Copyright Victor Brumby

Courts of Nuneaton
1939
Daimler COG5
BRCW H30/24R – 1949 English Electric H28/26R

Another fine shot from Victor with the following comment which was hand written underneath the photograph.

“FOF 269 – Ex. Birmingham Corporation Daimler highbridge ‘sit-up-and-beg’ body. Birmingham no 1269. Operated by Courts of Nuneaton.
JVO 230 – Barton Leyland lowbridge no 507.”

Interesting information I have come up with for Birmingham 1269 is that in 1949 it received an English Electric H28/26R body from No.765.
765 was a 1935 Daimler COG5 registration AOP 765 with a B R C W H26/22R body but according to my British Bus Fleets 14 – Birmingham City Transport due to war damage 765 was rebodied with an English Electric (M C T D) body in 1943. I am guessing that the (M C T D) stands for Manchester Corporation Transport Department who kind of adopted what Victor calls the ‘sit-up-and-beg’ look. Hopefully someone out there will put me right if I am wrong.

With regards Barton 507 which is/was a Leyland Titan PD1 dating from 1948 which had very smart Duple L28/27F bodywork. The reason I use is/was is because there are a few shots of it on the net at various running days so it would appear to have been preserved.

Photograph and Part Copy contributed by Victor Brumby

———

01/12/11 – 07:31

Whatever the machinations – and whoever actually built it – that is a Manchester Corporation (style) body.

David Oldfield

———

01/12/11 – 07:32

The English Electric body is definitely of Manchester Corporation ‘standard’ pre-war design. The downward curving upper deck windows at the front and side-front are the main characteristics. In Manchester this design was painted in a ‘streamlined’ livery which featured swoops to match the body design features.

Philip Halstead

———

01/12/11 – 07:34

Coincidently, at a bus group meeting two days ago, I was talking to Trevor Brookes who was the first owner of JVO 230 in preservation. He bought it in the early 1970s, I think direct from Barton, and kept it for quite a few years before becoming an operator himself as Genial Travel of Colchester with rather more modern vehicles.

Nigel Turner

———

01/12/11 – 17:15

I seem to recall reading, some time ago, that the downward swoop of the front and side windows caused water to accumulate at the four low points and rot the two front pillars.

Chris Hebbron

———

02/12/11 – 07:25

The body was one of a batch built by English Electric for Manchester and intended for Daimler COG5 chassis. However, production of the chassis was stopped by bombing of the Daimler factory. The bodies were fully finished and lettered for Manchester as can be seen in the background of a photo in my gallery at: //davidbeilby.zenfolio.com
The finished bodies were moved to Manchester for storage and some of the surplus ones sold to Birmingham as seen in the photo above.

David Beilby

———

02/12/11 – 11:46

Thx, David for that info. and photo. It’s amazing what sometimes lurks in the background of photos, but it remains hidden unless someone observant/knowledgeable picks up on it, plus good fortune to see the photo in the first place!

Chris Hebbron

———

02/12/11 – 16:16

Some of these "surplus" Manchester Corporation bodies went on to Arab I chassis, and some went to other operators on unfrozen chassis. Examples were Sheffield, and Newport.
The English Electric variants must have been among the last bodies produced by that firm.
Alan Townsins work on the utilities outlines most of the detail.

David. The photo of the rear of the "Manchester" EEC body is absolutely fascinating! With the Aberdeen tram being a "Preston" product too, could the photo have been taken at Preston do you think, before the trams were delivered and before the Manchester storage occurred?

John Whitaker

———

03/12/11 – 06:44

The Sheffield bodies were MCCW and sent to Weymann’s to be finished – making them the only true MCW bodies before 1967.

David Oldfield

———

The photograph is definitely at Preston. This photo is part of the English Electric photo archive which I am gradually scanning and putting in my gallery for all to see. There’s some very good stuff in there and I’ll probably end up putting one or two more strategic links on this site in time.
I haven’t got the Manchester Bus book in front of me at the moment, but I believe all the English Electric bodies were fitted to either Manchester or Birmingham Daimlers. The ones you refer to were Metro-Cammell bodies, which also went to Coventry and one or two other places.

