South Midland Ltd (Witney) 1950 Bristol L6B Windover C33F
Photographed in Oxford in the summer of 1960 is South Midland Ltd. FMO 937, a Bristol L6B of 1950 with a Windover “Huntingdon” C33F body. Windover was a very old established firm that was known as a saddler and harness maker in Ottery St Mary from the year 1600. The family later became carriage builders, moving first to Grantham and then, in 1856, to Huntingdon where, by the 1920s, it became one of the largest employers in the town. Manufacturing premises held by other members of the Windover family in Manchester and Bradford were acquired in 1893. Production transferred in 1924 to Hendon until the firm sold out to the car dealers Henley in 1956. South Midland was a subsidiary of Thames Valley, with whom this coach first entered service as No. 555 in July 1950 before passing to South Midland some nine years later. It didn’t stay long at Witney, for, by October 1960, it was back with Thames Valley for a further year until withdrawal in October 1961. The following month it was sold to the Hampshire firm, Creamline of Borden, its subsequent fate being unrecorded.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox
29/01/17 – 07:11
I had forgotten Windover had supplied Thames Valley/ South Midland with coaches on Bristol Chassis. Other outside coach bodies on Bristol L and LL I can think of at the time were Western and Southern National- Beadle and Duple. Hants & Dorset/ Wilts and Dorset Portsmouth Aviation and United Automobile Services Harrington; can anyone think of any more?
Stephen Allcroft
29/01/17 – 08:45
Interesting post, Roger. Thank you. I think Borden relates to a chemical company and that you mean Bordon, in Longmoor Military Railway territory. Wandering, nay running, wildly off-topic, there is a roundabout at the junction of A27 and B3397 (Hamble Lane) which is officially Windhover Roundabout. Note the H. In this context it means a Kestrel. Does anyone know or have any ideas about the meaning in the coach builder’s context?
Pete Davies
29/01/17 – 09:48
Six Eventful Generations Bartholomew WINDOVER was a bespoke saddler and harness maker working and living in the town with his wife Mary. From 1633 when Bartholomew was born to 1796 when Charles James Windover died, six generations of the family lived through some of the most exciting times in British history. More here:- www.windovers.co.uk/default.htm
John Lomas
29/01/17 – 11:27
I have a model of this vehicle in North Western Road Car Company livery.
Richard Hill
30/01/17 – 07:12
Should have added the fleet number, 270, and the registration DDB 270.
Richard Hill
30/01/17 – 07:13
Yes, Pete, it’s a typo. I mean Bordon – at one period in my varied transport career I regularly drove Aldershot & District Loline IIIs through there on the Aldershot – Petersfield – Steep route 6. One of the prominent figures in the Southampton based group of the Institute of Transport when I was a member in the 1960s and ’70s was Brigadier Nightingale of Longmoor Camp and its railway.
Roger Cox
31/01/17 – 07:25
I don’t think the reference to “South Midland Ltd (Witney)” is quite right. This was the organisation set up in the mid 1980’s when NBC split the Oxford-South Midland business into two parts. In 1960 FMO 973 would be owned by South Midland Motor Services Ltd. This company had been part of the Red & White group and in 1950, on nationalisation, passed to the control of Thames Valley along with Venture and Newbury & District. The head office became Thames Valley’s in Reading and South Midland ran out of depot premises in Oxford.
Mike Grant
01/02/17 – 07:31
Withdrawn by Creamline in 1963, presumably for scrap.
Philip Lamb
01/02/17 – 07:31
For about three years, from 1961 to 1964, I lived in Southsea, but worked in Guildford. Every morning, the 07.06 slow electric train from Fratton would stop at Liss Station and on the other side of the platform would be anything from a WD Black 5 to a modest saddle tank loco pulling just two coaches with army/civilian staff who were changing trains for Bordon. What a comedown for such powerful locos as Black 5’s!
Chris Hebbron
22/04/22 – 06:53
Mike Grant is right about the South Midland company name in the 1960s. These Windover bodied L6B coaches were eleven in total, FMO 20 -26, FMO 934- 937, fleet nos. 545-555, and they were delivered to Thames Valley between March and July 1950. Two, nos. 548/53 went to South Midland in January 1955, but 548 was returned to Thames Valley in October 1958. Another six, nos. 545/50/51/52/54/55, were transferred to South Midland in June/July 1960, but six were sold out of service in October 1960, with just no. 551 FMO 26, lingering on until November 1961. These all went on with other operators to give further service for up to seven years. FMO 937 no. 555 was sold by Creamline in November 1963, and it was last recorded with a Macclesfield dealer in April 1965. However, four of these Windover coaches, FMO 21 – 24 were retained by Thames Valley, who scrapped the bodies, lengthened the chassis in house and replaced the Bristol AVW engines with Gardner 5LWs, thereby transforming them into the LL5G type. These were fitted with new ECW FB39F bodies carrying the garish radiator of the time and re-entered service in February 1959 as nos. 817 – 820. Their extended lives with Thames Valley came to an end between March and July 1968. FMO 21 went briefly to Elm Park Coaches of Romford before passing to Continental Pioneer in August 1968, being finally withdrawn in March 1973. FMO 22 passed to Rossmore Bus Company of Sandbanks who kept it until September 1972. FMO 23 was bought by R Hughes-Jones of Rhostryfan, but, in October 1970, it passed to E W Thomas of Upper Llandwrog who kept it until March 1975. FMO 24 was sold to F G Wilder of Feltham who disposed of it to Norths the dealer in December 1971. It then went to a Leeds contractor, H O Andrews who returned it to Norths in March 1975. Thus some of these machines, albeit in modified form, gave a creditable service life of up to 25 years. I acknowledge the remarkable Thames Valley history by Paul Lacey, the South Midland book by David Flitton and the bristolsu website as the sources of this detail.
