Sheffield Corporation
1959
AEC Bridgemaster
Park Royal H45/31R
Here we have a shot of one of Sheffield Corporations rear entrance AEC Bridgemaster. There was a shot of a Sheffield front entrance earlier this year (link here) and we had 2 comments disputing information, so I have done a bit of research and come up with the following.
There was six rear entrance Bridgemasters fleet no 519 – 524, 519 was delivered January 1959 and the remaining 5 were delivered in February 1959. Incidentally there was only two other production chassis built before the Sheffield six one for each Walsall no 825 and Belfast no 550, there was five other chassis but they were for AEC themselves demonstrators and test vehicles I suspect. The chassis numbers for the six were 007 – 012, it is not until April 1961 and chassis number 104 that the one and only front entrance Bridgemaster for Sheffield was built making seven in total.
So I hope that this sorts out the query into the number of Sheffield Bridgemasters, (unless you know different), my thanks to Bus lists on the Web (see credits) for most of the information.
519-524 were rear entrance with a row of five rear facing seats, Lodekka style, at the front of the saloon. This covered the gearbox/differential housing – which can be seen at the front of the saloon of all traditional half-cabs. On Bridgemasters, this was extra large – hence the reason on the front entrance version for the doors to be set further back and the strange small window.
David Oldfield
04/05/11 – 07:02
519 was a Commercial Motor Show exhibit in November 1958 prior to delivery. It was something of a tradition for Sheffield to have a new vehicle exhibited at what was then a bi-annual show. These were Sheffield’s first 30ft long double deckers and initially operated for a number of years on the 101 and 102 services to Gleadless and Herdings. They were later moved to the Dinnington services 6 and 19 where their low height enabled them to operate under the low railway bridge at South Anston. They had air suspension on the rear axle which I recall gave quite a bouncy motion as passengers boarded and alighted.
Ian Wild
05/05/11 – 06:53
…..and they hissed audibly.
David Oldfield
I would like to mention that the AEC Bridgemaster No.519 was a show model at Earls Court in September 1958. In early December it arrived at Queens Road and one lunchtime I rushed to the Works to catch a sight of it. My reward was to see the Rolling Stock Engineer, Ted Bale, climb into the cab, saying he was taking it to Leadmill Road. Unfortunately, I was not invited aboard. Taking a 101 route AEC Regent III to city, I alighted near to the depot, arriving there to hear Ted tell the Regulator, “Do a changeover and put it straight into service” on the 101 or 102 Gleadless route. The date was around 10th-12th December 1958.
Keith Beeden