Author: admin
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Buses and Coaches in Sale
Neville Mercer Introduction Until the age of nine I lived in a small village near Northwich in the middle of Cheshire. One of the delights of these younger years was the monthly family shopping trip to Manchester, usually on a Saturday, which involved a long journey on North Western’s route 36. By the early 1960s…
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Selected Memories of the last Chief Engineer of the old big United Counties
Geoff Pullin I arrived in Northampton to take up the post of Chief Engineer of United Counties Omnibus Company (UCOC) in 1978 after training as a graduate engineer Tilling Senior Trainee at Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd in Bristol, Area Engineer at Eastern Counties in Norwich, Assistant Engineer at Maidstone & District and Assistant Chief Engineer…
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Selected Memories of an Engineer at Ribble
Geoff Pullin After graduate training at Bristol Commercial Vehicles, I started my career at the frugal but efficient Tilling Group’s Eastern Counties. When the National Bus Company (NBC) was formed, opportunities increased and I moved to Maidstone and District – an ex-BET group company that liked its heritage, invested in lots of new vehicles but…
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Eastern Counties Dennis/ECW Integral Buses
Roger Cox In 1938 and 1939, Eastern Counties took delivery of 18 Dennis Aces with ECW B20F bodies and Gardner 4LK engines. Two more unfrozen examples arrived in 1941. In 1947, at a time of acute vehicle shortages, a prototype Beadle chassisless bus appeared in the Eastern Counties fleet. It was one of four Beadle…
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W Pyne & Son Starbeck
Keith Todd My Name is Keith Todd, aged 82, and having been told about this website by my son, Ian, I feel I can contribute some interesting stories about Pyne’s. My father, Stan Todd, started working for Pyne’s in approximately 1947. George Pyne was the boss working from the original office doing the administration in…
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Guy Wulfrunian Demonstrator
Roger Cox The origins of the Wulfrunian design appear to date from 1957 and the prototype, OHL 863, took to the road in 1959. It was quickly followed by two demonstrators, 7800 DA in 1959 and 8072 DA in 1960, both of which were painted in a vivid livery of yellow with black trim, the…
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Halifax Passenger Transport in the Mid-1960’s – Part Four
John Stringer and Roger Cox Not read this article from the beginning, click here 262 (PXO 974) AEC Reliance MU3RV / Park Royal ‘Royalist’ C41C, new to Timpson’s, London E6. Following the success of the previous year’s used coach purchase and with the Countryside Tour and Private Hire side doing well, a further five secondhand…
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Halifax Passenger Transport in the Mid-1960’s – Part Three
John Stringer and Roger Cox Not read this article from the beginning, click here 423 (LUA 423) AEC Regent III 9612E / Roe H31/25R, new to Leeds City Transport (423) 1947. (Photo – John Stringer) There was a severe delay in the delivery of more PD2’s intended for 1964/65, due to a protracted labour dispute…
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Halifax Passenger Transport in the Mid-1960’s – Part Two
John Stringer and Roger Cox Not read this article from the beginning, click here 4 (KCP 4) Leyland Royal Tiger Worldmaster RT3/1 / Weymann B43F, new 1958. (Photo – John Stringer) One-man-operation was brought in on a more serious scale in 1958 when the Siddal, Norton Tower and Washer Lane routes were converted. To provide…
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Halifax Passenger Transport in the Mid-1960’s – Part One
John Stringer and Roger Cox In late 1964 following a spell with London Transport, southern-born Roger Cox took up the position of Traffic Clerk with Halifax Passenger Transport – the combined name for the Halifax Corporation and Halifax Joint Omnibus Committee operations – and spent two years there before returning south to progress his career…