Portsmouth Corporation
1949
Crossley  DD42/7T
Crossley H28/26R

Not many Crossley buses ever found themselves too far from their natural habitat of the North-West, but a sprinkling of them worked on the South Coast. Having bought mainly Leyland TD’s during the 1930’s, and PD’s after the war, too, Portsmouth Corporation dabbled in Crossley DD42’s briefly. Four DD42/5T’s were acquired in 1948, with locally-built Reading bodies. Another two of these arrived in 1949, followed in quick succession by a further 17 DD42/7T’s, all with Crossley bodies with two stepped side windows – very stylish!
The T suffix indicated that they were fitted with Brockhouse Turbo-converters, which performed rather like the Leyland Gearless buses in the 1930’s. I never knew why they were purchased without conventional gearboxes, because the trams were scrapped in the mid-30’s and the trolleybuses not until 1963, so the purchase was not catering to drivers without skills of gear-changing! When the buses pulled away, the engine note would rise up to the governor and stay there until the driver approached a bus stop. He would then take his foot off the throttle, the engine would then tick over and the bus would coast, freewheel-style, until the brakes were applied to stop. I never knew if these vehicles had a direct-drive ‘top’ gear which could be engaged – maybe the bus stops were too close to each other and the terrain too flat for drivers ever to engage it ‘anyone know?’. Crossley buses always gave out a rather ‘woolly’ engine note, as if being slightly strangled in some way. When pre-war Leyland TD4’s were being withdrawn in the late 1950’s, their 20 year old engines and gearboxes were transplanted into the Crossleys, which made them sound very odd after that. It surely improved fuel-consumption, though! Seating was initially H28/26R, but most became H32/26R in 1959/60, the very time the Crossley 100bhp engines were replaced by the 93bhp Leyland engines! Good job all the routes were as flat as a pancake, bar one railway bridge! They were mainly withdrawn in 1966 and 1967, the engines being 30 years old by then!
Here is No. 35 (EBK572) in Edinburgh Road, just off the main shopping centre of Commercial Road, in 1965, by which time these buses were usually relegated to peak-time extras.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Chris Hebbron

The Turbo-Transmitter fitted to some Crossley DD42s did have a direct-drive top gear, but it was engaged automatically rather than by the driver.

Peter Williamson

Crossleys were, indeed, strangled, or at least the engines were. An innovative firm with no idea how to fully exploit this commercially, Crossley designed a very good engine for post-war production using Swiss Saurer technology. Crossley realised they needed to pay Saurer for the license to do so but were either unwilling or unable to do so. They took away the Swiss technology – to do with the "breathing" and fuel injection system – and ended up with a "dog".
This had a domino effect. People only bought Crossleys, post-war, because they were available and people were desperate for anything in the late forties. It also led to their demise and take over by AEC. Birmingham Corporation were happy with their late Crossleys but they had had the benefit of AEC engineers modifying the engine.
Nevertheless, AEC still thought highly enough of Crossley to give them the task of developing the Bridgemaster. Not only that, the Crossley Coachworks – which outlasted the engineering by eight years – produced bodies of high quality. Latterly this was to Park Royal design and, like Roe, subcontracted from Park Royal to help when the London branch was already busy. (This included a batch of Diesel Multiple Units for British Rail which are known as the Park Royal class but were built for them by Crossley at Stockport.)
Many Crossleys, particularly in Manchester, were re-engined by Leyland power – often second hand. This extended their lives to a ripe old age.

David Oldfield

Perhaps worthwhile to mention that Crossley had another foray into the railway scene, with its 8-cylinder low-speed two-stroke engine fitted in the infamous "Metro-Vick" diesel electrics, which would have been Class 28 in BR terminology if they had lasted long enough. The locos were peculiar unbalanced machines with a six wheel bogie at one end and a four wheel at the other. I remember them working in pairs during the early 60s on St Pancras – Manchester expresses. Sadly they covered themselves in infamy, being afflicted with more problems that most, and having a tendency, as I recall, to burst into flames spontaneously! They were withdrawn after a service life of only 9 years.