Wilts & Dorset Motor Services 1948 Bristol L6B Beadle C32R
FAM 2 is a Bristol L6B with Beadle C32R body (with door) and it dates from 1949. We see it passing Beaulieu on 20 August 1978, while taking part in a vintage vehicle run through the New Forest. It included cars and fire appliances. It was owned at the time by the family who owned the village garage in Fawley – home of the Esso refinery and the power station.
Western National Omnibus Co Ltd 1948 Bristol L6B Beadle C31F – ECW FB39F (1958)
A 1948 Bristol L6B, when it was delivered to Western National it had a Beadle C31F body. Ten years later it was lengthened to a LL standard and rebodied by Eastern Coachworks to this FB39F style, I presume both happened at the same time. We see it in the Weymouth rally on 1 July 1979,
Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies
15/05/17 – 07:44
The very fact that this is a Bristol L6B with an ECW body makes this a thoroughly good bus, but what a pity that ECW fell into the trap of the then-current “mouth-organ” fad! I wouldn’t insist that they had gone for a proper Bristol radiator, which would have been the best-looking option, but at least they could have tacked on an enlarged version of the shapely little grille fitted to the SC4LK. Just one of my fantasies…
Ian Thompson
17/05/17 – 07:51
I have a “bought” slide of a Lincolnshire SC in DP guise, with the same style of front end as this. You are right, Ian. The usual SC arrangement is FAR better!
Pete Davies
17/05/17 – 07:52
The “mouth organ” wasn’t designed specially for rebodied Ls. The entire dash panel, complete with grille, was the one used on the coach version of the SC4LK.
Peter Williamson
18/05/17 – 07:52
Peter is right, and OBP has a page showing this type of SC4LK body at :- this OBP link Ian is right also, though. The grille is pretty horrible, though nowhere near as bad as some of the Detriot “inspired” excrescences that were to emerge from Duple in the years that followed.
Roger Cox
18/05/17 – 11:02
The front is virtually identical to the SC coaches but on the one CMS ECW re-bodied PS1 (JAO 837), the bulge is greater, as it seems to be on the L6B above. JAO 837 also had a slightly bottom curved windscreen and the side window framing is also different from the above L6B
In 1946 Southern Vectis added the first three post war examples of the Bristol L5G to its pre war and wartime fleet of the model. EDL 14 -16 arrived with Eastern Coach Works B35R bodywork, but, in 1961, all three were rebuilt with ECW B31F bodies for (what was then called) OMO operation. These later bodies incorporated the unprepossessing style of ECW radiator grille that must surely have been inspired by the dental profession. Having gained some 23 years of faithful service from these buses, Southern Vectis sold all three in 1969, whereupon EDL 16 passed through a dealer in 1970 to Nadder Valley Coaches of Tisbury, Wiltshire, with whom it is seen above in Shaftesbury in 1971. Nadder Valley ceased to operate EDL 16 early in 1972, and its subsequent fate is unknown.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox
18/06/18 – 07:27
I am sure that a contemporary BI has these as rebodied by ECW rather than rebuilt. Compared with a standard ECW L body the windows appear somewhat larger and the roof profile looks a little different although it could be an optical illusion. The treatment has an air of the SC4LK about it. I guess it is difficult to decide where rebuild ends and rebodied begins. Is there a percentage of the original below which it becomes a rebody?
Malcolm Hirst
19/06/18 – 06:03
Yes, Malcolm, rebodied is the better word.
Roger Cox
19/06/18 – 06:03
Here is another shot of this bus on its arrival in Shaftesbury.
Roger Cox
19/06/18 – 06:04
I recall many years ago coming across a bus with this style of body in Morpeth Market Place. When I first saw it, I assumed that it was a Bristol SC4LK, a type that I had not come across as United did not operate any. However on closer investigation, I found that it was not a Bristol, but a Leyland. As far as I was able to find out, it was a Leyland PS1 originally with Cumberland Motor Services, who’d had it rebodied, although what it was doing in Morpeth I have no idea. I assume that it had been purchased by a local operator. Perhaps some-one has more details on this vehicle.
