Old Bus Photos

CIE – Leyland Leopard – EZH 234 – C234

CIE - Leyland Leopard - EZH 234 - C234

CIE (Coras Iompair Eirann)
1966
Leyland Leopard PSU3 4R
METSEC B53F

EZH 234 is a Leyland Leopard PSU3 4R coach with METSEC body. It operated for CIE [Córas Iompair Éireann] and is preserved in their brown and cream livery. It was new in 1966 as B53F [fleet number C234] and reseated to C45F in 1968. In 1986 it was reseated to B55F and transferred to Bus Eireann as their CS234 in 1987. Withdrawn in 1995 it has been restored to its C45F layout.
The picture was taken at Gaydon Heritage Centre – Buses Festival 2014

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones


07/09/14 – 18:00

Looks like an excellent restoration. The colour scheme complements the METSEC body which is an interesting and very creditable blend of BET and CIE designs. Having sampled CIE’s previous Leopards on express services in the earlier part of the decade, I wonder how the ride was on Irish roads, especially as it aged. Having sampled two ten year old examples of the Bus Eireann Scania/Irizar Century a couple of days ago, between Tralee and Limerick and back, I would think the vehicle would have been allowed to deteriorate fairly rapidly as CIE and Bus Eireann work their charges very hard on roads that, away from the major cities, are not the best.

Phil Blinkhorn


09/09/14 – 07:00

This is certainly one handsome beast and a beautiful restoration.

Chris Hebbron


 

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Calderdale JOC – Leyland Leopard – NHE 10F – 360

Calderdale JOC - Leyland Leopard - NHE 10F - 360

Calderdale Joint Omnibus Committee
1968
Leyland Leopard PSU4/4R
Marshall B45F

When the Calderdale Joint Committee was formed in the early 1970s several vehicles were acquired from nearby NBC companies. These came mainly from the former Hebble concern and Yorkshire Woollen, however also bought were three Marshall bodied Leyland Leopards from Yorkshire Traction. These were bodied by Marshall and were 45 seat examples. One of the trio is seen at the Leeds departure point for the former Hebble service to Burnley. NHE 10F fleet number 360 was originally fleet number 510 in the Yorkshire Traction fleet.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Chris Hough


05/01/14 – 12:52

To be clear, the 8 was not an original Hebble service to Burnley, but a new service created following Hebble and Todmorden entering the Halifax fold and the subsequent reorganisation. It followed the original Hebble service from Leeds through Halifax to Hebden Bridge but then took the more remunerative valley route through Todmorden to Burnley. This is however where the original Hebble service to Burnley would have started.

David Beilby


The following comment has been re posted because I originally only posted part of Johns comment of which I do apologise, I work better when it is busy.
Sorry John

Peter

 