David Beilby

———

03/12/11 – 06:48

Well I really think that this is a Crosslly body, just look at the front windows and the last two side windows by the entrance very Crossley. Manchester and Stockport used them being local near Mc vites on Crossley Road at Heaten Chapel

Nigel Ganley

———

03/12/11 – 06:51

1269, (FOF 269) was numerically the very last Daimler COG5 delivered to Birmingham City Transport. It entered service along with 1262-1268 on 1 November 1939 and was fitted with one of the twenty English Electric bodies surplus to Manchester’s requirements after most of their order for COG5s were destroyed at the Daimler factory in 1940. The EE body was fitted to 765, (AOP 765) on 19 May 1943 making 765 the earliest BCT bus to have a Manchester style body. The original body on 1269 was built to BCT specification by BRCW but were not as robust as the more numerous MCCW equivalent bodies. As a result BRCW bodies were disposed of early,with 1269 getting the EE body as a direct swap on 31 August 1949 with 765 going for scrap. 1269 remained in service until31 October 1953 but remained in store until sold on 4 September 1954 to W T Bird of Stratford. 1269 was sold almost immediately to Lloyd, Nuneaton who ran it until January 1956 and then sold it on to Court of Chapel End whom it is with in the photograph. It lasted with them until September 1958 and was sold to Mayfair Garage of Fazeley who broke it up.

David Harvey

———

03/12/11 – 08:58

Nigel. You cannot make that assumption. Crossley, like everyone else, built the bodies to Manchester’s exacting, even quirky, standards. It was almost impossible to tell the difference. [You had to look at things like rain gutters!] It just happened that Crossley occasionally "borrowed" some of these Manchester signatures when building bodies for other operators.

David Oldfield

———

04/12/11 – 07:49

According to Paul Collins’s book on Birmingham Corporation, 12 of the 20 ex-Manchester English Electric bodies were fitted to Leyland TD6c chassis, 4 to Daimler COG5s and 4 kept as spares. One of the TDs, EOG 231, whose original body had been damaged beyond repair by enemy action, is illustrated in the book. Another, EOG 215, later turned up with Laurie (Chieftain) of Hamilton, sporting, would you believe, an extremely natty tin front whose postwar Foden-like profile matched those prewar Manchester curves beautifully. There’s a photo on Scran www.scran.ac.uk/ but it will cost you a £10 subscription to see more than a thumbnail.

Peter Williamson

———

04/12/11 – 07:50

What interests me is where the location could be. We now know that the date is pre Sept. 1958 but did Court’s have any stage services? the vehicle doesn’t appear to have a destination blind. I’ll hazard a guess at Leicester because Bartons reached there with their service 12 from Nottingham and used PD1’s on it but the destination shows Private so then again it could be on a private hire job somewhere. Very interesting selection of surrounding vehicles too, what appears to be a Plaxton half cab body to the left, a single deck COG5 behind, the rear end of a Plaxton Venturer body to the right and a BMMO S type, the presence of that and a Barton in the same picture points me back to Leicester though!

Chris Barker

———

04/12/11 – 16:43

Sorry, Chris – I didn’t note the location of the Barton Titan and the Birmingham Corp. Daimler. They are at Kettering, at Wicksteed’s Park, a sort of antediluvian Disney World which it pleased folk to visit from round the Midlands on a weekend during the 1950s and 60s. So – a private hire, as you opined.

Victor Brumby

———

04/12/11 – 17:33

Wicksteed Park is still going today and is frequently advertised as a ‘day out’ destination in ‘what’s on’ tourist leaflets etc. Have to admit I’ve never been.

Philip Halstead

———

04/12/11 – 20:34

Ah, the hazards of guessing! but what a fabulous pair of vehicles to use on an excursion or private hire, those were the days!

