I am a bus modeller with a lifelong interest in Leyland buses, although other makes also go through my workshops from time to time. Although we are now sixty years on after the event, it seems that there was a heck of a lot of lengthening of single deckers going on within the BET in the early fifties. A lot has been written about half cab single deckers being lengthened to thirty feet so that 38 or 39 seats could be fitted. However, in many cases, like PMT, Trent and North Western, the 17' 6" wheelbase chassis were not altered. The bodies were simply extended by a foot so that the rear overhang kept within the legal limit of 50% of wheelbase, i.e. 8' 9". With a front overhang of 2' 3" this made for a total extended length of 28' 6" into which an additional row of seats could be fitted, provided the passengers were happy with their knees under their chins!
However, I have a feeling that when Yorkshire Woollen extended their Tigers, new PS2/14 chassis frames were used and a genuine thirty foot length was obtained. Please can anybody locate any pictures of these Tigers in their rebuilt form?
Many thanks in advance.
Alan Johnson
29/01/15 - 11:19
Does this section of the site give you any clues?
Yorkshire Woollen District – Leyland Tiger PS1 – HD 7905 – 622
John Lomas
29/01/15 - 13:46
Alan J., what adds to the mystery here is that in the early 1960's some of these extended YWD Tigers were rebodied as double deckers - not as 30 footers though, but reverting to a shorter, more PD2-like length. This would tend to suggest that the wheelbase had remained unaltered and that the overhang extension had been removed or cut down. However.....
Looking through my YWD photo collection I have discovered the perfect photo to answer your question. It is an official YWD one taken on the car park of the Three Nuns public house at Cooper Bridge, showing a rebuilt and an unrebuilt Tiger parked nose to nose. Though the rear overhang has definitely been extended, it is clear that the wheelbase has also been lengthened.
The original version has five window bays, the rear one being slightly shorter than the others, and the third window pillar is located above the front half of the rear wheelarch. The lengthened version has six window bays, the rear one now being only half the length of the rest, and the third window pillar is just ahead of the wheelarch.
So yes, either the chassis were lengthened, or given 30 foot frames, and when they were rebuilt as double deckers they must presumably have been reframed for a second time with PD2 frames. Seems a lot of trouble to have gone to.
Because of copyright issues I will have to check with the person I bought the photo from before I could post it (I know he follows OBP), but I may be able to get away with sending you a copy if you contact me via Peter.
John Stringer
29/01/15 - 15:25
Slightly off the subject, but the present-day heritage bus fleet includes a 1938 Western National Bristol L5G rebodied and lengthened in 1955 (so now an LL5G). I remember querying the economics of lengthening a 17-year old chassis just to get four extra seats when a new LS would give an extra ten.
Geoff Kerr
30/01/15 - 06:04
John, I would most certainly appreciate a copy of that photograph. I lost my copy of 'Bus and Coach' which contained that picture. It would no doubt confirm that Yorkshire Woollen's PS2 Tigers 697-725 (HD 8551-8579) and the OPD2s 728-733 (HD 8710-8715) had longer window bays than the previous PS1s.
It looks like they did get new 18' 9" wheelbase PS2/14 chassis when they were lengthened. I have measured the double deck conversions and they certainly got new 'PD2' 16' 5" wheelbase chassis to which no doubt the old engine and axles were added when they became double deckers. I believe that Rubery Owen supplied the new side members. One wonders how much of this rebuilding was a ruse to avoid paying purchase tax on complete new buses at the time?
As far as I know, all the Tilling companies' lengthening involved 'genuine' 30 foot chassis and body components.
Alan Johnson
01/02/15 - 09:56
Many thanks to Ken Aveyard for his help here. From his information combined with my notes I think we can glean the following as correct:
Yorkshire Woollen took 75 postwar Leyland Tigers on PS1 chassis with Brush 32 seat bodies to the 'standard' BET design based on 3' 4 1/2" pillar pitches.
Because Leyland's costs were less than the 'London' wages which AEC had to pay, AEC's sales team were, according to Alan Townsin, often encouraging body builders to build more panoramic - i.e. stylish - bodies on AEC chassis. One remembers the 4 bay RT at a time when Leyland refused to build 4 bay double deckers (apart from the RTW!) - most Massey bodies from the fifties were 4 bay on AEC chassis and 5 bay on everything else. Then there were the Duple A types on Grey Cars AEC Regal chassis which had wider bays than their Leyland counterparts.
Anyway, by 1946 Willowbrook were supplying BET style bodies to Trent on AEC Regal chassis and these bodies had wider 3' 10" pillar pitches. Subsequently, these bodies appeared on Leyland chassis including some for Yorkshire Woollen and some very fine dual purpose PS2s for Stratford Blue.
When Yorkshire Woollen decided to extend some of these Willowbrook bodies to thirty feet, the shorter 3' 6" rear bay of this Willowbrook design was replaced by a 'standard' 3' 10" bay plus a 2' 2" short rear window to give these rebuilds, at first glance, the look of the shorter PS1s. Weymann, among others, had raised the rear floor on similar buses to clear the rear wheelarch so that all seats could be forward facing pairs, so the original 32 seats had a row added plus the single seats alongside the rear wheels were replaced by pairs, thereby upseating these buses to 38 seats.
New chassis side members were definitely used to increase the wheelbase from 17' 6" to 18' 9". Some of these rebuilds were rebuilt again after a few years to 16' 5" wheelbase double deckers. I would like to hope that the discarded 18' 9" bits were re-used - perhaps in some of Barton's later rebuilds?
Alan Johnson
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