05/01/14 – 16:07

Ah yes, this takes me back. I remember back in my early days with Halifax Corporation my own duty being cancelled one evening in order that my conductor and I could be used elsewhere. He was given a duty with another driver whose conductor had gone home sick, and I was asked to work two trips on the 8 Leeds route. The inspector had not taken into account that this was an OMO route and I was strictly a crew driver. I told him I did not know the route anyway, but he still tried to persuade me to no avail, then very grudgingly had to cancel the first trip and, but then later triumphantly announced that he’d managed to grab a conductor who should have been finishing a middle turn, to do the last trip for overtime. He would show me the way – problem solved. Hmmm.
I walked up to the Bus Station to find one of these ex-YTC Leopards on the stand. At the last minute the conductor arrived. I’d never seen him before.
"Hi mate !" he said, "I hope you know where you’re going ‘cos I haven’t a clue".
"You’re joking," I replied, "You’re supposed to be showing me".
"But I only just came out of the conducting school yesterday – this is my first day on the road" he said. Fantastic !
The grumpy bus station inspector – Ronnie Weston – just shrugged disinterestedly and told us "Too late now lad, you’ll just have to manage".
So off we went, embarrassingly having to ask directions from passengers (of which there were very few), and somehow we reached King Street terminus in Leeds, where this photo was taken.
On the way back, circumnavigating the Armley Giratory, a chap said "…take your next turn off" – so I did literally, and found myself in the cul-de-sac of what I think was the small car park of the Gas Board Training School ! Red faces all round and after a lot of shunting and heaving I managed to extricate our Leopard and got back onto the proper route. I only just managed at the last minute to avoid missing the slip road off Stanningley Road up to Bramley Town End – which would have led us onto the Stanningley By-Pass and missed out about two miles of the route (and probably left several passengers well out of their way), then I managed to find my way back without further incident. You never forget days like that.
These three buses were quite reasonable to drive once you’d managed to install yourself into the cab seat, and provided you were not a large person or had long legs. The pneumocyclic gearchange pedestal was of the original larger type (like our Worldmasters and PD3A’s – they changed to a miniature version from the PSU4B onwards) and it was very awkwardly positioned close to the left and slightly forward of the driving seat, making access to it only easy for a contortionist. The steering wheel was set very low, so unless you wound the seat almost to the floor and adopted a seriously deformed and painfully uncomfortable posture, your knees were jammed under the wheel, which rubbed against your legs as you turned it.
Compared with our ‘own’ single deckers – including the DP’s with similar BET-style screens – the windscreens on these seemed to be twice the distance in front, which was quite off-putting, particularly to me as a relatively inexperienced driver.
This particular bus – 360 – was in PTE days written off in a serious collision, and for many years after a photograph of it in wrecked state was pinned to the wall of the Skircoat Foremens’ office. They had quite a gallery of such things – always having a very low opinion of us drivers and wishing to make some sort of point. So it was quite a surprise when on holiday in Malta in the 1990’s to meet up with it again there, rebuilt and beautifully turned out. I think I have a photo of it so will have to delve through my disorganised old holiday photos and see if I can post a copy.

John Stringer


06/01/14 – 08:01

Its even more complicated than David suggests! The Calderdale 8, as described by David, was a limited-stop service that only ran for a couple of years. From what I can work out – as a welcome relief to pre-Hilary Term (last-minute!) lesson-planning – after Halifax JOC absorbed various Hebble routes in 2/71 the hourly through service between Burnley-Blackshaw Head-Halifax-Leeds was divided at Halifax, with Halifax-Leeds becoming 8 (Burnley-Blackshaw Head-Halifax being much reduced between Burnley-Blackshaw Head, with the Blackshaw Head-Halifax section incorporated into an extended Heptonstall-Halifax ex Halifax JOC service), whilst the hourly through Rochdale-Halifax-Leeds services continued as 27/28. Then, after the Halifax-Todmorden JOC merger in 9/71, the 8 was extended again through to Burnley (via Todmorden, rather than Blackshaw Head [as per Hebble 15]) on a limited-stop (fare-stage only) basis between Todmorden and the Halifax/Queensbury & Shelf UDC boundary at Northowram – I think the 27/28 also operated limited stop over the common short distance between Halifax town centre and the borough boundary at Northowram. On 2/4/73 the limited stop facilities were withdrawn in the evenings. And then on 1/10/73 the Burnley-Todmorden-Halifax-Leeds 8 was withdrawn between Burnley-Halifax when the "stopper" Portsmouth-Todmorden-Halifax 92 was extended back to Burnley.
The building behind 360 was re-developed in the last decade, but the Bank-of-England money store to the left of that building still stands (although though no longer a money store), and you won’t see that "no-entry" sign there now as the traffic flow along St Paul’s St has now been reversed.
This photograph has got me thinking: in LCT days YWD/ Ledgard/Hebble services from the west/south were kept on the fringes of the city centre at terminal points such as this, then under WYPTE were extended through the congested shopping centre into the Central Bus Station – such that it now takes ages for buses to crawl that last mile-or-so to/from the terminus . . . wouldn’t it make more sense to remove bus termini to their original termini, and "allow" passengers to walk that bit further into town (who actually transfers from one bus to another at a bus station?) reducing congestion and pollution.

