Charlton-on-Otmoor Services
1939
Leyland TD5
Weymann H28/26R

Not one of my best pictures, I fear, but the Comet S camera did not cope well with action shots. Seen on its way out of Oxford in 1960 is FKO 223, a Leyland TD5 with Weymann H28/26R bodywork. This bus was delivered in 1939 to Chatham & District where it operated as No. 293 until 1942 when it then passed to parent company Maidstone & District as DH365. It was bought by Charlton-on-Otmoor Services in November 1955. It is thought that this bus still remains in existence, but information about its present status is scanty.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox

18/11/19 – 10:41

What a beauty! Had sadly left Charlton-on-Otmoor services by the time I came to Oxford in 1971. Intrigued to hear that it may have survived!

Ian Thompson

23/11/19 – 06:58

What a handsome bus! How like an AEC were those TDS of the period – two fine British champions of the psv world – worldwide….
I expect we’ve all noticed how nut-rings set off the front wheels, and beautify the overall image. Manufacturers which eschewed them produced utility- looking buses and coaches – just for the sake of those trims. Guy springs to mind, and posh buses with the nut-rings removed in service as contractors site transport, looked truly down-at-heel!
Who can tell me why London transport removed thousands of rear-wheel spats in the 50’s? Those full discs looked very sleek. Few other operators employed them – why?

Victor Brumby

23/11/19 – 13:46

My 2006 copy of Preserved Buses shows FKO 223 as owned by Gibbons, Maidstone. It may well have moved on now of course but hopefully still about in one piece.

John Darwent

23/11/19 – 13:47

Those rear wheel discs caused brakes to overheat. Burys PD3s them for a very short time when new but they were very quickly binned. Some of Manchesters Fleetlines had them too and, again, they were quickly discarded. I personally didn’t like them much.

No name given,      yet

24/11/19 – 15:08

The Gibbons Brothers still own it but have partially stripped it for components. They are asking too much money for it to be a worthwhile restoration exercise unless you have a real passion for M&D.

Roger Burdett

29/11/19 – 05:54

I think that bus bodies, in the 1938-39 period, finally reached a classic shape, although I never really liked the fluting at the bottom of Weymann’s bodies. I travelled on the Leyland TD4 STL-copy STD’s of London Transport and they looked smart. Their fruity roar and crash gearbox slow changes gave a young lad goose pimples…..until girls overtook my bus passion!

Chris Hebbron

29/11/19 – 10:10

In regard to previous comments about nut guard rings and rear wheel discs, firstly London Transport removed the rear wheel discs across the fleet in the 1970s, not the 1950s. Manchester ordered discs for all its double deck fleet, except the first batch of Atlanteans, until 1964. The discs don’t cause brake overheating. Manchester in particular had a thing about overheating brakes and regularly cut back front mudguards yet ordered the discs. The reason many fleets didn’t use them and why they were often discarded, in Manchester’s case unofficially and to the ire of authority, was the same reason as the wholesale removal in London – efficiency. They had to be removed every time tyre pressures needed checking, every wheel change and every time wheel nut tightness needed to be checked. On large fleets this added considerable time to maintenance and when accountants costed this and cost won out over appearance, they were officially removed – something Manchester depot foreman had been doing for years, reporting them lost in service.
Nut guard rings were brought in to do exactly what their name implies – to stop drivers using the wheel nuts as steps into the cab. Leyland designed a ring with holes through which nuts could be tightened but only a minority of their chassis were ordered with these. Whilst many operators discarded the rings for the same reason as they discarded or didn’t order discs, others decided the extra effort in maintenance was worth it to protect the wheel nuts.

Phil Blinkhorn

06/01/20 – 11:11

Regarding previous incorrect comments concerning FKO 223. My brother Chris and I have owned this handsome classic since 1993 (Surely Weymann at it’s best!)
We’ve never actually offered the vehicle for sale.
It’s true the major components are removed but have been/are being completely reconditioned. This has cost many pounds so far as parts have had to be re-made and spares hard to source. We’ve restored many other buses and do fund 99% of work ourselves, not having luxury of a dedicated workforce.
Due to health issues we would consider passing this fine bus on, but only to someone with the wherewithal, dedication and determination to complete the project to a top class standard.
The bus still wears its ‘as withdrawn’ Charlton on Utmoor livery.

Rob Gibbons

10/01/20 – 11:52

Wonderful to hear that FKO 223 is safe. Restoration can be a very long-term business, often entailing periods where to the outside world nothing seems to be happening. Very glad too to hear that she still wears Charlton-on-Otmoor livery.

