Reliance of York
1950
Daimler CVD6
Barnaby B35F

Reliance were a very small independent operator, who ran a service from York To Helmsley, along the B1363. The owner had a motor repair garage a few miles out of York on that road.
As far as I am aware, in the 1950’s, Reliance only had one vehicle – a 1950 Daimler half cab in green and cream livery; at some point, this was replaced with an underfloor Daimler in orange and cream. I remember the half cab Daimler being driven by an elderly gentleman – the proprietor – or a younger lady who I understand was his daughter.
Reliance’s terminus in York was Exhibition Square. The term ‘Square’ is slightly misleading, because the square is only a vacant space outside the York City Art Gallery on a short street connecting Museum Street and Bootham. It provided a car parking space for visitors to the art gallery or some York City offices which were situated along the street; the York Theatre Royal is on the other side. However, it did enable buses to turn without reversing, and thus was a practical terminus both for Reliance and for York Pullman Bus Co., whose service to Stamford Bridge also started and ended there. (the Old Bus Photos site has a great picture of a York Pullman AEC Regent V, taken at its terminus in Exhibition Square).
Exhibition Square was an important setting down and picking up point for local buses, (as well as a picking up point for a number of West Yorkshire longer distance services – e.g. Service 80 to Thirsk, 43 to Scarborough, 91 to Whitby), because it is close to York city centre. There was a line of bus stops on both sides of the road; Reliance’s stop was on the side opposite to the position of the York Pullman photo, closest to Bootham Bar.
The route to Helmsley was very rural, with only a few villages along the route. I don’t know the frequency of the service but the traffic volume would not have justified a great frequency. Reliance did, however, cater for a considerable volume of passengers who worked in York, and its early evening departure to Helmsley was always pretty full.
It was unique to see a lady driving a bus in those days. I remember an old West Yorkshire driver, (a chap called ‘Digger’ Ward, who operated the West Yorkshire city tour coach), telling me – whether this is true or not, I don’t know – that the gear change pedal used to work the Daimler pre-selector could occasionally kick back, and he would speculate on how the lady would cope with that without breaking her ankle. Happy days!

Copy contributed by Roy Burke with a photo by Paul Haywood

Thanks Roy for a fascinating insight into a company I never really knew. When I took this photo in Helmsley Market Place in 1959 (using a much valued colour exposure from my Dad’s camera), little did I realise that, 50 years later, it would be "exposed" to an audience then undreamed of.
It looks like the driver could be the proprietor?

Paul Haywood

“Digger" Ward was absolutely right about the gear change pedal on the pre-selector Daimlers – well, actually he wasn’t quite right enough as the pedal was likely to do far worse than to kick back – it would kick back twice as far as the normal stop often causing injury to hefty men, never mind to ladies. There were two chief causes. Firstly, if there was wear or poor adjustment in the linkages, the device in the gearbox which was intended to tension the appropriate band would fly through a gap between two with the painful result mentioned. Otherwise failure to either accurately select the required gear on the steering column quadrant, or to depress the gear change pedal fully to the floor, would have the same effect. Many drivers learnt the hard way that it was not a clutch pedal and was not to be treated gently and gradually, but fully and decisively.

Chris Youhill

Reliance was a bigger undertaking than you suggest. Edward Sheriff was the proprietor and his eldest daughter Joan took her PSV test in the early war years. She became Mrs Thornton on her marriage and was still involved with the business in the 1970s. By this date her younger sister Carol had taken on the business with her husband Richard Shelton.
In the 1950s the service to Helmsley ran every three hours and the fleet numbered nine buses, kept at Sutton on the Forest and at Helmsley.
Pullman buses to Stamford Bridge left from Merchantgate, and the Linton and Easingwold buses from Exhibition Square.
Reliance is still running today in the very capable hands of a new owner.

Anonymous

Naturally, I defer to ‘anonymous’s better information on Reliance; I really only came across them by way of seeing their Daimler in Exhibition Square and on car trips out of York. They are also quite right about York Pullman’s services – just age and cloudy memory on my part, I’m afraid. I was simply not thinking about their Linton service.
It also occurs to me that ‘anonymous’ must know more about Reliance than he or she has told. A three hour service between York and Helmsley certainly wouldn’t justify nine vehicles and two depots, so what else did they do?
I wonder if they could possibly be persuaded to tell more?