Philip Rushworth


06/01/14 – 08:01

Reading your comments, John, I experienced a sense of déjà vu. After 4½ years in a London Transport office, I turned up (from the deep south – i.e Croydon, well south of the Watford watershed) for my first day of work in the Traffic Office of HPTD on a Monday in December 1964. On the Friday of that first week, still bemused by my surroundings, a multi bank Ultimate machine was thrust into my hands with the remark, "There lad, we need a conductor for the 3.30 Brighouse. Fred Bull is your driver." With extreme trepidation, not knowing either the geography or the lingo, I endeavoured to meet the occasion. The first bit – over the top via Southowram to Brighouse in a Leopard – was not too bad. Fred was the Conductor School Instructor, so he helped me along, but worse was to come. After the Brighouse runs we went back to the depot and collected one of the old 1947 all Leyland PD2/1s and set off from the town centre for Greetland and Norland, and, for all I can recall, the Moon. It was now the peak period, Fred was now isolated from me in his cab, the bus was full, the windows were steamed up, it was dark outside, and I hadn’t a clue where I was en route. To add to the fun, I had to decipher the required destinations of the passengers which were given in broad Yorkshire accents, and I then found that the places asked for went under totally different names in the printed faretable. Heaven alone knows what I charged them all. We made several trips out again, and the local populace must have thought that the Halifax Passenger Transport Department had been reduced to employing idiots, such was my low level of expertise in the role of conductor. Thankfully, at the end of it all, good old Fred helped his shell shocked ‘mate’ to complete his waybill and cash in. I was a reasonably normal looking 23 year old at the start of that nightmare. At the end I looked like Methuselah (some would say that I still do – I blame HPTD).

Roger Cox


06/01/14 – 16:39

John mentions the large area of unused space between the steering wheel and the windscreen This was not confined to YTC vehicles. I had a ride on a Devon General AEC Reliance of similar vintage at a Chatsworth rally some years ago and this too had acres of space between driver and window although in this case the bodywork was by Willowbrook rather than Marshall.

Chris Hough


07/01/14 – 07:17

I think the gap between the steering wheel and windscreens of BET bodies in this era was to do with their interest in the Clayton UHV heating/ventilation system which drew in air from a grille below the windscreen and then through a glass fibre duct to the engine radiator. There was a flap in the duct, cable operated from the cab which diverted the cool ambient temperature air into the saloon during the warm months. The system was logical but hopelessly unreliable. Most BET subsidiaries would have this kit fitted around this time. The 1965 PMT Reliance 590 DPs certainly were so equipped and my recollection of the ex Yorkshire Traction trio at Halifax was that they were as well. I seem to remember heating problems with them in winter……..not that that was difficult, it applied to most designs within the fleet! The noisy old underseat heater units were amongst the best apart from clogging with dust and rubbish. If it was a Reliance 470 then you might get warmth for a couple of days after repair before the head gaskets blew again!

Ian Wild


07/01/14 – 07:18

Love your ‘thrown to the wolves’ story, Roger.
Nothing to do with buses, but I once worked as a semi-manager in a punched-card unit. Despite never training on the machines, I was competent in the job. A job as trainer came up, the woman who accepted it turned it down at the last minute and I was asked and accepted on the Thursday. However, I asked that the course for the following Monday be postponed for a week to enable to me familiarise myself with the course material and learn the working of that machine. On the Monday, having just started to look at the course material, there was a knock at the door and a face said, “We’ve just arrived for the course!” In the end, I sent them for a long teabreak, ‘genned’ up enough to cover until lunchtime, at lunch, did enough for teabreak and later sent them home early! Then, each night, I did enough to cover the nest day. Somehow I got through the week and got one of my ex-staff to train me on Saturday on the machine for the following week. I survived somehow, but a couple of years later, I was talking to one of my first protégés and mentioned they were my first course and had they realised? I was given 7/10, the first time, perhaps, that the pupils had marked the tutor! As she said, they survived!

