Author: admin
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Aldenham & ‘CU’ numbers
Alan Bond Identity swapping between vehicles of identical make and model went on from the time that the LGOC moved its overhaul systems to the new Chiswick works in 1922. This meant that as a vehicle went into works for overhaul its identity was taken over by a freshly overhauled vehicle. The system operated through…
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Rebodying in Bradford
John Whitaker We are all well aware that Bradford followed a “Sow’s Ear to Silk Purse” policy by rebodying trolleybuses, but a lesser known fact is that they also rebodied some motorbuses during WW2. “Not a lot of people know that”, to quote a well known “Cockney” film star. Like the “Regen” trolleybuses, BCPT (Bradford…
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The Back End of the Bus
Phil Blinkhorn Of the thousands of photos of buses now on the web and in print, photos of the back of vehicles are very much in the minority. Yet many a subtle change in design can be just as easily gleaned from photos of the rear as much as photos of front three quarters nearside…
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Early interest in Buses
Phil Blinkhorn I’m not sure from where I get my interest in transport – it certainly isn’t a family tradition. In the late 1940s my father was a maintenance electrician with Williamson’s ticket printers of Ashton under Lyne which printed tens of millions of bus tickets. He sometimes brought transport magazines home and, even before…
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To School by Bus – Part Four
Phil Blinkhorn Not read Part Three Click here I mentioned that the daytime schedule on the #31 was not enhanced at rush periods and there was a good reason for this – the #31A. The #31 ran from Manchester, by 1958 using the Chorlton St terminus, to the Cheshire village of Bramhall and was exclusively…
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To School by Bus – Part Three
Phil Blinkhorn Not read Part Two Click here The alternative route to school in 1958 was through Didsbury and Withington, along Wilmslow Rd. As with the route along Kingsway there were two services available but they were of an altogether different nature to the #29 and #40. The Manchester #1 was a limited stop service…
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To School by Bus – Part Two
Phil Blinkhorn Not read Part One Click here In September 1958 the Manchester Corporation #40 from Parrs Wood to Albert Sq was entrusted to the Northern Counties bodied 1953/54 batch of Leyland PD2s (3300-3329) all of which were delivered to Parrs Wood where most stayed for the next 15 or so years until withdrawn –…
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To School by Bus – Part One
Phil Blinkhorn 54 years ago few children were driven to school by their parents and most of those who, at ten or eleven, passed the Eleven Plus exam and went on to grammar school (and not a few who didn’t and went to secondary or technical school) found themselves travelling by bus using normal services,…
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Days out with Martin Hannett
Phil Blinkhorn If you Google the name Martin Hannett you will find details of a man who made his mark as a record producer with Factory Records to a level which some describe as inspired genius and was so involved in drugs and alcohol that they, it is said, eventually killed him at just short…
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SELNEC and New Half Cab Bus Production
Phil Blinkhorn Whilst not wishing to break the date limits of this site, I’ve recently come across something intriguing that I’d all but forgotten relating to a design that definitely falls within the site’s scope and has brought up memories of something I tried to sort out in the 1980s and to which I never…