Chris Barker

Copyright John Turner

Hants and Sussex
1947
Leyland Titan PD1
Northern Coachbuilders L55R

The above shot of the Silentnight (Barnoldswick) works bus appeared for identification on this websites DYK page from John Turner. Pat Jennings did correctly identify it as FCG 526, it was one of nine Leyland PD1s bought new by Basil Williams in 1947 for his Hants and Sussex fleet. FCG 523/4/5 had Northern Coachbuilders H56R bodies, FCG 526/7 and FOR 837 had Northern Coachbuilders L55R bodies, and GAA 179/180/181 had Leyland H56R bodies. Interestingly, the fleet numbers LO52/3/4/5/6/8/9/60/1 were applied to these vehicles in sequence, which raises the question – what happened to number LO57? I remember seeing examples of the NCB highbridge PD1s in Fareham as a child in 1949 (though possibly it was always the same bus – a picture of FCG 523 on the Fareham service may be found in Alan Lambert’s definitive book on this operator, which is the source of much of my note here), when I assumed, as Basil Williams always intended the public to believe, that Hants and Sussex were another of the large territorial companies. I do not know what financial arrangement Mr. Williams entered into when purchasing these buses, but they all arrived new in 1947 and were all gone by 1949, several having been on loan to other operators within those two years. It seems very likely that the outturn finances of the Hants and Sussex group did not meet its proprietor’s optimistic expectations by 1949, and, indeed, the greater part of the business collapsed at the end of 1954.

Copy contributed by Roger Cox

There are three good sources of information available on Hants and Sussex, Alan Lambert’s book, PSV Circle PK14, and Alan’s article in the 2009 issue of the Leyland Journal on the company’s post war Leyland double deckers.
FCG 528 [LO57] was registered to Basil Williams personally, and thereby remained with him after the demise of the various limited companies in 1954/55. It was originally bought for the Midhurst group of routes, but after the "crash" it was used on the Thorney Island route. It was also used on the Sunday afternoon run to the Alton hospitals. It was sold for scrap in 1960 when the Tiger Cub, and Bedford SB1 were bought.

Pat Jennings

27/11/11 – 15:29

Of the ten PDIs delivered new in 1947, seven with NCB and three with Leyland H56R bodies, this is the only one that remained in the personal ownership of Basil Williams. The other nine were sold elsewhere in 1949 after only two years with Hants and Sussex, well before the 1954 collapse of the group.

Roger Cox

19/12/11 – 06:19

On the following website devoted to Bere Regis & District may be seen a photo of this very bus in 1953, which, with its fellow PD1/NCB L55R FCG 527, remained in the service of Bere Regis until 1960. It is the third picture down from the top. //www.countrybus.co.uk/

Roger Cox

19/12/11 – 11:01

It looks very proud, garlanded up for the 1953 Coronation. This is an old tradition which has sadly died out, too!

Chris Hebbron

24/10/12 – 12:40

You mean, having Coronations?

David Call

24/10/12 – 17:45

You’re as bad a pendant as me, David. But even we pedants can slip up sometimes, as I did here! I should OF known better!

Chris Hebbron

01/07/13 – 10:55

I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m immune from making ‘dopey’ comments myself – check out my one about tram wires in Hebden Bridge on the Todmorden Titan dated 18/09/12 – 07:31

David Call

02/07/13 – 07:29

Er, quite!

Chris Hebbron

03/07/13 – 06:48

I appreciate that this question has probably been adequately answered by one or more of the above sources of information, but these, unfortunately, I do not possess. I wonder if anyone has subsequent ownership details for
FCG 523/4? I can come up with at least one subsequent owner, in some instances two, for all the other Hants & Sussex PD1s (except FCG 528, of course).

David Call

21/02/15 – 07:08

FCG 524 was acquired 10/49 by the Griffin Motor Co, thence to Red & White and was disposed of in 1961. GAA 179-181 went to United Welsh in 1949 and also lasted until 1960/1.

Richard Smith

31/08/17 – 05:04

With absolutely NO knowledge pre-1970, the name of Basil Williams was still one that surfaced from time to time in our corridor of Southdown House, which we shared with Fares & Licensing. I recall that there was a bank of filing cabinets for all the companies Southdown dealt with on licensing matters – but Basil had a complete drawer to himself! Henry Frier, that Roger Cox mentions in the article on Bere Regis, sat just across the corridor from me. Did the notorious Basil continue post-1954 in another guise?