Chris Hebbron


07/01/14 – 13:41

The dark oblong under the windscreen is presumably the intake for the apparatus mentioned by Ian. I vividly recall Ribble Leopards had the same arrangement.

Chris Hough


07/01/14 – 13:41

Interesting to hear that 360 gave further service in Malta. I recall riding on it on visits in 2004 and 2009. By the latter year, former 360 had lost its Leyland 0.600 engine for a Cummins C unit, very much transforming its personality and performance. The Maltese bus operators in their final independent days had turned to the Cummins C engine big-time – surviving AEC Reliances and Swifts had received similar engine transplants, and some Fords were also advertising their Cummins power.

Mark Evans


07/01/14 – 13:43

I well remember the Conductor School Instructor, Fred Bull. He was quite a droll character, and used to call in on the Traffic Office from time to time. After three days in his school, new recruits were sent out to accompany an experienced conductor for just a couple of hours or so on the Thursday during the morning off-peak, in order to observe how the job worked. They then returned to him for the rest of the day after which they worked full duties under the supervision of another trusty conductor until the Wednesday of the second week, after which they were let loose on their own.
It sometimes fell on me as a Traffic Clerk to find appropriate duties with ‘suitable’ conductors for these lads (and occasionally lasses), and I had to have these ready and clearly written down for Fred Bull when he graced us with his presence and dry wit.
He retired in 1973, and was replaced by driver Roy Greenwood, who in turn retired and was replaced by conductor Les Sykes. After the last conductor was set on about 1984/85, Les had little to do, and mostly just took care of uniform issue until retiring at deregulation time. I in the meantime had long since thrown in the Traffic Clerk towel, due to intolerable harassment influenced by a certain Traffic Superintendent, and having already obtained my PSV whilst working in the office, gone full time driving.
From deregulation on, all new staff were set on as OPO drivers, and what had been the ‘conductor’ aspect of training had to be incorporated into the driver training – once they had passed their test. Whereas newly passed out drivers had previously little need to do much route learning, as they had already learnt them all well whilst conducting, this also had to be incorporated into their training at the same time and the whole lot became the responsibility of the Driving Instructors.
It was at this point that the existing instructors – by then senior men Ernest Mitchell and Gerry Yardley – decided that things ahead were looking a bit too hectic and complicated for them, and opted for early retirement before D-Day. It was at this point that I made the rather impulsive decision to apply for the job, which I got, and was kept very busy at it (and much more besides) for the next 18 years. Sadly once more, irreconcilable differences with another colleague forced me to finally realise enough had been enough, and it was back to driving again. Now I am a semi-retired part-time driver working just three days a week. It’s been a long time !

John Stringer


07/01/14 – 14:57

Why is it that "Line Managers" – be they Headmasters, Traffic Superintendents (or whatever their appointed role) need to make life difficult for colleagues rather than help them – especially those who have had the other role "on their way up"?

David Oldfield


07/01/14 – 16:18

Ian’s comments about the Clayton automatic heating and ventilating system fitted by the BET group in the mid sixties brings back many unpleasant memories of Southdown’s batch of Weymann bodied Leopards 140-159 so fitted, these buses had a total lack of opening windows but had two roof vents which were permanently fixed slightly open but worst of all they did not have any type of fan assistance in the demister system relying solely on the movement of the vehicle for any effect not very reliable on stage carriage or in traffic. As you can imagine this meant that in warm weather driver and passengers were very prone to sweating and in winter they were freezing cold with the added bonus that the driver could not see where he was going as his windscreen was constantly misting up and the interior of the saloon was also likely to be damp, the system never worked satisfactorily as the control cables seized and the sensors that controlled the pneumatic valves didn’t operate properly. I don’t however recall there being a excess of space behind the windscreen, Southdown did later fit just one sliding window each side and much later fitted a heated windscreen, perversely only on the nearside, 144 of the batch was re-bodied by Marshall after an accident.
The company also had a batch of Plaxton bodied Leopards 1191-1224 fitted with this system to which all the above criticisms apply with the added discomfort of having vinyl covered seats.