Stephen Ford

Thank you for the comments regarding my Portsmouth Crossley posting.

Peter for answering the turbo-converter direct drive query.
David for your interesting information about the AEC Bridegmaster development being done by Crossley – quite unknown to me.
Stephen for your information regarding Crossleys other foray into the railway scene as you put it, to which I would like to add the following.

The loco itself was pretty sound, but, as stated above, the engines were awful (quelle surprise!). BR did consider re-engining them (it was done in other cases), but was probably not cost-effective with such a small number as 20. Surprisingly, one survives on the East Lancashire Railway, I used to see it parked in a short siding by Swindon Station in the 80’s and 90’s.

Chris Hebbron

Just to correct the quantity of Portsmouth Crossleys, there were 6 DD42/5Ts (1948-49, 11-15 and 28 with Reading bodies), and 25 DD42/7Ts (1949, 29-42, 47-57). The Reading bodied buses kept their Crossley engines and turbo transmitters until withdrawal in 1963/64 – possibly the last turbo-transmitters in service anywhere? It was the 25 DD42/7Ts which had their Crossley engines and transmissions replaced with pre-war engines and gearboxes from withdrawn TD4s. These were reputedly from the batch 131-160 (Craven bodies of 1936/37), but some may have come from the earlier (1935) EEC-bodied (115-126).
In the large "Crossley" book (Michael Heaps, A A Townsin, et al) I seem to remember that only 65 Crossley DD42s were fitted with turbo-transmitters of the whole production for the UK. Some of these were replaced within days or weeks! As 31 were supplied to Portsmouth, it seems they had the lion’s share of such vehicles, and quite possibly kept them the longest? Others might know more.

Michael Hampton

Sadly Crossley had a long and inglorious record of producing fragile diesel engines right back to the early thirties and carried out endless modifications in attempting to improve things. It is significant that at the start of WW2 Manchester Corporation actually had Gardner 5LWs on order for fitting to Mancunians then due for delivery (presumably as a result of happy experience with their Daimler COG5s). In the event delivery of some COGs was aborted because of the bombing of Daimler’s Radford Works and seventy Mancunians eventually got 5LWs, rather more than planned!

David Jones

Thanks for posting the two Portsmouth Corporation Crossley’s. My how they bring back memories. When both these Crossley’s ran, I lived on the ‘Tipner Estate’, in Tipner Green. We always seemed to get the Buses on this route (service ‘O’ & ‘P’ that later became service ’13’ & ’14’), that were near their withdrawal time. The ‘Reading’ bodied Crossley’s did indeed keep their Crossley Engines & Brockhouse Turbomotor Transmitter’s to the end. As a kid, I would spend hours at ‘Range Green’ (their ‘Tipner’  terminus) as they used to reverse into the beginning of Range Green, to face the correct way in Tipner Lane for the return journey. You would often see the Driver standing up in the cab trying to move the stuck ‘direction’ lever, which looked just like a normal Gear lever which you pushed forward to go forwards and pulled back to reverse, between these was neutral. The trick for an easy change of direction was to knock the lever into neutral just  before coming to a halt, then stop, then using the ‘Heel Pedal’ under the Drivers seat which was supposed to (but rarely did) stop the transmission from turning, snatch the direction lever quickly to the direction you want to go.

John

Thanks, John, for the interesting comment about how to change from forward to reverse with the turbo-converters – it must have been a real bind for those drivers who weren’t ‘in the know’!

Chris Hebbron

I can remember the Crossleys all parked up at the back of the Central Transport Depot in the Eastern Road awaiting their fate it would have been July 1967. I can see the sign Leyland Diesel on the bonnets I had no idea the engines were from the TD4s, three still ground along the sea front at the time. The Crossleys also made a grinding sound as they trundled along no wonder with those old engines. I suppose they could get over Fratton and Copnor bridges and that was good enough they ran mostly on the circular routes 17 & 18.

Nick Ratnieks

The replacement pre-war ‘Leyland’ 8.6 Litre Engine, which was not the most powerful engine, was however, one of the most reliable. And as a ‘quick dieing’ engine, it made for quick change on the ‘crash’ Gearbox.