Roy Burke

Reliance still operate two routes from York to Easingwold, often with double deckers. I have a 1938 timetable which shows 7 return journeys from Helmsley to York, Monday to Friday, every two hours, 9 on Saturdays (hourly between Brandsby to York) and 5 on Sundays. There were late departures from York for theatre/cinema patrons. There was also a Friday market working from Nunningtom and Harome to Helmsley. The route was cut back to Brandsby in the 1960’s and later to Crayke. The through route to Helmsley was reinstated a few years ago but was obviously not successful and withdrawn shortly afterwards. The company currently have a green and cream livery and are based at Sutton on the Forest, north of York. In 1964 the company address was at St Peter’s Grove, York. Viewers of the soap “Emmerdale” will have seen a Reliance vehicle making an occasional appearance on the service to “Hotten”

Derek Vause

20/05/11 – 22:25

Reliance in the 1950’s was indeed a bigger operator as stated in one of the earlier posts. Apart from the regular service between Easingwold and York which would stop at individual homes/farms, official stops and not, along the York Road (B1363) as well as villages along the way, they provided a regular service for pickups and delivery of school children to Easingwold Grammar/Modern school from the surrounding villages like Sutton, Huby, East Moor, Stillington and further to the West and North. The original location was a petrol station and a substantial repair/depot on the York Road North of York South of Sutton on Forest which housed a number of vehicles, like the half cab style, all of them with manually sliding doors, a smaller type with the pushed forward bonnet, there were two of these as well as a number of newer types. All in the green and cream livery except one of the newer type which had automatic doors, this for some reason was orange and perhaps some cream trim.

John

23/07/11 – 08:41

Roy Burke asks why Reliance needed 9 vehicles to operate the service from York to Helmsley. Today services are much more frequent to meet the different travel habits of the population, but in the past this was different. There were key times when everyone wanted to travel, eg to York in the morning and out to the villages at teatime. Reliance regularly had three buses on some departures, one all the way to Helmsley and the others along part of the route. Even when I knew the company well in the 1970s they had two buses full out of York together at teatime. The present service is very high quality and has received national acclaim, a great credit to the owner.

Anonymous

16/09/11 – 09:24

Travelled in a Barnaby built coach in Devon at Greenaway. Agatha Christies place. The Driver told us there are only three Barnabys left in service/preservation. Can any one throw any light on this please.?

David Buttle

17/09/11 – 08:15

The only extant Barnaby-bodied coach I can think of is JVY 516, a preserved AEC Regal III ex York Pullman.

Peter Williamson

17/09/11 – 17:19

The "Classic Buses" website lists five half-cab single-deckers that have carried Barnaby bodies. One was re-bodied in 1962 and is now in Belgium and one is now a recovery vehicle. That leaves three. One is the York Pullman Regal, there is a York Pullman Dennis Lancet but that seems to be in very poor condition. The only other active one is the Bullock and Sons (Wakefield) PS1. That is likely to have been the one seen in Devon.

David Beilby

17/09/11 – 17:20

David the coach you refer to is AHL 394 – See it at this link you have to scroll down a fair way.

D Hick

20/09/11 – 14:50

There is a shot of AHL 694 taken a few years ago at www.sct61.org.uk in the West Riding pictures There is also a few shots of similar vehicles in service with West Riding.

Chris Hough

04/04/12 – 08:19

After reading about the early years of Reliance I must make a comment. We have an old friend who was brought up at Ampleforth and on a Friday and Saturday night if him and his friends went into York for a night out and there were more than enough passengers for the last bus back to Brandsby Ted Sheriff would follow on behind with his car with the extra passengers. I cannot see them doing that now.

Liz Greene

13/05/12 – 18:45

As well as the preserved AHL 694, West Riding Auto had a number of similar Barnaby bodied buses as Chris indicated. These were inherited from Bullock and Sons (Featherstone) in 1950. Bullocks had been customers of Barnabys since the 1930s having buses/coaches (including double deckers) rebodied by them in Hull during the 1940s.

