy relationship with the local MCC. This was very noticeable when the authorities were under different political control.
By 1981 the GLC and all the MCCs were under Labour control with the former committed to its’ ‘Fare’s Fair’ policy and Merseyside and West Midlands also embarking on a policy of large scale subsidy. South Yorkshire had adopted a low fares policy in 1975.
What happened then was interesting because some of the lower-tier authorities – the MDCs and London Boroughs in the GLC area, and which were under Conservative control as far as I can recall – mounted a legal challenge to these policies. The GLC policy was declared unlawful, the West Midlands policy was altered prior to judgement and the challenge to the Merseyside MCC failed. The different judgements turned on the set of wording in the acts of parliament which were different in respect of London when compared to the rest of the country. The Thatcher Government responded with the Transport Act, 1983 that set a limit to subsidy at or below which legal unchallenge could not be made. This was known as the Protected Expenditure Level (PEL).
The Conservative Election Manifesto of 1983 contained a commitment to abolish the MCCs, although as far as I can remember gave no indication of what would happen to the PTEs.
As it so happened the legislation abolishing the MCCs was occurring at or around the same time as the Transport Act, 1985 and the PTEs were retained, while quite a few other MCC functions were transferred to statutory joint boards. The PTAs reverted to an arrangement not dissimilar to that which had applied when the first set were established in 1969: namely the PTA consisted of councillors nominated from the lower-tier MDCs. At a stroke this, along with the PEL, effectively neutralised them politically since in many PTA areas the MDCs were under different political control and even in areas were they were under the same party control the common party apparatus was more difficult to manage; and de-regulation did the rest so-to-speak.
There may have been a fear among policy makers in central government that de-regulation and dismantling the PTEs at the same time was simply too risky.
I have a hazy memory that the Act abolishing the MCCs allowed for a MDC to secede from the PTA (and hence PTE) if they so desired, but I’d need to re-read the Act to be sure.
I hope that I have set out the matter correctly but if I have not then I’m sure that others will respond to correct my errors and/or omissions.

Kevin Hey


13/10/12 – 06:50

I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the House of Commons Transport recommended that a PTA should also be created for London, but the government was fed up with political control of transport by Ken Livington’s GLC, with its destructive Fare’s Fair’ policy of ridiculously cheap fares, slowly running LT into the ground. Ridley, therefore, created London Regional Transport, controlled directly by the Secretary of State. The GLC was abolished not long later. With full deregulation (1985?) the long road of route-tendering was introduced, uniquely. London was not immune from the chaos of deregulation, but was spared the worst effects of it. Of course, passenger numbers dropped off when more realistic fares were restored.

Chris Hebbron


13/10/12 – 06:52

Reading the very interesting debate made me look at the statistics for Kingston upon Hull City Transport immediately pre-1986.
In 1983/84 KHCT made an operating loss of £3,128,75 which was reduced to £2,664,444 by revenue support and Transport Supplementary Grant income from Humberside County Council.
The following year saw a loss of £3,568,099 (£9,027,290 in 2012 money) with a nett loss of £3.091,510. Fares had remained unchanged since August 1980 as part of s deliberate low fares policy
Passenger numbers had increased overall by 0.50%despite the numbers using its Crown travel card falling. The mileage operated had increased by 0.50%. A fleet of 231 buses was maintained to meet a peak requirement of 185.
In 1965 the department made a profit of £4,500 (£71,850 in 2012 money) from 63,172,000 passengers carried
Keith Bastow in his annual report highlighted the challenge which the new Bill would require, namely going from £3.5 million deficit to at least break even.
Even without deregulation could that level of support continue? Was this the case elsewhere? As several people have mentioned the existing system was under pressure from all sides and the level of subsidy was a major factor in the Conservative thinking.
Deregulation might not have been the best answer but change was needed.