Nick Turner

01/09/17 – 05:40

Richard Smith’s post of 21/2/15 must have passed me by at the time. When I tried in 2013 no subsequent owner details for FCG523/4 would come up for me, but there are plentiful references now. In respect of FCG 524, there are at least four relevant photos accessible on the web. three of it when with Red & White, and one of it subsequently with Contract Bus Services of Llanwern. Here’s a shot of it with Red & White, together with other ex-Griffin double-deckers. //richardsmith.webplus.net/
There are at least two shots available of FCG 523, when with Stonier’s of Goldenhill.

David Call

01/09/17 – 05:42

Yes, Nick. Basil most certainly did continue beyond his 1954 cataclysm. After one distressing experience in which the transfer of road service licences from an acquired operator to his own business was refused, Williams always retained the company names of acquired operators, resulting in a bewildering profusion of separate companies that collectively operated under the Hants and Sussex name. Some services, however, were licensed to Williams in his own name as sole proprietor, and were technically not a component of the Hants and Sussex group, although they operated under that banner. By the mid 1950s, rural bus services were in terminal decline, and independent operators who were largely dependent upon such mileage began to experience financial pressures. In December 1954 the company’s bank and other creditors, who collectively were owed some £74,000 (around £650,000 today) applied for the liquidation and asset sale of Hants and Sussex. The Midhurst area services personally licensed to B.S. Williams remained in operation under his control, together with the Blake’s Tours business at Plymouth. From this somewhat shaky basis he gradually built up an operation that, from 1962,he named Southern Motorways, based mainly at his Emsworth depot. The implementation of the NBC local companies MAP (Market Analysis Project) route economies saw Williams picking up work that NBC reduced or abandoned, a curious reversal of the 1940s/1950s scenario in which Aldershot & District, Southdown and London Transport had (in collaboration) fought every expansionist move by the former Hants and Sussex business. Basil kept going right up to the end until he sold his Southern Motorways operations to Solent Blue Line in late September 1987. He died during the 1990s. The definitive book on this fascinating operator is "Hants & Sussex" by Alan Lambert. On a personal note, when, on leaving school in 1960, I took up a clerical position with London Transport (Country Buses & Coaches) at Reigate, I discovered some pretty fat files on Hants and Sussex in the attic, and gleaned much from their perusal. Sadly, I didn’t make off with them, and they undoubtedly perished under subsequent "tidying up".

Roger Cox

01/09/17 – 06:52

Thanks for that, Roger. I’d forgotten the Southern Motorways name but, sitting in the next office to Southdown’s Fares and Licensing Officer, Len Cole, with paper thin walls, I heard a lot. Road service licensing was something of a minefield, took up loads of time and money, and ultimately showed that it could be done without. I recall sitting through two whole days of a Met enquiry, waiting to be called as a witness opposing an Asian application for a Southall – Smethwick service. The applicant suddenly said he’d moved his depot up the road and the whole process had to start again. Like you and LCBS, I wonder what happened to all those SMS files in the end?

Nick Turner

01/09/17 – 15:17

Roger, may I query the date you offer for Basil Williams’ sale of his operations, which you state to be September 1987 to Solent Blue Line? I have a note copied from Bus & Coach Preservation magazine April 2012 issue which shows the last bus to carry the Hants & Sussex name. This is a Leyland National AAE 653V, and it was pictured at Havant in 1997, "just after H&S sold out to Southampton City Bus, and not long before SCB became part of First Group". Also, in Buses magazine Jan 2002 issue, there was a fleet focus on Emsworth & District (founded 1977). This article states that E&D ran Hants & Sussex for a few weeks in 1998, but found it to be beyond saving. Another Bus & Coach Preservation magazine photo in March 2016 issue shows ex-London Transport AML605H, and the caption includes the note that this ran for Basil Williams’ Hants & Sussex in 1993-94, before going to scrap in 1994. Was there a slip of the finger (1987/1997) in your input, or is there another explanation? With the history of Basil Williams fleets, anything is possible! I agree that Alan Lambert’s book on H&S is a marvellous piece. Published in 1983, it would be great if someone could write and publish the remaining history from 1983 to the end, with all the developments during the deregulation era which would also be fascinating reading.