Ian Thompson

Plymouth City Transport
1938
Leyland Titan TD5c
Leyland L53R

The chassis of ADR 813 was new to Plymouth City Transport in 1938, but it received its present Leyland L53R body in 1953. As all I have read about Leyland’s body manufacturing facilities says they finished in 1953, this must, surely, have been one of their last. The chassis is noted in the PSVC listing for 2012 as being a Leyland Titan TD5c, which was probably very useful on Plymouth’s hills! We see it at Winkleigh on 6 October 1996.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

07/07/16 – 09:15

Leyland ceased body production in December 1954. The last coach body was built for Wilkinson of Sedgefield, the last bus bodies were on a batch of PD2s for Trent.

Phil Blinkhorn

07/07/16 – 09:15

This very bus appears in the (now) very ancient book, "Building Britain’s Buses", in which some school boys are given a guided tour of the Leyland works. Ian Allan published it, but there is no publication date. However it is clear from the photos and text that Leyland’s body building plant was operative at the time of writing this book. The caption to the photo, which shows ADR 813 in the Customer Inspection Department, gives no indication that the bus is a re-body. Midland Red LD8’s are in the background. Because of that caption, it was many years before I understood that this was a re-body rather than an all-new bus. It must have been quite un-nerving to see a PD2 look-alike approaching, only to find pure Leyland TD5 sounds as it pulled away! As even the picture in this view is 20 years old, I do hope that this bus still survives.

Michael Hampton

07/07/16 – 16:13

Thank you, Phil and Michael, for your comments. I can’t speak in respect of recent developments, but this bus was alive and well last time I visited Winkleigh, in 2012.

Pete Davies

07/07/16 – 16:13

What a wonderful combination, but are we sure that its a TD5c as the normal Autovac is usually replaced by a much deeper device on torque converter chassis. I may well be wrong in always having assumed that this was universally the case.

Chris Youhill

07/07/16 – 16:14

A further thought. I wonder if the radiator shell was not replaced as part of the rebodying contract because Leyland didn’t want a TD5 totally in PD2 clothing.

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 06:32

Many operators removed the torque convertors from their Leyland Titans c.1945-47, replacing them with standard Leyland gear boxes for the TD series. If Plymouth did this, perhaps that would account for the replacement of the deeper autovac by a standard size? I don’t have any lists for Plymouth, so this is just a guess. But Southdown and Portsmouth along with others took this option – possibly Leyland put on a "special offer" to cover this change in the early post-war period.

Michael Hampton

08/07/16 – 06:33

In contrast to Pete’s comment about the hill climbing usefulness of the TD5c, I was always under the impression the torque-converter fitted Leylands were very poor on hills. Many operators removed them and fitted a conventional crash gearbox and that could be the case here. The ‘c’ suffix was not always removed from fleet listings when this occurred. I remember riding on the Lytham St Annes Leyland Lion which was still torque-converter fitted at a Heart of the Pennines Rally at Halifax several years ago. The driver insisted on an alternative ‘low level’ route to the mountainous climbs this event always featured as he knew it wouldn’t make it!

Philip Halstead

08/07/16 – 06:33

Chris, presumably by the time of the rebodying the torque converter had been replaced by a conventional transmission. The deeper Autovac was in fact a dual unit containing the hydraulic converter fluid as well as fuel header tank and, after conversion, would have been replaced by a conventional Autovac.

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 06:34

I’ve seen a few mentions on this site of the SCT61 website. A look on there shows that, while ADR 813 WAS a TD5C, the rebodying included replacing the gearbox with a conventional one, so I suppose ordinary TD would be the correct caption now.

Pete Davies

08/07/16 – 07:46

I believe the convention is for the chassis designation to remain as built with a note regarding modifications, for one thing the chassis plate would almost certainly retain the original designation. An example of this would be Halifax’s Daimlers which were fitted with Leyland engines, which remained as CVG6 with Leyland engines and not CVL6, which would be an enthusiasts’ designation as such a model didn’t (to my knowledge anyway) exist.

David Beilby

08/07/16 – 09:06

Thanks everyone for clarifying the torque converter query, and for telling me something I certainly didn’t know – that the large tank also included a normal Autovac – I believe the rather intriguing maker’s name of the converters was "Smiths-Lysholm."