Malcolm J Wells


13/10/12 – 17:48

Kevin, you are correct, I’m not a great believer in deregulation and history seems to bear me out.
Apart from the debacle in the UK bus industry, deregulation in aviation (an area in which I’ve worked and have detailed knowledge) has been at best a mixed blessing and at worst a disaster. Take the situation in the USA for instance where the initial round of deregulation was touted as the opportunity to widen passenger choice, reduce fares and open competition. After an initial surge of new airlines, few of which lasted more than a few years, the toll began to be taken of a number of long established regionals and the odd bigger carrier.
33 years on most of the once household names have gone, American Airlines is in Chapter 11 protection and likely to be taken over by US Airways which would leave just 3 majors handling all the international routes and over 85% of domestic service.
Fares have returned to the sort of levels common before deregulation and service on board has decreased. Sounds familiar?
Deregulation in the financial sector has also been an unmitigated disaster and I won’t go into the ludicrous situation on the railways.
As for Hibbs and Co coming to one of my now rare parties, perhaps a party would be the wrong place to meet up but I would have been very happy to have organised a conference for them to present their side of the story.
I’m a great believer in a mixed economy and the provision of public services. Having held senior positions in a number of manufacturing and service companies, been a Principal Officer in local government in a then unique Public/Private partnership, which I was instrumental in starting more than 30 years ago, and finally run my own international conference company specialising in aviation topics with events sponsored by IATA, various governments and airport authorities, I’ve developed my views based on a variety of experiences.
I was working in Greater Manchester Council from 1978 to 1984. When my operation was set up the Tories were in control. Thatcher had been an enthusiastic supporter of the MCCs in 1973/4. By 1984, with Labour in power in the MCCs and presenting a power base in the largest population areas, she’d changed her mind completely and, unable to democratically take charge via the ballot box, she decided to remove what had become a thorn in her side. At this time she was presenting herself as a bastion of democracy on the world stage.
Kevin says that in the period prior to deregulation the Labour Party had moved decisively left. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the Tories had moved decisively right. The paternalistic policies of the 1950s and 60s under Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Home had been buried under a tidal wave of dogma as the right wing of the party moved as far away from Heath’s disastrous industrial relations policy as possible, running rough shod over many long held party "truths" in the process.
My own position was supposedly threatened by Labour taking over control from the Tories at GMC but I can honestly say I received equal support from all parties in the Council.
Back in the mid 1960s, the formation of the original PTEs had been advised by industry experts (such as Albert Neal, ex MCTD) and whilst in many quarters there was anger at the elimination of municipal bus operations, the principal of local service, albeit on a more regional but still publicly accountable basis, was maintained.
The machinations of deregulation under Thatcher and Ridley totally ignored the concerns of the industry, sacrificed the public service element to the cause of profit and took away any level of public choice and accountability leaving only the Transport Authorities as a token level of control.
As matters have evolved the much vaunted tendering process, which was supposed to have given so much opportunity for choice has, because of the dominance of the big groups, become little more than a formality, the ogre of subsidies that deregulation was meant to see off has not disappeared and, in London, whilst the operators have to paint their vehicles in approximately the same livery, giving a patina of uniformity and hiding their individuality, we have Boris spending exorbitant amounts to get rid of articulated vehicles, which manage to operate successfully in cities just as congested and with equally as narrow streets as London, whilst protecting his new Routemaster vanity bus from open sale which, were it of use to others, could bring in much needed business from elsewhere.
I believe there are certain areas of national life which have to be provided with some level of local or national government subvention and public accountability. The realities of running a business for profit are such that you minimise costs and get the highest price possible for your product. For producers of discretionary products this has always been the case but the provision of affordable public transportation, from the early days of municipal transport, was always seen as a social necessity.
The burgeoning of private car ownership from the 1950s helped jeopardise the industry. Had some of the fuel duty and road tax for private cars been locally ring fenced and given to operators to offset the need for government subsidies, around 1955, we probably wouldn’t have seen the emergence of the PTEs, let alone deregulation.
I’ve said before, the need for extensive, affordable to the passenger public transport is growing. An answer other than the current situation is urgently needed.
We’ve travelled a long way from the above Regent V and for the next week I’m a long way from home and much of my reference material. Given my memory isn’t what it was, I’ll keep up with any developments on this thread but may not contribute unless I’m confident of the sources I can access.

Phil Blinkhorn


14/10/12 – 07:07

Phew! Bit heavy, but fascinating, Phil.