Michael Hampton

02/09/17 – 06:26

I think Michael Hampton is right about the end of Basil William’s operations. When I was on holiday in Bognor Regis in the late 80’s or early 90’s I went to Emsworth and rode on an ex LT Swift. I also went looking for the Head Office at Hollybank House, Emsworth which turning out to be Williams’ house, well more of a mansion than a house. His son Vivian now runs it as an upmarket B & B, see www.hollybankhouse.com
The Williams family still own Glider & Blue Motor Services Limited although it hasn’t traded as an operator for many years.
I think Basil Williams died in 1999.

Nigel Turner

06/09/17 – 06:16

Michael and Nick, I yield entirely to your greater knowledge about the latter days of Southern Motorways. I haven’t ventured back to the Hampshire area from my East Anglian retreat for many years, and I can’t now recall where I acquired the idea that the end of Southern Motorways came about in the late ’80s. Thanks for the correction.

Roger Cox

06/09/17 – 06:18

There is a certain irony that the delightful Hollybank House boasts that all its rooms have flat screen TVs/DVDs, when one remembers that Basil Williams once claimed that Television was the single biggest cause of the collapse in bus use.

Petras409

08/09/17 – 06:33

My apologies to Richard Smith, I hadn’t realised that the Red & White fleet list was on his own website.

David Call

24/09/17 – 14:30

In my contribution back on 01/09/17, I said it would be great if Alan Lambert and Sussex of 1983 could be updated. What do I find? In an e-mail bulletin from a publisher of transport books, there is just that book, by A Lambert! The brief review calls the author Adam Lambert, but from the script, it looks like it is Alan himself who has written this, and is published by Bowden Publishing at £40. Apparently there’s no fleet list, but I shall nevertheless be an eager purchaser as cash flow permits. So it’s good news that we will have the complete story to study and enjoy, and congratulations to author and publisher.

Michael Hampton

23/10/17 – 06:00

Having sold a few vital organs to finance the purchase of Alan Lambert’s new book, I can say that it is well worth the cost. Hard backed, with over 200 pages, it contains the detailed history of around a dozen companies who formed the group together with details of their predecessors.
I imagine that it has been a lifetimes work for Alan Lambert to write this book and I would say that it is a job well done.

Nigel Turner

16/11/17 – 06:52

I’ve just ploughed my way through Alan Lambert’s tome on Hants & Sussex, and it really is riveting read: it’s the financial side of things which I found interesting – hardly any part of the group made a profit and the whole organisation seemed to be kept afloat on a raft of bank loans, personal loans from Basil, and loans between companies. My understanding was that the group was sunk by a combination of interest charges on new vehicles at a time when passenger numbers started to fall and fuel duty rose sharply – but truth seemed to be that he kept on buying "pig-in-a-poke" companies from all-too-willing sellers, and then wasted money in battles in the Traffic Courts and appeals to the Ministry in an effort to expand their licenses. Even if you’re not particularly interested in H&S or bus operations in that area, it really is a fantastic read: I must admit though that I found keeping a copy of Alan’s earlier work close to hand quite useful – because of the amount of detail the latest book treats each strand of the business separately, and its useful to have the chronological text of the earlier book available to be able keep happenings within the perspective of the rest of the group.

Philip Rushworth

17/11/17 – 07:39

Phiip, my reactions on reading Alan Lambert’s new volume mirror yours exactly. To your list of curious "business decisions" may be added Basil’s over eagerness to grab wartime and postwar contract work seemingly without any concept whatsoever of costing, so that massive contracts requiring much hiring in from other operators, who assuredly got their pound of flesh, ended up earning him little more than pocket money. The Hants & Sussex conglomerate was a classic example of a precarious business run by the seat of the pants, totally lacking any proper commercial costing system. In 1988, after leaving Kentish Bus when Proudmutual (aka Northumbria) got its paws on it, I was asked to undertake a survey of the Southern Motorways Midhurst operations. I found these to be of decidedly marginal value and made a number of recommendations, all of which were subsequently ignored. Right through from 1937 to the end the B.S. Williams saga was one of extreme financial fragility, yet the proprietor continued to plough his lonely furrow regardless of reality.