David Allen

19/05/12 – 07:45

Re Barnaby’s Motor Bodies (Hull) Ltd there is a two-part history of the firm in Vintage Roadscene Vol 7 numbers 27 & 28 which contains an incomplete list of the Commercial non-psv bodies. I did submit a companion article on Barnaby’s Bus and Coach bodies to Messrs I Allan but they were not interested so it was returned to me and it has sat in my filing cabinet ever since. V Roadscene published a readers letter in VR no 29 picking out an error of mine about the final takeover of the firm so perhaps that put an end to it.
No praise for the research I had done from 1983-1989 tracing Barnaby’s history from 1872-1960.
Edward Sheriff started out with Mr Wilfred Mennell at Haxby with a 14 seat Ford T each, Bodied and painted by Barnabys at Hull in ‘Lake & Yellow’ 21st February 1923 the Fords began a York-Haxby service named "The Cosy Car Service". The later "Reliance" York to Helmsley service was the result of Mr Sheriff ‘going it alone’ after 1930.

Ian Gibbs

19/05/12 – 09:19

Don’t be put off by nit-pickers. We all make mistakes – I know I do – and I’ve been pulled up occasionally by people on this forum. (Quite rightly). If your research was sound and most of it accurate, perhaps you should revisit it and revise it with corrections. Histories of small but not insignificant companies are fascinating – and not very common.

David Oldfield

14/12/12 – 16:20

How many people know that Barnaby built one of only two Centre entrance Utility Double deckers, it was built on a 1933 AEC Regal chassis in 1943 and operated for Felix of Hatfield near Doncaster

Mr Anon

05/12/17 – 14:08

Whilst the present operations of Reliance are somewhat outside the timescale of the Old Buses website, the company now has a comprehensive website of its own and our members may wish to see the present day timetables and fleet news by way of continuity. There is also a company history section. https://reliancebuses.co.uk/

Mr Anon

28/06/18 – 06:37

I have just purchased AHL 694 the Leyland Barnaby PS1 and intend to start a sympathetic restoration & recommissioning.
Any history would be gratefully received, especially colours when new to Bullocks.

Aubrey Kirkham

29/06/18 – 06:25

I have just submitted a picture to Sct61 showing AHL694 with a representation of Bullock livery applied to tidy the vehicle up. It may be a few days before it appears on that site. Also Dewsbury Bus Museum may be interested in keeping in touch with you and may be able to assist with information from their archive.

Ken Aveyard

30/06/18 – 11:03

Good to see you have purchesed AHL. I have the only other preserved Barnaby JVY 516. My recollection is that AHL whilst a runner needs a lot of wood replacing under the panels but presume you know that as you are looking to restore. Any help I can give let me know.

Roger Burdett

31/03/19 – 07:20

I can’t contribute, anything technical, but all these posts bring back childhood memories.
When I was a boy, around 12yrs old, I caught the Reliance bus from Huby to York. I had five shillings every Saturday, which I earned from hard work. I would go to the Cinema in York, which offered a choice of five or six cinemas, have fish, chips and peas, bread and butter, and a pot of tea, 2/6d and catch the bus home. The last bus left the De Grey Rooms, Exhibition Square at 10pm, full to the gunwales, if you missed it, you walked the nine miles to Huby. Sherrif’s had a garage on Wiggington Road on the way from York to Sutton on Forest. I am now 89years old but I remember later when I lived at Brandsby, the service operated, thru Brandsby, Crayke, Sutton, York.

John Cox

Thomas Burrows & Sons
1948
Daimler CVD6
Wilks & Meade C33F

This shot first appeared on the ‘Do You Know’ page and my thanks to Terry Malloy for his excellent investigating which has solved just what it was and who owned it.

Thomas Burrows & Sons were based at Wombwell which is about 5 miles South East of Barnsley on the road to Mexborough. They had a varied selection of vehicles and like most independent operators quite a few were second-hand, but this particular coach and its sister GWX 168 No 58 were both delivered new to Burrows in March 1948. Terry also came up with the information that both were withdrawn from service in December 1963 and that this particular coach was hired in 1952 by West Yorkshire Road Car for at least 2 Blackpool journeys. Maybe West Yorkshire hired it for the 1952 summer season if you know please leave a comment.