Diesel Dave


07/01/14 – 16:43

Unfortunately David, the attitude of the Traffic Superintendent towards me at the time was entirely a personal and totally inappropriate one. Unbeknown to me, when Geoffrey Hilditch offered me the Traffic Clerk post this character – who lived not far from me – thoroughly disliked my father’s family apparently owing to issues with my Grandfather (whom I never knew, having died long before I was born) going right back before the war. It must have seemed to him to be his one golden opportunity to wreak some kind of final futile revenge on the family by making life so intolerable for me that I would surely leave. Nowadays harassment in the workplace is a serious issue (though it still goes on), but then nobody took it seriously – particularly as the man was well regarded both by my office colleagues and the trade union – and since the matter was making me ill, I could see no other way at the time but to give in, and he got his way.
On another website recently, a former long serving employee of Bradford City Transport recalled how working for BCT was like ‘being part of one big family’, implying that it had been on the whole quite an agreeable experience. But there are families, and there are families. There are ‘normal’ families who despite life’s occasional differences and troubles mostly get on well and care for one another. Then there are those broken and dysfunctional families who are always at each others’ throats, feuding, bearing grudges and carrying on vendettas against one another. I found Halifax Corporation and its successors fell more into the latter category !
There were of course also hundreds of great people employed along the way too, but it only takes a few malevolent ones in the more influential positions of authority to perpetuate a permanently unhappy environment, and as a result create an un-cooperative, deeply cynical and resentful workforce. It’s utterly counter-productive, but they never seem to learn that this is not the way to get the best out of people and for their organisations to succeed and be the best.

John Stringer


08/01/14 – 07:45

John, your recollections of HPTD gel with mine in several aspects. In 1964, having upped sticks and journeyed some 200 miles north for the Traffic Clerk job in Halifax, I found my reception from the people there there to be decidedly strange, varying from the very welcoming to the markedly hostile. Amongst some of the latter, which included the Deputy Traffic Superintendent (the Traffic Superintendent always kept me at arm’s length, having as little to do with me as possible) I was referred to as the "cockney", which, while not bothering me, illustrated a degree of isolationism and ignorance that manifested itself in many other ways. Being born in Selsdon, Croydon, in 1941, the only way I could have heard the sound of Bow Bells would have been by telephone, and those peals would then have indicated a German invasion. The system within the Traffic Office was for us all to move round the various jobs – duty cover, schedules, bus list, accidents/private hire et al – every couple of months or so. Unfortunately, in 1965, I suffered a broken leg and had some time on sick leave. On my return, I found that all the others in the office had decided to pick the jobs they liked best and keep them. I was left with the unpopular, mundane task of processing accident reports and quoting for private hires from a fixed price sheet. To further sour the pill, this job was carried out at a desk within the office of the DTS. This was not the sort of thing I had been led by GGH to believe would constitute my career in the municipal bus industry. I stuck it for the best part of a year, and it was only the evening and Saturday overtime driving work with decent people from the road staff that kept me there that long. Differences with the DTS finally came to a head, and I quit towards the end of 1966. It was the best thing I did. Had I stayed I would have simply rotted away in mediocre drudgery. As it was, after 18 months with Aldershot and District as a driver to shake off the memories of Halifax, I went back into the administrative side of the bus industry, ultimately as a Traffic Manager until the gibbet of privatisation cut it short. After a period running my own retail business for several years, I, like you, finished off in the bus industry as a driver, this time in Peterborough and Huntingdonshire. I wasn’t sorry to retire from it – the bus industry was a mere shadow of its former self by then. I haven’t driven a bus since.