Are any of these Buses preserved or restored ?

I hope so !!!!

Anonymous

A couple of the Leyland TD4’s with open-top bodies have been preserved, Anonymous, but, sadly, no Crossleys.

Chris Hebbron

26/09/12 – 18:23

The Bridgemaster was originally marketed as a Crossley and the prototype was so badged.
Crossley engines also appeared in 90 of CIE’s 94 Metrovick diesel engines, delivered in the mid 1950s. They were two stroke V8s and were so poor in performance that eventually they were replaced, from 1967 onwards, with GE units. Their failure, and the success of GE powered engines meant that, for decades, Ireland sourced all its engines from GE in the US (though many were actually Canadian built)

Phil Blinkhorn

27/09/12 – 06:58

All four of the EE-bodied open-top TD4s survive, although to the best of my knowledge, none are currently roadworthy. No 5, originally 115, is privately preserved, No 6 (117) is at the Nort West Museum of Road Transport in St Helens, No 7 (125) is currently under restoration with the City of Portsmouth Preserved Transport Depot, whilst No 8 (127), owned by Portsmouth City Museums, is in exile at Milestones Museum, Basingstoke. I can think of no other instance in which a local authority has chosen to place its heritage on display in a museum some 40 miles away. This bus belongs in its home city!!!

Philip Lamb

27/09/12 – 06:59

Chris H’s comment about Crossleys not usually venturing very far from the North West. Up here in the back of beyond as some politicians refer to the North East, South Shields and Sunderland Corporations both had a sprinkling of Crossleys, but they were the exception rather than the rule, and off hand I cant think of any others in the area.

Ronnie Hoye

28/09/12 – 07:37

I’ve been informed that the N.E.B.P.T. Ltd collection has two of Sunderland Corporation’s Crossley’s. They’re 13 and 22, registrations GR 7100 and GR 9007. I don’t know what state of repair they’re in at the moment, but if they are being restored the trust sets very high standards and it will be interesting to see the end result.

Ronnie Hoye

28/09/12 – 18:09

A PS to my PS, if you go to your web search and type in GR 9007 there are several pictures of the restored no13 in the original red livery of Sunderland Corporation.

Ronnie Hoye

29/09/12 – 07:38

Sunderland 13 is preserved in Essex by Tont Melia and John Jackson. These restorers extraordinaire are currently working on a Northampton Crossley with Roe body.

Philip Lamb

29/09/12 – 12:23

Just to clarify Chris H’s point about Crossleys being unusual outside the north west, in the late ‘forties quite a few operators throughout the country bought one batch of Crossleys, partly because Crossley offered what turned out to be very optimistic delivery times, and partly because they were impressed by the performance of the demonstrator with the original cylinder head with Saurer features, performance that was of course not replicated by the production vehicles, which is why there were no repeat orders. In the south, for instance, apart from Portsmouth, Eastbourne, Plymouth, Reading, and Luton all had one batch of Crossleys.

Michael Wadman

05/06/17 – 06:56

Although some of the 25 Crossley DD42/7T’s received Leyland engines from scrapped Corporation TD4’s, I’ve recently found out that some were taken from ex-Yorkshire Woollen District TS’s, which were driven down to Portsmouth before the engines were removed and overhauled. The engineless remains were towed to J Strudwick’s scrapyard at Bedhampton Chalk Pit, where most of Portsmouth’s trolleybuses also met their fate.

Chris Hebbron

06/06/17 – 07:01

Chris – this has answered a question that has been in my mind for over 50 years. PSV Circle PH14 details only 23 TD4/Craven vehicles whose engines were used and the remaining TD4/Leylands were still operational until after the conversion.Despite many years of interest in this operator I had no idea that withdrawn Leylands were obtained to make up the numbers. Does anyone know what Yorkshire Woollen vehicles were used?

Pat Jennings

06/06/17 – 07:01

Chris, I’m not sure about that transfer being a Corporation exercise. Wasn’t this a Southdown exercise to convert petrol-engined buses and coaches to diesel?