I have to admit I am not all that knowledgeable about Wilks & Meade the body builder of this coach but according to Terry again they were part of the Leeds based coach operator Wallace Arnold. If anyone can supply information re Wilks & Meade it would be appreciated.

Off at a bit of a tangent here but Wallace Arnold owned a few service bus operators, in the Leeds area they had Kippax Motors and Farsley Omnibus and in the Scarborough area they owned Hardwicks. I am not sure where Hardwicks were based but I know that dad and I circa 1963 went from Scarborough to the terminus somewhere in the Yorkshire Wolds and back again just to say we had done it. I know it was a Leyland Titan and I think it had rear doors.

I think somebody somewhere could probable do quite a good article about Wallace Arnold, could it be you perhaps?

A full list of Daimler codes can be seen here.

The vehicle might well have been hired to West Yorkshire, but not for an entire summer. This is what would have happened:
On summer Saturdays, West Yorkshire had an enormous traffic from Leeds to both the east and west coast holiday resorts. To cope with this, they set up a temporary overflow bus station in Saville Street, Leeds, and hired literally dozens of extra coaches from independent operators to act as duplicates to the normal stage carriage services. Passengers were directed onto these hired-in duplicates, and when they were full, conductors would collect the fares before each coach left, going direct, non-stop to the appropriate destination. This is, no doubt, how GWX 167 and its sister were used.

Roy Burke

Your mention of Hardwicks is interesting – though I could not have told you the name. I remember in 1966 going on a school geography field trip to Scarborough. If we are talking about the same company, the service went (like the clappers) along the A170 as far as Allerston. (Don’t ask me why it didn’t continue through Thornton le Dale to Pickering which was a mere 3 miles farther on and a much more obvious destination – but it didn’t!) Dark red all-Leyland double decker with platform doors as I recall it. I’m not sure if the depot might have been in Allerston.

Stephen Ford

A correction to my original copy I stated that Wallace Arnold owned a bus company in Scarborough called Hargreaves this was wrong my thanks to C Youhill for pointing out it was actually Hardwicks. He also added the following the routes information is most interesting.

The two PD2 double deckers were brand new to the outstation, as was a PD3 in 1966 which was joined in 1968 by its twin after original allocation to Farsley Omnibus. Also various Wallace Arnold coaches were downgraded for the service to Snainton, Hutton Buscel and Ebberston. A large contract to RAF Fylingdales was also undertaken from Scarborough.

Chris Youhill

Ref Hardwicks and Fylingdales contracts.
When Scarborough & District was formed following the changes with Hardwicks & United the contract was operated using two minibuses.
These were painted in a revised livery, fitted with semi coach seating, and were only allowed inside the perimeter of Fylingdales if driven by one of there own staff.  Scarborough & District drivers were not allowed on the property.

Terry Malloy

Hardwick’s operated from a depot in Snainton. They were started in a small almost farm building then moved twice till eventually to the depot they used until they ceased operations. I travelled to school for 5 years by Hardwick’s and knew all the drivers very well. Excellent service, not like some of todays buses.

Steve Adamson

Regarding the garage, In Snainton on a small side road off from the A170 (down from what was until recently Des Winks VW and is now a garage owned by a second hand car dealer) and before the Coachman Pub is a large garage with full height sliding doors. I recall this being used by Hardwick’s, though do check, I was 4 at the time. Hardwick’s operated from a small garage in Victoria Road Scarborough (now a car park next to the newsagent. The terminus was always Ebberston as far as I recall with the buses travelling via the A170 to the ‘top stop’ then going down the village and bearing left at the bottom to return to Snainton (almost passing the garage referred to earlier.

Martin

The reason why Hardwick’s service did not extend beyond Ebberston to Pickering was because this was in the days before deregulation. United Automobile held the licence and operated a Scarborough-Ebberston-Pickering-Ripon service numbered 128. Between Scarborough and Ebberston the United and Hardwick’s service travelled the same road. In regulated days operators were very protective of their services and competitors would be kept well at bay. The original Hardwick’s service started in the 1920s and therefore when regulation began they would have been granted the licence to operate their existing service which was just between Scarborough and Ebberston.
The front outline of the former Hardwick’s garage opposite the Coachman Inn in Snainton can still be seen on Google Streetview. The heightened roof section to take the double deckers can be clearly made out – the lower height doors on either side held the single deck vehicles. (Google maps and Streetview can be rather strange and, odd though it may sound, first key in ‘Croft Lane, Silpho, Scarborough’ to get started. The white lane forming a triangle with the A170 and B1258, near where the ‘Coachman Inn’ label is, is close to where the building stands. The Coachman Inn is actually on the opposite side of the road than the map shows!)
If you would like to see some old Hardwick’s timetables and photos of the double deckers someone has mentioned I invite you to take a look at my Fotopic site: here.