Roger Cox


02/01/16 – 06:41

The reason for the distance between the driver’s seat and the windscreen is explained in the text attached to this photo of a Devon General AEC Reliance from the same era:- www.flickr.com/photos/  
If the link doesn’t work (I know Flickr can be sensitive in this respect), then do a search for "TUO74J" in photos from Martyn Hearson (Renown).
Basically, the chassis were designed for 30′ long buses, but most were being built to 10m length by then, partly to provide a wider entrance.

Nigel Frampton


04/01/16 – 06:50

How nice to see Ernest Mitchell mentioned here, I remember Ernest as one of the original drivers when one man operation was introduced on the Siddal route around 1958 when we used to travel to school in Halifax, he was a regular on this route and Norton Tower for many years . When I got married he drove past St Marks church in 1968 and despite around 25 people onboard stopped and called out "there’s no going back now". He was one of the most cheerful blokes you could meet, and over the years I lost contact with him, so you can imagine how surprised I was when I had to help a lady to her flat after a fall to see a picture of Ernest on the sideboard, yes she was Ernest’s wife, and so lots of reminiscing was done. She is still alive and well and had a number of photos taken of his "bus" days throughout his long career.
People said that the one maners wouldn’t last (1958), they got that one wrong???

Stephen Mitchell


NHE 10F Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


08/01/16 – 08:39

NHE 10F

I have attached a photo taken of this bus on 19th June 1980 very close to final withdrawal by West Yorkshire PTE. It is at the reversing point at the small hamlet of Boulderclough high above the Calder Valley. It has a noticeably different frontal appearance from the earlier picture. This was a result of repairs following serious damage when it slid into a lamp standard in heavy snow causing a heavy impact to the centre front. Memory says that we obtained a new front dome from Willowbrook of a different profile from the Marshall original. Also I believe we removed the Clayton UHV heating system (the intake ducting behind the front panel would have been seriously damaged in the collision) hence the different lower level air intake grille.

Ian Wild


 

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Western Welsh – Leyland Leopard – OUH 176G – UC 4169

Western Welsh - Leyland Leopard - OUH 176G - UC 4169

Western Welsh - Leyland Leopard - OUH 176G - UC 4169

Western Welsh
1969
Leyland Leopard PSU3A/4RT
Plaxton C49F

Here are two views of OUH 176G, a PSU3A/4RT Leopard with Plaxton C49F bodywork new to Western Welsh in 1969. Seen at Southampton Coach Station in March 1976, she’s in NBC white, but there are some interesting features which may help redeem her!
While the destination blind is set at blank, there is what looks like a suction pad in the nearside windscreen telling us she’s going to Portsmouth. The sticker says this is the 876. She shows the "Red & White" style of fleet number, UC 4169. The rear end shows that she still has the gold on blue fleetname, with the double N logo on the luggage compartment door.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies


22/12/13 – 08:50

I am a little bit "AEC" about Plaxtons – a sometimes critical fan and supporter. Post-war to 1982 they generally produced a quality product, well built and finished. Experience with an acquired Regal IV led Sheffield United Tours to approach Plaxtons to build the first Panorama because it was so well built (and survived quite a bad accident). Unfortunately, they also produced more than their share of dogs – the designs of which would have scared the children and curdled the milk. The Panorama Elite is, however, an acknowledged "Classic" – but even such classics were not perfect and Mk II and III versions went on to refine and improve on the original. National white probably did less damage to the straight lines of a Panorama Elite but it was introduced before the livery. We got used to seeing it in pre-corporate liveries – and they were far better for it. [Why has this one got two different colours on the rear seat backs?]

David Oldfield


22/12/13 – 09:43

David,
Thanks for your comments. If you mean the actual seat back below the headrests, I think it’s nothing more than shadow from the adjacent wall.