Roger Cox

18/11/17 – 07:35

Am I alone in seeing a parallel between Basil Williams and Colonel Stephens of light railway fame.

Malcolm Hirst

25/11/17 – 08:05

Malcolm. Ref your mention of Col Stephens I can claim no knowledge of Basil Williams other than what I have read in this thread. From that limited base I would say the two are worlds apart. Stephens knew the value of everything to the last penny and never spent a penny where a ha’penny would do. By dint of very strict financial control, he ran his empire of very marginal railways for around 30 years and noticeably, once he was gone, the empire disintegrated, which is not to say that it would not have done had he still been there. I can’t imagine any undertaking run by Holman Fred Stephens buying 8 brand new double deckers – it would have been 20 year old TD5s or surplus trolleybus bodies fitted to old chassis like Silcox did. I can’t imagine him going for expansion at all cost without having a very good idea of the costs and likely income to be had or quoting for work without knowing the costs to the last penny.

Peter Cook

25/11/17 – 14:54

Peter
I wasn’t referring to business sense but more the general penury of running a widespread operation with no money.
Also common to both is the attempt to continue to operate when any sensible person would have thrown in the towel considerably earlier.

Malcolm Hirst

04/07/20 – 07:29

As a child in the early 1950’s use to catch a Hants and Sussex Coach at it’s Portsmouth depot located at Cosham on Saturdays and Sundays for a visit to the Trelords Hospital at Alton. I remember one trip where the bus broke down at Fareham and the Driver was threatened by the passengers that if he didn’t carry on they would drive the coach. There fleet was not in very good condition. I believe Glider Coaches of Bishops Waltham had a connection to Hant’s and Sussex.

Keith Ray

Copyright Victor Brumby

Bickers of Coddenham
1931
AEC Regal I
Duple C32F

Here is a pair of poor photos taken in Great Yarmouth in August 1958. As a London Transport spotter predominantly, I was excited to note the registration GK 3172 on a cream and green AEC coach under the Bickers title – it had to be an ex-London bus! I guessed it could be an ST, STL or T. Inspecting the dumb-irons was the easy way for those in the know, and there was indeed the brass plate on the right hand iron but the left hand one which would have given me the fleet number had been removed.
Later I found that it was formerly T 300 which had been delivered in 1931 and withdrawn in 1938, bought by Arlington Motors, Vauxhall Bridge Road, The driver told me his boss had picked the vehicle up from a scrapyard, with that non-London Transport body already fitted – he thought, perhaps, off a Leyland.
A letter to London Transport gave me the stock number and some of these details. How kind companies used to be to little perishers who pestered them with daft enquiries!

Sometimes I gathered redundant discs from such ‘finds’ and nowadays some folk collect them – so below are those from T300, in case any of you chaps are interested.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Victor Brumby

    Copyright Victor Brumby

24/11/11 – 06:46

Gut instinct. Shape of destination indicators and circular insert. Looks a bit Plaxton to me. Would have been an early one – even off a Leyland. Would also have been rare to see a Plaxton in or from the London area.

David Oldfield

24/11/11 – 06:47

How useful those little brass plates on the dumb-irons could be – I found them indispensable when finding old LT buses as showmen’s vehicles at funfairs!
Looking at the indicator area above the cab, the body looks as if it could well be a Duple.

Chris Hebbron

24/11/11 – 06:48

Bearing in mind cheap labour in those far-off days, organisations as big as London Transport might well have employed a special "Clerical Officer, D.E.L.P." (Daft Enquiries from Little Perishers) to answer such esoteric questions!

Stephen Ford

24/11/11 – 06:49

Most fascinating to notice from the two PSV licences that this fine vehicle had been demoted in April 1955 from "Express" to "Stage" – so often the fate of luxury coaches whose charms had begun to wane, but to the advantage of the service bus passengers who benefitted !!