David Slater

26/05/11 – 07:02

Paul Carter, in his various volumes concerning operators in Cambridgeshire, states that the name of this bodybuilder is usually spelt wrongly – it should be Wilks and Meade. This firm built three double deck bodies on Daimler CVD6 chassis for Premier Travel in 1950. The quality of construction proved to be decidedly poor, and major rebuilding had to be undertaken by the operator very early in the lives of these vehicles.

Roger Cox

Thanks for that  I have corrected my spelling.

14/06/11 – 08:18

The contract to Fylingdales was operated by Wallace Arnold from Scarborough and Whitby. I lived in Snainton, and you could almost set your watch by the bus coming through, 7.25 am, 3.25pm and 11.25 pm. They were always in a rush. Hardwicks buses were started by George Hardwick in the 20’s I think. Some of the drivers I remember include, George Alden, Walter Ford, Eddie Stephenson, John Jennings, Sid Ward and Malcolm Chambers.

Steve Adamson

26/10/12 – 07:18

My granddad was Harry Meade (the Meade side of the Wilks & Meade partnership). My mother who is still alive and living in Yorkshire is Harry’s daughter.

Nick Freeman

26/10/12 – 10:08

Like many others, I’m always fascinated by little coincidences connected with bus and coach operation, so here’s quite a good one concerned with the massive West Yorkshire summer traffic to the East Coast for which the two Burrows Daimlers were often hired. West Yorkshire had a large amount of Bristol K6Bs, one series of which were registered GWX 101 – 130. When brand new, GWX 108 (751, later DB23) was converted by the Company into a double deck coach and was a beautiful vehicle in rich cream and maroon, with coach pattern lovely green moquette seating. It appeared regularly on service 43 to Scarborough, and so it is practically certain that GWX 108 will have been duplicated by, or at least shared the A 64 road with, Burrows’ GWX 167/8 on the coastal route at some time or other. I suppose some would say "Little things please little minds" – guilty as charged yer ‘onour !!

Chris Youhill

26/10/12 – 14:11

Well, Chris, you’re great on reminding us of nostalgic moments from our past. I have only a vague memory of DB23, having only seen it briefly in Rougier Street without a chance to get a good look. However, do you remember the rather less successful treatment of DB31 (LWR 417)?
As for your reference to WY’s massive summer traffic from Leeds, it reminded me of a (typical WY) scenario when loading passengers onto hired-in coaches. In addition to the stage carriage service to Scarborough, there was an express service, that cost something like 2/6d or 3/6d more. However, because there were so many stage carriage duplicates, the passenger experience was generally the same on either service. There were separate stage carriage and express queues in Saville Street, and we had strict instructions not to allow to two streams of passengers to get mixed up because the company didn’t want any passengers to realise they had paid more for exactly the same journey.

Roy Burke

27/10/12 – 06:02

You missed a treat Roy in not having a really good look at DB 23. I had a school friend who was "well in" at Grove Park Works and we were allowed to see it in there just as it was completed. It was a magnificent sight, never having even been in the open air at that time. We were very impressed indeed, and I always felt really sorry in later years when it was returned to service bus work and painted red.
I believe that DBW 31 (8’00" wide) had been in normal service a short while before being converted, and what a sad contrast it made with the other beauty. It was initially done in black with incongruous and cheap looking silver metal mouldings of an appearance far from professional – looking like something from one of the very smallest "streamlined modern" coach building concerns. The black areas were later changed to standard red which was no improvement at all. It was, to be fair, very rarely that WYRCC slipped up like that, their design and workmanship normally being impeccable.