Chris Youhill

08/07/16 – 17:13

In the early 1930s Leyland was looking to ease the lot of driving buses in what was then considered heavy traffic. Up until 1932 all its chassis featured a sliding mesh gearbox/friction clutch transmission but Daimler had introduced its preselector system and transport departments were looking to retrain tram drivers as bus drivers so something different was required.
A semi automatic torque converter which had been patented by Alf Lysholm under the manufacturing name of Lysholm-Smith was experimented with in 1932. Dr Haworth, Leyland’s Chief Engineer adopted the principle and developed it so that, at the 1934 Commercial Motor Show, the Tiger, Titan, Titanic and Lion chassis were offered with automatic transmission as an option, the first time any production bus chassis had been offered with the option anywhere in the world. The system offered a single lever with direct, converter and reverse drives plus neutral.
The vehicles were badged as "Leyland Gearless Bus". The company made its own converters but acknowledged Alf Lysholm’s base patent in its own patents.
The gearless chassis sold well and an interesting experiment took place in 1934 when London Transport sent the chassis of STL221, a standard AEC Regent, to Leyland to be fitted with the system. After several days in Lancashire it returned to London, was subsequently bodied and ran with the torque converter until August 1937. The comments from Southall have either been lost to or censored from the annals of history!

Phil Blinkhorn

08/07/16 – 17:14

ADR 813 certainly still exists. It was part of the late Colin Shears’ West of England Transport Collection, so was resident at Winkleigh. ADL is still listed on the collection’s fleet list.
The usual open day at Winkleigh in October is taking a rest this year, so it won’t be until October 2017 that we will be able to see this old girl again for real.

Petras409

09/07/16 – 06:36

Phil, your little side-issue concerning LT’s STL221 being fitted with a torque-converter between 1934 and August 1937, as ever, shows LT’s illogicality at times! At about the time the decision was being taken to remove STL221’s converter, LT was taking delivery of 100 Leyland TD4’s with Leyland copycat STL bodies, the last 10 of which were fitted with torque-converters! Like STL221, they were soon discarded in favour of crash gearboxes, in 1939, to match the other 90 of the class. To add to this illogicality, if these STD’s were STL clones, why were they not all fitted with pre-selective gearboxes?

Chris Hebbron

09/07/16 – 10:37

All very interesting and valid points indeed Chris H.
Turning now to the immediate postwar period, where supply problems were definitely a feature, I’ve no doubt that the sudden arrival of hired in Tilling Group Bristols and the glorious batch of all Leyland PD1s caused much discontent amongst the drivers involved – after all I doubt if many of them were admiring enthusiasts like me !! I absolutely worshipped the STDs for their unexpected individuality in London. A large number where allocated to Victoria Gillingham Street (GM) and they appeared frequently on the long and arduous 137 route from Highgate to Crystal Palace via Streatham. As a youngster, holidaying in the latter, I was a frequent visitor to the free swings and roundabouts in Norwood Park, which involved stopping the PD1 on the steep of Central Hill – even at that tender age I had a conscience about stopping the driver at such an awkward spot. Never in my wildest dreams then did I imagine that I would one day pass my PSV test on an identical glorious PD1 in Leeds. Oh, why can’t we magically turn the clock back ??

Chris Youhill

09/07/16 – 16:32

Whilst strictly not within the scope of this thread, the mention of Lysholm Smith reminded me that the first Derby Lightweight DMUs of 1954 featured this transmission. To quote from Derby Lightweight DMUs by Evan Green-Hughes, the following may be of interest.
"The West Riding sets were made up of two cars, both of which were powered in view of the heavily graded nature of the territory in which they were to work. The well-established Leyland L600 125hp horizontally mounted six cylinder engine, as used in many buses and trucks, was specified and two were fitted to each coach. Riddles had chosen to fit the Leyland Lysholm Smith torque converter transmission which had been used in an earlier LMS three-car experimental unit. This had a double-acting clutch that either connected the engine output to the torque converter pump or directly to the output shaft and was bolted directly to the engine. The clutch was controlled by the driver who could select one of four positions,off, neutral, converter drive and direct drive.Converter drive was used for pulling away or hill climbing, whilst direct drive would be used when going downhill or when travelling along easy graded sections at speed. However, by the time the units were completed, the Lysholm Smith transmission system was already obsolete and the buses for which it was originally designed were being equipped with pre-selector transmission"

John Darwent

09/07/16 – 17:15

Chris, to answer your question re the lack of preselector gearboxes on the STD class, the STL class through its many variations generally had crash gearboxes though a number had Daimler preselector boxes. AEC and Daimler had formed ADC for a short period in the mid/late 1920s and presumably relations were such that AEC could source from Daimler. Leyland was very much its own man and presumably either would not or could not deal with Daimler and a crash box would not have been seen as disadvantageous at the time.