Michael Hampton

07/06/17 – 05:31

I have also tried to work out how many TD4/Cravens buses donated their engines to the Crossleys. I have sometimes thought that the earlier TD4/EEC buses (those 8 not converted to open-top) were also used for this purpose. I once noted a Leylandised Crossley’s radiator, and it had a number stamped on the upper part of the radiator side. This was "122", and I thought then that this was to show that it now had the engine from TD4 No.122, which was indeed one of the EEC-bodied batch of 1935. The PH14 book records this as withdrawn in March 1956, a little early for the conversion programme, but perhaps the engine was set aside for spares initially, and then used for the Crossley. At the time, I half intended to list these numbers, but I went away to College and never got around to it. I’ve never seen any fleet history mention engines coming from outside Corporation sources, although it would be fascinating if this was the case.

Michael Hampton

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

04/12/17 – 06:40

Further to Chris Hebbron’s comment of 05/06/17, various letters have recently appeared in ‘Broad Street Broad Sheet’ – the magazine of ‘City of Portsmouth Preserved Transport Depot’ regarding the Crossley buses receiving engines from scrapped Yorkshire Woollen District buses. It appears that this was incorrect information provided by someone at Strudwick’s scrapyard and that the the Portsmouth Crossley buses that were re engined received them from Portsmouth Leyland TD4’s

Andy Hemming

Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

Halifax Corporation Transport and Joint Omnibus Committee
1965
Leyland Titan PD2/37
Weymann H36/28F

Here we have one of Halifax corporations work horse Titans on a winters day. If memory serves me correctly they had very good heaters and were usually very warm although they did have a tendency to steam up a bit. Where I lived as a lad was at the terminus of the bus route and in those days the bus would stand there for anything from 5 to 10 minutes depending on its out-bound journey before starting back to town. When the weather was cold the driver would keep the engine running to keep the bus warm and I remember what a fantastic sound the engines of these Titans had on tick-over, very calming. The best sounding diesel engine on tick-over ever in my opinion though was the miniature train that ran between ‘Peasholm Park’ and ‘Scalby Mills’ at Scarboroughs north bay. I am not sure the number of cylinders 3 or 4 and probably water not air cooled but I am fairly sure it was a Lister engine, it could only be described as ‘music to the ears’.

A full list of Titan codes can be seen here.

———

I recall nothing warm about the earlier ones, as a kid I would huddle around the Clayton Dewandre heaters on the Regent III’s but buses of the 241-248 variety were way worse than the older vehicles, these later modified titans were better with moquette seating in the lower saloon and I quite liked the Roe bodied ones, but warm – no!

Christopher

———

06/10/12 – 07:28

I think this bus is coming from Queensbury through Catherine Slack with Windy Bank on the left. It takes me back to the time when I was without my car for a while when living on the Mountain in Queensbury. The Halifax double decker used to come up through Bradshaw. I remember the bus proudly wearing a plaque to it having been refurbished.

Alex

———

06/10/12 – 10:58

Actually it is passing through Cote Hill along Burnley Road, returning from Booth to Halifax. The cottages on the left are at the top of Bairstow Lane, obscured by the bus is the Peacock public house with the Warley hillside in the background.

John Stringer

———

If this was anywhere near Queensbury there would be at least a foot of snow not just a few inches, believe me I lived there for a few years. Three months of winter then nine months of bad weather is Queensbury.

Peter

———

06/10/12 – 18:49

I too lived in Queensbury from 1967 to 1986 and I got used to the weather until I’d had enough after 19 years.
Thanks for putting me right.

Alex

———

07/10/12 – 08:17

Peter, that sums up Queensbury pretty well from my limited experience of Halifax in the mid ‘sixties. Driving a bus up the "hill" was always an experience – not too bad until you got above Boothtown, and then the strength of the wind could be decidedly alarming. In really extreme conditions, with memories still vivid of trams being blown over, the double decks were replaced by saloons.

Roger Cox

———

Not to mention the FOG many a time you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. That’s why Percy Shaw of Boothtown invented the Cats Eyes so he could get home from his favourite pub at Queensbury, can’t remember it’s name, that’s an age thing I’m afraid.