David Oldfield


14/10/12 – 07:08

Malcolm mentions Hull In the years following deregulation Over the period before the sale of the company they tried a number of different strategies to maximise their profits. These included a low cost operation Citilink using older vehicles in a two tone green livery and a successful short break holiday programme under the Kingstonian banner They also expanded out of the city into York by taking the coach side of Reynard Pullman over As the economic noose tightened these activities were disposed of . Several other companies courted the council to buy the business including Yorkshire Rider who were still an independent company at the time Eventually Cleveland Transit who in turn were bought by Stagecoach.
In contrast East Yorkshire seen by many as a weaker company who would quickly fall by the wayside with their small operating territory and motley collection of used buses have thrived and prospered despite a damaging turf war with Hull following the end of the joint operating agreement.
Today they have offshoots in Manchester (Finglands) and the Midlands (Whittle) and maintain a high quality fleet in all three areas.

Chris Hough


15/10/12 – 07:17

What a wonderful piece on the trial and tribulations of the bus industry since 1970 which I think is worthy of filing under "Best Bits" for reference about the problems with bus deregulation now. I have found the story of great interest which has confirmed many of my own views on the National Bus era, the PTEs and bus deregulation. However these events are a very good reason why this splendid web site has block on post 1970 bus photos. In my dotage I prefer to think of the good old days of the forties and fifties.

Richard Fieldhouse


952 JUB_lr Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


04/04/16 – 06:33

Re former Leeds 937 – does anyone know where this was scrapped? I found a photo of it last week, in a yard with a Hants and Dorset Bridgemaster and an engineless Bristol highbridge KSW for company. Its not at North’s where two of the later ones were photographed after withdrawal. Any info would be appreciated.

Steve Milner


05/04/16 – 10:11

Steve.
Former Leeds 937 passed to North (Sherburn) in 2/1977 and then to Askin (Barnsley) also in 2/1977 for scrapping.

Dave Farrier


06/04/16 – 05:54

Cheers for the info Dave – much appreciated.

Steve Milner


06/04/16 – 05:54

One aspect of the discussion above that has yet to be mentioned is the determination of the Thatcher government to cripple the power of trade unions, not only to ‘liberate’ industrial contributors to Tory Party funds, but equally to undermine the union derived income of the Labour Party. The T&GWU, like the Miners’ Union was seen as a legitimate target. The T&GWU was a major player in bus industrial relations at the time, and deregulation was seen as a way of weakening union membership and the collective bargaining structure of wages and working conditions in the bus industry. The whole issue of bus deregulation was entirely dogma driven (one sees similarities today in government policies towards Education, the NHS and the BBC). The environmental, social and industrial consequences were simply disregarded in the pursuit of a far right wing agenda. And then it became the turn of the railway system…

Roger Cox


06/04/16 – 16:27

Well Roger certainly around here we have the best bus systems ever in our history and it seems we have more people travelling on the railways Nationwide post second world war than ever before.
I remember the Trade Union dogma that kept modern buses in the garages unused when the industry was dying; and also the myriad of restrictive practices on the railways which still prevails on London Underground.

Roger Burdett


06/04/16 – 17:10

Without getting into a pointless political debate, it seems to me that there was always a need to introduce a ballotting system before union strikes. BMC/BL’s Red Robbo and his endless ‘everybody out’ after a show of hands, probably rigged and overladen with oppression, was typical of the pre-Thatcher situation, hardly fair to members, or, indeed the employer. And the disastrous Miners’ Strike did not result from a ballot, with attacks on the moderate committee members for trying to object. Many of these strikes had a political motive at the heart. I particularly recall that the power generation union had a Communist as leader. Harold Wilson used Barbara Castle to try to come up with a solution, but ‘copped out’ in the end, a pretty forgone conclusion. ‘Be careful what you wish for’ is a useful motto with strikes, for the outcome is rarely as successful as hoped for. Loss of wages can take a lot of time to make up, perhaps with an extra 1/2% on an original pay offer. London Transport buses went on strike around 1938 and 1958, both resulting in a great loss of passengers and subsequent reduction in staff. Strikes still occur today – I think that London Underground are suffering from two this month – but at least the members are able to decide for themselves and the system of voting precludes skewed results. I was always grateful that I belonged to a couple of unions which had pre-strike ballots, which did not always go the way the leadership wanted!

Chris Hebbron


 

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