Chris Youhill

29/10/12 – 06:51

I tend to agree with your sentiments Chris. Pictures I have seen of DB23 show it in the very attractive cream and maroon livery you describe. However, the livery inflicted on DBW31 was quite simply ‘over the top’, even for the flamboyant fifties. The style was just too fussy, and combined with the built-up front nearside wing, looked altogether wrong. To some, a little like turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear! West Yorkshire definitely slipped up there as you say, and one can’t help thinking that if they had applied DB23’s simpler coach livery to DBW31’s fuller lines, it would have lent a far more prestigious air. Definitely a case of ‘less is more’. I wonder what it looked like from the back….

Brendan Smith

08/02/13 – 06:29

I have fond memories of Tommy Burrows buses from circa 1968 when my impoverished wife-to-be and myself used to catch their 99 service from Wakefield bus station to Rawmarsh via Barnsley and Wombwell. It was a cheap summer Sunday afternoon out and quite a long ride time wise from Sandal, Wakefield to the Rawmarsh terminus. I believe the fare at the time was 5/6 (27.5p) return each.
At the time I was an apprentice draughtsman at Bison Concrete in Stourton, Leeds and used to catch the same Burrows 99 service home to Wakefield outside the works gates at 5.00pm.
I was attracted to the bright red livery of the Buses.

Michael Taylor

01/04/13 – 17:29

Regarding request for photos of United buses which operated the 128 Scarborough to Helmsley service and views at Pickering depot, I have uncovered this view of two of the Pickering based buses.
Copyright is Colin W Routh.

Ken Hoggett

06/04/14 – 08:28

Just a note about the Scarborough & District fleet name. This was originally used by E H Robinsons in the early 1900’s when they had the largest fleet of all weather charabancs in the North East based at the railway yard in Scarborough. These were mainly Plaxton bodied Lancia’s as Robinsons were the main agents for Lancia in the area. Robinsons were taken over by United in 1926 who inherited the S&D fleet name.

Chris Tinker

28/02/17 – 06:16

I’m a descendant of Thomas Burrows and recently found this article – it’s great to see such enthusiasm for days gone by.
Does anyone have any information about Thomas Burrows and his family that they would be able to share with me? Any memory would be appreciated.

Andrew Jackson

28/02/17 – 07:23

Andrew Jackson – if you go to the ‘Fleet Lists’ column on this site there is a substantial fleet list (my own compilation and not confirmed as correct) that covers most of the vehicles owned by Thomas Burrows. It would be great if any of your wider family have any fleet photos to share on here.

Les Dickinson

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

29/10/18 – 06:02

Andrew Jackson-there will be a book coming out on "Tommy’s Bus" hopefully in 2019, if you contact me through this website I can give you more details. Look forward to hearing from you.

Stuart Emmett

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

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

A full list of Daimler codes can be seen here.

19/10/11 – 06:30

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

Andy

28/02/12 – 07:58

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

John Darwent

28/02/12 – 12:13

…..next to a Thurgood Commer, John?

David Oldfield

28/02/12 – 12:13

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

Roger Cox

28/02/12 – 17:29

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

Ian Wild

28/02/12 – 18:06

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

Ian Thompson

29/02/12 – 07:13

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

David Beilby

29/02/12 – 07:17

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

John Darwent

29/02/12 – 07:19

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

Eric

29/02/12 – 07:20

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

Roger Cox

29/02/12 – 07:24

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

Richard Leaman

29/02/12 – 07:23

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

Chris Youhill

01/03/12 – 07:54

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

Peter Williamson

01/03/12 – 09:20

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

Chris Hebbron

02/03/12 – 07:23

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

Roger Cox

02/03/12 – 07:26

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

Chris Barker

05/03/12 – 07:38

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

Ian Thompson

06/03/12 – 08:24

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

Peter Williamson

06/03/12 – 12:14

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

David Oldfield

06/03/12 – 12:15

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

Roger Cox

09/03/12 – 17:30

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

Ian Thompson

21/05/13 – 12:03

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

Kenton Rose

28/06/13 – 14:26

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

Tony Harrison

29/06/13 – 07:19

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

Philip Lamb

21/03/14 – 18:03

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

Robert Durrant

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

26/08/17 – 07:32

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

Fred Edgar