Peter

———

07/10/12 – 10:00

Peter The pub is the Old Dolphin just outside the the Queensbury boundary at Clayton Heights. I saw him a few times leaving in his Rolls Royce Phantom.

Alex

Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

Morecambe & Heysham Corporation
1951
AEC Regent III
Weymann H33/26R

This shot of a Morecambe & Heysham Regent III shows the older livery of green with three narrow cream bands, the newer livery which had an overall cream roof and a wider centre band can be seen here. This shot shows off very well the half drop windows which I should imagine were just the thing on a hot summers day whilst tootling up Morecambe promenade. Morecambe Corporation buses did not have route numbers just the destination and this bus is destined for ‘Battery which is more or less the centre point of the Morecambe promenade between Heysham harbour to the south and Morecambe golf club to the north.
When I say Battery ‘is’ I may mean ‘was’, when I researched this posting ‘Battery’ the place appears on Google maps along with the a little bed denoting ‘The Battery Hotel’ I am presuming that ‘The Battery ‘was an old military building. But on Google earth there is no mention of ‘Battery’ and all I can see is a car park I presume it is the map that is out of date. Does the place ‘Battery’ still exist or is it now just a car park if you know please leave a comment.

The Battery was a large public house situated very close to the Heysham Road Depot.
Buses running to the Battery would normally have started the journey at Happy Mount Park.

Terry Malloy

The Battery Hotel still exists. The Battery referred to on Morecambe buses was actually a bus park across the road from the pub it was also adjacent to the Morecambe depot. A recent visit to Morecambe revealed that the site is now a Drs surgery and retail pharmacy Stagecoach run the local services in the town. In the seventies Morecambe had a municipal depot as well as a Ribble one as did Lancaster. Part of Lancaster’s municipal depot is now converted into upmarket apartments called The Old Bus Depot!

Chris Hough

I believe that before Morecambe was developed as a holiday resort and expanded accordingly there was a firing range on the sands between Morecambe & Heysham with the Battery Hotel taking its name from an artillery battery which had been sited nearby. The bus park across the road took its name from the pub, which still gives its name to a timing point on the local bus network although a medical centre/pharmacy now stands on the site of the Battery Bus Park. The Battery is the boundary point between Morecambe & Heysham which were separate local authorities until 1928 when Heysham Urban District and Morecambe Borough Councils merged, the Morecambe & Heysham Corporation bus depot which was a couple of hundred yards south of The Battery was therefore in Heysham.

Ian Simpson

Morecambe were still running over 20 AEC Regent IIIs when they became part of the enlarged Lancaster fleet. Interestingly Morecambe were the last operator to run petrol engined double deckers they were certainly in use in the fifties. Also some of Morecambe’s pre-war double deckers had retractable canvass roofs for sunny weather a feature I would venture to suggest were unique unless anyone knows different .

Chris Hough

Actually the Battery was a field artillery station, when Morecambe was a training depot for the army in the late 1800s. The Battery hotel is named for this reason.

Andrew Wild

Yes Chris, the pre war Regents had roll back canvass roofs from the 1936 Park Royal batch up to the last pre war deliveries. These were panelled in during WW2. The relevant Park Royal bodies had an almost vertical rear dome to accommodate the roll up. I could never understand, as a youngster, why this was so different to the standard PR rear shape! There were some really unusual sounding destinations too, Bare, Happy Mount Park, Heysham Towers as well as "Battery" spring to mind.

John Whitaker

08/04/11 – 05:00

The canvas roofs were not unique to Morecambe double-deckers – in fact they were a short-lived fashion with coastal operators in the early/mid thirties, when they were of course very common on coaches. Southdown certainly had some Short-bodied TDs of this type, one of which I believe still survives.

David Jones

21/04/11 – 06:18

And not just coastal operators. Cheltenham & District had a couple of them for some inexplicable reason!

Chris Hebbron

21/04/11 – 06:31

Perhaps for the Cheltenham (Gold Cup) Festival?