Pete Davies


22/12/13 – 10:21

Yes, I see that now, Pete.

David Oldfield


22/12/13 – 10:21

Offside is in bright sunshine and n/s is in shade, an equally silly question is, what is the gobbledegook in the rear fleetname display meant to be?

Tony Gallimore


ww


22/12/13 – 11:21

Got it. Many thanks.

Tony Gallimore


22/12/13 – 15:49

I think the service number is more likely to be 676, which was a daily service from Treherbert to Portsmouth via Cardiff, Severn Bridge, Bristol, Bath, Salisbury and Southampton. Severn Bridge (Aust Services) was used as an interchange point by National Express at that period, with services from South Wales connecting with services to the south coast. The 876 was a weekend service between Liverpool and Paignton.

David Williamson


22/12/13 – 15:50

Gobbledegook it isn’t but misleading it can be especially as Western Welsh’s route map extended as far east as the English border in the 1970’s (and over it earlier days). Though I lived in the region for several years I never understood the boundaries of Red & White’s operating area and that of Western Welsh in Monmouthshire. At that time Western Welsh seemed to have more routes in East Monmouthshire than Red & White despite that being the ‘home’ area of the latter.

Orla Nutting


23/12/13 – 06:58

I take it, Orla, that your mention of the "English border and over it in earlier days" is because of the transfer of Monmouthshire from England to Wales around 1973. You are right about the arcane nature of R & W’s boundaries and Western Welsh wasn’t Eastern Welsh! Many years ago, I recall seeing a murky wartime photo of a Miller bus waiting in Gloucester Bus Station, blinded for Abergavenny. Maybe ‘anything went’ in those times and it was unusual, but maybe not. FYI, here is a list and historical data of companies which made up the Red & White group and nationalisation. One non-bus company stands out for me and that is Bulwark, whose lorries (often Albion – no surprise there) were seen all over in the south. Ironically, I think BET took them over in the end. LINK: //tinyurl.com/kw4ztlo

Chris Hebbron


23/12/13 – 06:58

Not that it makes things any easier to understand Orla, but I read recently that, like Western National, Western Welsh referred to the Great Western Railway rather than geography.

David Oldfield


23/12/13 – 08:38

You may well be right, David W, in saying it’s the 676, but I’ve always read it as 876. Strangely enough, I never saw a vehicle on this service which actually had a service number blind. Some of the Royal Blue fleet had started to have service numbers on their blinds by this time, where it might normally have said "ASSOCIATED MOTORWAYS".

Pete Davies


ww_2

ww_3


23/12/13 – 10:45

I think this has been posted elsewhere on this site. In 1929, the Great Western Railway’s bus services in South Wales were merged with those of a company called South Wales Commercial Motors. A new company, Western Welsh Omnibus Co. Ltd, was formed with a GWR share-holding.
This was during the period of large-scale acquisition of bus interests by the railways.

Geoff Kerr


23/12/13 – 11:55

My reference to the English Border in earlier days was because I believe that some WW service routes extended as far as Hereford and Gloucester (albeit they may have been joint services). When I lived in the region in the ’70’s they went only as far east as Chepstow (route 63, Blackwood to Chepstow via Usk) and as far north as Abergavenny (route 141 Abergavenny to Newport via Cwmbran). The successors to WW and R&W (National Welsh but branded R&W) did run services from Newport to Hereford and to Gloucester before that company folded and then Stagecoach took over the routes.
In the ’70’s R&W ran the service from Newport to Monmouth via Usk (service 60) which was east of the Newport-Abergavenny route and R&W ran the Newport-Blaenavon/Brynmawr via Pontypool routes which were west of the Abergavenny-Newport route but which had been part of WW services in the 1930’s.
Monmouthshire formally became part of Wales in 1974 under the local government reorganisation that created Gwent county. Before that there had been a long campaign by, primarily West Mon based, campaigners to have the county included in Wales whilst many in East Mon thought of the county as forming part of England. The present administrative district of Monmouthshire comprises largely the former east Monmouthshire.
It is correct that the ‘Western’ in the title arises from Great Western Railways’ holding in the company

Orla Nutting


23/12/13 – 14:20

To bring things up to date, Stagecoach South Wales which took over from Red & White, currently serves The Forest of Dean, Caldicot and services as far as Gloucester and Hereford.