Phil Blinkhorn

Copyright Unknown

Tynemouth and District
1938
Leyland Titan TD5
Weymann H??F

More from my youth. 98 was one of eight 1938 forward entrance Weymann bodied Leyland TD5’s delivered to the Northern General subsidiary of Tynemouth and District. They were FT 4496/4503 numbers 96/103. About 1950 in common with many pre war vehicles they were given a new lease of life and re bodied.

Copyright Unknown

100 is seen here with its second body, and you could be forgiven for asking how ECW bodies came to be in a BET fleet? Well in fact they’re Northern Coachbuilders H30/26R. I’m aware of one example of the type that’s still around, NVK 341 is a beautifully restored 1950 Newcastle Corporation AEC Regent 111 and has been featured on this site. I don’t know if the doors on the Weymann’s were powered or manual and almost certainly they would not have been equipped with heaters, but they seem to have been well ahead of their time. Does anyone know of any survivors?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ronnie Hoye

18/12/12 – 16:35

I am not familiar with Northern General, but the forward entrance Weymann body looks very much like the ones mounted on AEC Regent chassis for Midland General in the late 30s. I can remember travelling on one of these about 1953 on the C5 Alfreton to Nottingham route. I don’t think the sliding doors were powered. Trent also had some similar ones, but these were rebodied with conventional rear entrance Willowbrook bodies (lowbridge from memory) around 1950 I think. It’s remarkable to that immediately before WW2 Nottingham had three different operators with forward entrance double deckers – since Barton also had quite a lot of Leylands, some of them rebodies of older vehicles bought second hand. These were not Weymanns however.

Stephen Ford

19/12/12 – 07:32

I’m very pleased you mentioned those Stephen because one thing I noticed was that although the Trent and Midland General Regents both dated from 1937 and both were bodied by Weymann, they were somewhat different. The MGO bodies were basically same as the Tynemouth example above. The Trent examples had an odd, longer length second window bay which resulted in a much shorter rearmost side window on both decks. Also, the bulkhead under the canopy had a single window on the MGO vehicles whereas on the Trent ones, there were twin windows. So, it would seem that Weymann had more than one front entrance double deck design in production at the same time. It makes you wonder why certain operators preferred such subtle differences.

Chris Barker

19/12/12 – 07:32

Some very nice views there, Ronnie!

Pete Davies

19/12/12 – 08:45

Weymann were renown for their metal framed bodywork and classic designs. Pre-war, there were three separate products – Flexible, Coachbuilt and Metal. Coachbuilt approximated to the composite framework used by Charles H Roe up to 1968. The featured body is a composite body. Mansfield District/Midland General had both composite and metal bodies in the pre-war period.

David Oldfield

19/12/12 – 13:39

The first photograph – that’s an original, right ?

After classic coaches, the second love of my life is the amber nectar….I’m not a historian, but genuinely amazed that Carlsberg existed all those years ago and, even more amazement, they hoped to sell it in the North East in competition with Newcastle Brown !!

Stuart C

20/12/12 – 08:05

Stuart, according to the encyclopaedia website, that brewing company was founded in 1847, and now controls a fair number of brands. The list might make you weep into your drink but includes Tetley and Scottish & Newcastle . . .

Pete Davies

20/12/12 – 09:39

An equally surprising ‘brewing’ fact is that lager, per se, was so popular in an era when most folk seemed to drink ale, porter or mild and bitter. I’ve seen pre- 1914 adverts on trams for Tuborg lager and one, dated 1908, for ‘Alsopp’s British Lager’ To me, lager seemed to take off in the late 1950’s.

Chris Hebbron

20/12/12 – 09:43

Presumably you stuck your Carlsberg on a boat and just headed west. Do you notice that they were anxious to explain that Lager (or Pilsner if you not sure what to call the stuff although it was always a long way from Pilsn) was not just a cold summer drink…? They succeeded!

Joe

21/12/12 – 07:27

Unusual to see a bus that looked so good in both incarnations, though for sheer character I go for the front-entrance original. The nice lining-out and dignified fleet name are a fine finishing touch. Did Northern Coachbuilders build these ECW lookalikes on licence, or to order, or simply as the sincerest form of flattery? Their own designs always look very good to my eye as well.

Ian Thompson

21/12/12 – 10:40

Ian. An ECW man was enticed to NCB just before NCB’s major shareholder died and they were landed with crippling death duties which did for the company. This body is closer to ECW’s original than the Newcastle Regent III – which has slightly odd (uneven) bay spacing.