Chris Youhill

24/11/11 – 07:46

As an addendum, the excellent website, Ian’s Bus Stop, shows that the vehicle was sold to Arlington Motors in August 1938, then bought by Osborne of Tollesbury, who had it re-bodied it by Duple as C32F. It was in service with Bickers in 1954 and withdrawn in March 1959. T300’s body was transferred to T369, which suggests that only the chassis was sold by LPTB.

Chris Hebbron

25/11/11 – 06:46

Well, it was a pleasant surprise to find this operator appearing on the web site as I am sending this note from a computer less than four miles from the Suffolk village of Coddenham. Indeed a work colleague was brought up in Coddenham and knows various members of the Bickers family. She has recalled that in her childhood Bickers vehicles always seemed to be older (i.e. more interesting to us) than those of other operators.
Alfred C. Bickers (father of the Geoffrey Charles Bickers shown on the licence) had begun running into Ipswich from Coddenham by 1925. In April 1927 he bought a new 14 seat Ford Model T bus RT 2975 which no doubt became obsolete by the 1930s and was discarded. Many and various buses, (nearly always second hand) were bought until 1988 when that part of the business was divided between Eastern Counties and Ipswich Buses. Imagine everybodys surprise when about ten years ago there appeared on the Ipswich – Felixstowe Vintage Vehicle Run a Ford Model T RT 2975 bus complete with original log book, entered and restored by David A. Bickers of Coddenham, grandson of the original owner. In the 1960s Dave Bickers was a well known motor cycle scramble rider and later he and his son Paul started to do stunt engineering work for films including a number of James Bond movies, see www.bickers.co.uk Clearly the restoration of a bus would have posed little problem to such a family of engineers.
The PSV Circle states that GK 3172 was scrapped after withdrawal by Bickers but then that was what they said about RT 2975!

Nigel Turner

30/11/11 – 15:04

Chris Hebbron alludes to the brass dumb-iron plates to be found on all the period London buses. Above is the plate of the RT which languishes in the Johannesburg Museum of Transport, which I was amused to photograph on 2005.

Victor Brumby

16/08/13 – 12:14

Chris Youhill comments (above) about the apparent demotion of this vehicle from Express duties to Stage.
My own memory is becoming a little hazy now, but my recollection is that, when it came to vehicles’ PSV licences, ‘Stage’ was a higher category than ‘Express’, i.e. with a vehicle licensed as a ‘Stage Carriage’ you could do everything you could have done with one licensed as an ‘Express Carriage’ – and more. The requirements for a ‘Stage’ licence were stricter – e.g. a passenger/driver communication system (i.e. bell or buzzer) had to be provided. Most vehicles were licensed as ‘Stage’, irrespective of the sort of work they were likely to be called upon to do.
Am I remembering correctly?

David Call

18/06/15 – 10:43

I missed David Call’s comment of a couple of years ago. The classifications ‘Stage’ and ‘Express’ Carriage referred to Road Service Licences, the licences granted to operators by the Traffic Commissioners to run passenger services between specified points to a published timetable via a detailed route stopping at particular points at stated fares. The maximum size of machine for each route was also dictated. The vehicles were all licensed as psvs, and had to pass Certificate of Fitness tests at fixed intervals according to age. Thus coaches could be used legally on bus services and buses on coach services (the latter sometimes to the discomfort of passenger posteriors, no doubt). All this has changed, of course. Buses and coaches, like all vehicles of three years of age or more, now have to pass an annual MoT test, and the number of vehicles that a commercial operator can run is limited by the Operator’s Licence. The actual passenger services/routes are no longer licensed at all outside London. Bus companies today can run what they like when they like, and charge what they like for the (often dubious) privilege, subject to 42 days notice being given to the local Traffic Commissioner for applications for new or changed services.

Roger Cox

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

04/06/16 – 06:39

This is a late comment but the difference between stage and express was merely that of the minimum fare charged.Express services had a minimum fare of one shilling and "excursions and tours" was merely a special variety of express carriage.
I think that vehicles used purely for private hire were licensed as "contract Carriage" but I am not sure about that – it is a long time since I did my Institute of Transport course and by the time I got my CPC (Operators licence) it was all irrelevant anyway.

Malcolm Hirst