David Oldfield

29/01/12 – 07:28

As youngster I travelled on these buses regularly in the 1950’s. They were always immaculate and looked very smart in their green livery. During the early 1980’s one restored bus, fleet no.69, LTF 254 ran on the promenade Happy Mount to the Battery service during the summer only. Does anyone know what happened to this bus? 20 JTE 546 and 35 KTF 594 were advertised for sale by Quantock Motor Services in Somerset back in Jan 2011 – where are they now?

James Welsh

29/01/12 – 16:34

Nothing really to do with buses but the mention of Bare reminds me that in the 1950s my grandparents and I always visited Morecambe for the Illuminations. We always came on a Yorkshire Woollen excursion and the coach always stopped for a refreshment stop at Ye Old Naked man at Settle. My Grandfather always cracked the same joke saying that the man lived at Bare. The premises are still at Settle but I don’t think that many coaches stop there these days.

Philip Carlton

17/04/12 – 07:03

At the risk of being accused of wandering ‘off topic’, there were (are they still there?) two establishments in the eastern part of Morecambe called the Bare Tennis Club and the Bare Women’s Institute, causing some merriment to visitors. I attended Morecambe Grammar School’s 6th form in the mid 1960’s, and several of my classmates hailed from the White Rose county. They called Morecambe "British West Bradford"!

Pete Davies

20/04/12 – 18:13

Re the diversion to the Bare district of Morecambe, I once read or heard that Morecambe Corp would run a fast duplicate service to that area, leaving the regular service for more local people. At the starting point, the conductress on the duplicate would apparently call out "Bare people only on this bus"! Whether that’s just someone’s made up story, or actually occurred, I know not.

Michael Hampton

21/04/12 – 08:20

…..but it’s worth the telling anyway. Couldn’t bear to miss it.

David Oldfield

21/04/12 – 08:21

Shades, Michael, of the "Loose Women’s Institute" in Maidstone !!

Chris Youhill

19/06/12 – 08:23

Morecambe’s petrol engined AEC Regents were still running until at least 1965 as open toppers. I worked on them then as a conductor during that summer after leaving school. As they were only 7′ 6" wide, collecting fares with standing passengers was a nightmare!

David Platt

19/06/12 – 09:16

The pre war Morecambe fleet was a classic collection of thoroughbred AEC Regents, with beautiful Park Royal or Weymann bodies, and they are engraved on my childhood memory. All were new with petrol engines, and the post 1936 Park Royal examples had sliding sun roofs, panelled in during WW2. a few survived as open toppers, as described by David above. There is a fleet list on this site to whet your appetite, which also covers Lancaster Corporation.
I just wish that I had taken photographs of these buses, as it was this fleet, during my early childhood, which cemented my interest in buses. I realised at an early age, that buses came in different, but subtle shapes, and that our home fleet in Bradford had some of identical pattern (Weymann).
If anyone knows of a photograph source for this pre war fleet, then I would love to know.
Another fascination was the haphazard, gap filling fleet numbering system, only just recently unwound in my mind thanks to the fleet list submitted by Dave Towers, for which , many thanks Memories!

John Whitaker

19/06/12 – 11:44

Well John, Sheffield were past masters at haphazard gap filling with the fleet numbers and with routes numbers. Possibly a bit biased, but I always preferred Sheffield to Manchester but I have to say the Manchester numbering system was always far better and more logical – 1000s and 3000s for Leyland, 2000s and 4000s for Daimler and blocks of route numbers for routes leaving the city down a particular common corridor.

David Oldfield

19/06/12 – 16:05

John If you can get hold of the Lancaster 75th anniversary brochure from 1978 you will find several shots of pre-war Morecambe buses including one overturned on the foreshore. The brochure can be obtained via Amazon. There is also a Super Prestige paperback album about Morecambe and Lancaster buses.

Chris Hough

20/06/12 – 08:08

Thanks Chris…I have both those publications, and also the "Morecambe Bay Buses" of c. 1978. The Super Prestige one is well worth having if you are a fan of either Lancaster and/or Morecambe. I just love the pre-war Lancaster "English Electric" flavour too! Bus shapes very similar to the Bradford Regen trolleys I was brought up with!