David Oldfield

22/12/12 – 14:55

I can remember seeing these front entrance double deckers on the Blyth – North Shields Ferry service 7 as a small boy around 1949-50 an once did a return trip on one accompanied by my aunt. These were very different to the usual AEC Regents allocated to this route.

Gerald Walker

07/11/14 – 06:19

I have enjoyed looking at the old photos I worked at Percy Main from 1963 until 1969 but I can not remember Ronnie Hoye but you sure know your buses.

Ray 33323

07/11/14 – 15:39

Ray, do you have a Brother called Brian, who was a fitter at Percy Main?

Ronnie Hoye

14/10/20 – 07:04

Regarding Ronnie Hoye’s observation on the re-bodying of Leyland TD5’s, I think he is wrong on this occasion. According to lthlibrary.org.uk they were given ECW bodies well before NCB came out with the new 8ft wide design in 1949/50. Below is the text pasted from the LTHL site.

"1938 Leyland TD5 No. 96 (FT4496) with original Weymann 55-seat forward entrance bodywork. It was re-bodied in 1948 by ECW with a 53-seat rear entrance body. (LTHL collection)."

Ray Jackson

16/10/20 – 06:10

Ray, I believe you are correct, In the Venture book about Northern Coachbuilders there is a photograph of one of these rebodies, that of FT 4500, complete with ECW makers label in the destination box. The photo is included to afford a comparison between the two products, ECW and NCB but it provides conclusive proof that the Tynemouth AECs were indeed bodied by ECW.

Chris Barker

17/10/20 – 06:19

That these vehicles were rebodied by ECW is confirmed by PSV Circle publications, which give the body numbers as ECW Series 2 nos. 2973-2980 (not in order) with 2973-6 being new in 10/48 and 2977-80 new in 12/48. However, there seems to be a doubt as to their seating. Fleet History PA6, which covers Tynemouth and District gives the seating split as L27/26R, although that is clearly wrong, as these were highbridge bodies, while Body List B1205 states that they were H30/26R, which was standard for this style of body. As the body list is a much more recent publication, it is, perhaps, more likely to be correct.

John Gibson

17/10/20 – 06:23

Before giving the wrong answer, Ronnie invited the question as to what ECW bodies were doing in a BET fleet, and that still stands. The answer is that the rebodying was completed by the end of 1948, and therefore would have been ordered long before ECW sales were restricted. Other non-Tilling operators for whom ECW were building at the time were Middlesbrough Corporation, Birch Bros and the Red & White group.

Peter Williamson

19/10/20 – 06:10

Following up Peter Williamson’s comment about ECW bodies supplied to non-Tilling companies, a quick trawl of "Bus lists on the Web" also shows substantial numbers of rebodying work on TD chassis for East Kent and Ribble, while Southdown took a batch of 25 PS1s with C31F bodywork, and Western Welsh took 62 PS1 with B35R bodywork, all in 1947. 4 similar buses went to Isle of Man Road Services in 1948. Southdown 1249 is seen at Bognor Depot in 1972 after conversion to a mobile left luggage office; IOMRS 57 in withdrawn condition at Ramsey in 1968.

Alan Murray-Rust

20/10/20 – 06:28

Not forgetting the batch of ECW bodied Leyland PD1s delivered to North Western in 1948 which were, in effect, lowbridge versions of the Tynemouth re-bodies, seen above.

Chris Barker

27/10/20 – 05:46

North Western was a rather different case, having been a Tilling company until 1942 and having not yet been forced to change its vehicle policy. Like some other Tilling companies, at that stage it only bought PD1s because Bristol could not build enough Ks to meet the demand.

Peter Williamson

29/10/20 – 06:15

A further comment on these rebodies, I recall them being used on service 5 between Newcastle and Whitley Bay (Cemetery). Tynemouth seemed to allocate batches of vehicles to specific routes. Another batch of vehicles were AEC Regents with NCB bodies of the earlier pre-ECW look-a-like design, these being used on service 7 between North Shields Ferry and Blyth, while my earliest memory of service 4 (Whitley Bay to Gateshead) was of the Pickering bodied Guys. That route, which was later renumbered 1 seemed to be allocated batches of new vehicles displacing earlier vehicles to other routes. I have a vague recollection that the1955 batch of Weymann Orion bodied Guys were initially used on the 1/4 before ending up on the 5 replacing the TD5s, not as far as I was concerned a change for the better.

John Gibson

01/11/20 – 06:03

John, the Weymann Orion bodied GUY Arabs (two batches of them) were sturdy and robust, typical of GUY’s.
That said, the bodies were rubbish, and soon gained the nickname of Rattletraps.

Ronnie Hoye