Jim Hepburn


24/12/13 – 06:41

In fact, Jim, the Ross-on-Wye-based routes were transferred from Stagecoach South Wales to Stagecoach West in 2000 and are now branded ‘Stagecoach in Wye and Dean’. The 73, which originally went from Gloucester to Cardiff, was cut back to Newport, Chepstow, now only to Lydney. Hereford and Monmouth are still served.

Chris Hebbron


25/12/13 – 06:33

Ah Chris, you are forgetting the final twist in the tail of the 73. It was later extended from Lydney up through the Forest of Dean to Coleford and renumbered 23, in which form it operates today.
I do miss having a direct bus service from Gloucester to Chepstow and Newport – clearly few others did!

Rob McCaffery


25/12/13 – 11:38

Ooh, Rob, I didn’t know that! No wonder I haven’t seen a 73 around Gloucester for a while, now I come to think about it!

Chris Hebbron


27/12/13 – 17:55

Stagecoach now runs a 74/X74 Newport – Chepstow via Langstone (74 only) and Caldicot.
Newport Transport runs a 73 Newport – Chepstow via Langstone and Caerwent.
There is a separate (and infrequent) service between Lydney and Chepstow (James Bevan service 755).

Geoff Kerr


01/01/14 – 17:25

Prior to the formation of ‘National Express’, there was a daily Associated Motorways service between South Wales and Portsmouth. Some seasons the South Wales portion started from Aberdare, and others from Treherbert, but it was worked by Red & White’s Aberdare depot in both cases. The vehicle worked south one day and returned the next. When Nat Ex introduced route numbers, it acquired the number 772, but this changed to 676 after just a couple of seasons.
Once Nat Ex had become established, and the white livery prevailed, an additional, Saturdays only (at least, initially), ‘flyer’ from Treherbert to Portsmouth was added, which served only the major points, and completed the return trip within the one day. My understanding is that this journey was worked by Western Welsh’s Rhondda depot in Porth, and this can probably be confirmed since UC469 (the number carried by this vehicle prior to October ’75) was allocated to Porth in August ’75. Certainly, I only ever saw WW (or ex-Rhondda) vehicles on this working while I lived in Southampton (up to August 1975).
As far as the bus services were concerned, Red & White and WW were not true ‘area agreement’ companies, and significant parts of South East Wales were shared by the two operators. There were, however, a number of co-ordination schemes, most notably in the Monmouthshire valleys, which rationalised the operations when introduced in the mid-1960s. In that case, both companies held licenses for all of the services in the designated area, even though some were only operated by one of the companies. However many of the longer services – e.g. Newport-Brynmawr via several routes or Newport-Tredegar/Merthyr – were operated jointly. There was thus no ‘boundary’ between R&W and WW. In even earlier times it was even more complicated, as R&W had a share of the Cardiff-Barry service, while WW also worked on the Newport-Monmouth service. WW also worked to Hereford (from Brecon – service 739) as well, so they did indeed reach England.

Nigel Frampton


01/01/14 – 18:08

The ‘connexion’ between the Cardiff area and Portsmouth also extended to British Rail, who operated a regular service between the two cities, which still runs. My widowed mother used to take in her proportion of the many Welsh Summer holidaymakers, as ‘B&B guests’. I recall when the rail service was Class 33 hauled, these Southern diesel-electric locos working up to Shrewsbury at times, well outside their normal stomping ground! But I digress!

Chris Hebbron


 

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Old Bus Photos from Saturday 25th April 2009 to Wednesday 3rd January 2024