John Whitaker

21/06/12 – 06:57

Picking up David’s point, Manchester’s fleet numbering system was certainly a model of neatness, but its rationalisation of route numbers into corridor blocks was not without its critics. It has been suggested that it was far easier for passengers to remember the difference between 50, 64 and 161 than between the 41, 44 and 45 that replaced them.

Peter Williamson

10/10/12 – 09:34

Other than for a couple of brief breaks I lived in Morecambe from late 1958 up to 1982 and am therefore able to confirm/correct some of the above.
A bus coming along the promenade showing ‘Battery’ may indeed have come from Happy Mount Park, or it may have come from Central Pier. M & H were famous for sending spare crews out doing ‘promenades’, i.e. extras between the Battery and Central Pier – even when there was no earthly need for them! The turning arrangement at Central Pier was to back into a side street (Clarence Street I think it was called) – it would never be tolerated these days.
Buses also terminated at the Battery on the so-called ‘Circular’ service, i.e. Heysham Village – Battery – Promenade – Bare (Princes Crescent) – Torrisholme – Euston Road – Battery. After the arrival of the Leyland PD2s in 1960/62, they were the usual performers on the route.
I wouldn’t say that the Battery bus parking area was ‘adjacent’ to the depot – the depot being a full bus stop distance away. Don’t remember a firing range on the sands, but had there been one I probably wouldn’t have remembered it anyway.
I haven’t previously heard that the boundary between Morecambe and Heysham was at the Battery, or that the bus depot was in Heysham, but I’ve never been too sure where the boundary actually was so I’d better abdicate on this point.
I feel sure that the restored Regent III which ran on the promenade in the 1980s could only have been number 20 (JTE 546). Number 69 (KTF 254) was sold to the Mersey & Calder Bus Preservation Group in the late 1970s and is still, I believe, in preservation at present.
KTF 594 was fleet number 65 while with M & H.
I think that few people who have stopped for a break at Settle and parked in the car/coach park – even bus enthusiasts – will have realised that there is a bus depot located there. It certainly doesn’t stand out.
I think, Pete, that you have mentioned elsewhere that you attended Morecambe Grammar School in the 1960s. I did a full seven-year ‘stretch’ (1960-67) and I sincerely hope that your own experience of the place was significantly more positive than my own. This is perhaps a long shot, but did you happen to be a pal of one of the Mollitt twins? I wouldn’t be able to remember which one, but one thing I can remember is that they had forenames with the same initial letter – James and John I think.
Never known non-stop extras to Bare, I think that story’s apocryphal.
Morecambe’s last two pre-war Regents, 25 and 49, last ran, I think, in the summer of 1966, but they were diesel-engined by that time. I believe the conversion was quite late – possibly c1960 – by which time they were the only survivors. They were converted to open-top in time for the 1962 season, having been made surplus by the arrival of PD2As 90 and 91. When they were converted I believe the original gearboxes were retained, and as a diesel engine is much slower-revving than a petrol this made them hopelessly undergeared. I’ve heard that the drivers called them ‘two-gear’ buses – which would mean either second then top, or perhaps third then top.

David Call

24/06/13 – 11:40

James Welsh (29/01/12) above asks whatever happened to LTF 254. Well it is preserved and was in service at the Ribble event in Morecambe this year – my picture was taken at Heaton Park on 4/9/2011

Ken Jones

24/03/14 – 13:46

Mention of petrol engined open-top Regents running until 1965 was a little off the mark. The last petrols (enclosed deckers) ran after the 1959 season, new Leylands replacing them the following winter. Two petrols had been converted to diesel after the war – these engines subsequently getting switched to ‘newer’ examples, and it was these which became open-topped from 1962 lasting till 1967 by when some Regent IIIs had been cut down. Open top 65 and enclosed 20 were sold by Quantock late in 2011 passing to Ukraine, 65 known to have been put into use at Sevastopol in red as "London Bus Cafe" (what else!).

Richard Allen

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

16/09/16 – 06:17

Last November John Hewitt and Daren Hunt bought MTE 635 from Ken Wade. Hopefully back on the road in 2 years time.

John Hewitt