John Gibson
19/06/18 – 06:05
Bus Lists on the Web has this as rebodied FB35F.
Peter Williamson
19/06/18 – 06:05
Malcolm, Messrs Doggett & Townsin’s book ‘ECW 1946-1965’ states that the Southern Vectis trio were rebodied by ECW in 1961/62. It is stated in the book that: “The demand for a smaller and lighter type of single-decker was being met by the Bristol SC type, as described in the previous chapter, but the body design developed for it was also used for rebodying Bristol L-type and other chassis in a way which made them suitable for one-person operation. The forward-entrance layout and full-fronted cab suited this requirement, and the body design could be lengthened if need be”. Southern National, Western National, Thames Valley and Hants & Dorset are mentioned as having Bristol L coaches rebodied thus, these being lengthened in the process to LL dimensions, whereas the three Southern Vectis L-types were not lengthened. Cumberland also had a Leyland Tiger PS1/Associated Coachbuilders coach similarly rebodied by ECW. Looking at one or two photos, the rebodied heavyweights appeared to have strongly resembled the SC in many respects, including the side windows, roof contours and the later more ornate ‘mouth organ’ grille. The SC’s familiar one-piece rear window was also utilised. One subtle difference I’ve noticed between the SC and L-type rebodies relates to the windscreen. The lower edge of SC windscreens is horizontal, whereas that on the L-type has a slight downward slope towards the outer corner of each screen. The other difference relates to the front wheels – the SC having eight wheel studs/nuts per hub compared with the L-type’s ten. So Malcolm, your comment that “The treatment has an air of the SC4LK about it” certainly rings true!
Brendan Smith
20/06/18 – 06:54
Cumberland in 1949/1950 got a batch of Leyland/ACB coaches registered HRM 79 and JAO 831-840 Between May 1958 and April 1960 all the JAO’s and the HRM were re-bodied, ten by Cumberland as B34F and one JAO (837) by ECW as FB35F. All were fitted for one-man operation. The ECW bodied JAO837 was unique for Cumberland but it was like the ECW bodied Bristol SC4LK coaches. Meanwhile, the Cumberland half cab ones were very good looking buses.
Hants & Dorset Motor Services 1952 Bristol LL5G ECW FC37F
KRU 993 came to Hants & Dorset in February 1952 as a standard half cab LL6B with an ECW B39R body, one of a batch of seven similar vehicles, KRU 988-994, fleet nos. 782-788, delivered between September 1951 and February 1952. In June 1955 the Bristol AVW engine in KRU 993 was replaced by a Gardner 5LW, making the vehicle an LL5G, a conversion that had happened surprisingly earlier in October 1952 to KRU 990, and to KRU 991 in February 1953. It would seem that the other four retained their Bristol engines. Between September 1959 and July 1960 six of these buses were rebuilt by the operator to full fronted FB39F configuration for OPO operation, with KRU 992 being the last to be so treated in January 1962, but this had the lesser capacity of FB37F. All the others had their seating reduced to 37 in the years 1961 to 1966. The frontal treatment of the conversions ranged considerably from the plain appearance illustrated by KRU 993 through a variety of front panel designs, some bearing the more flamboyant ECW “coach” style radiator grille. KRU 993 is pictured in Southampton in 1962 when it was still a 39 seater, the reduction by two seats occurring in November 1964. 787 was was the first of the batch to be withdrawn in January 1967 when it passed to a dealer. The rest were sold out of service in the following year. I acknowledge the //www.bristolsu.co.uk and the Local Transport History Library websites as sources for much of this history.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox
03/05/21 – 07:11
I assume the motive behind these engine swaps was to obtain 6-cylinder units for use in 5LW-engined K-types. The problem which BT&CC and presumably H&D found with the arrival of the KSWs with their higher power was that where older lower powered vehicles were mixed in with them they had difficulty keeping to time – hence taking 6-cylinder engines out of single deckers to use in the double deckers. Various other interesting features on H&D 787; the kerb view window similar to the SC type, the usual H&D sun-visor. This would also have had the pedestal type drivers seat with a catch released by a foot pedal allowing the seat to rotate so the driver could face the passengers to issue tickets. I always wondered about the safety aspects of these; what was to stop the seat going walkabout while on the move if it failed to catch when returned to the driving position?
Peter Cook
29/05/21 – 07:39
Far better looking than the leering toothy-grin radiator grille that marred so many other L rebuilds.
United Automobile Services 1952 Bristol KSW6B ECW H32/28R
Following all the recent enthusiastic comment regarding the Western National KS5G photo, I thought I would submit this, taken from a recently rediscovered early slide of mine. United’s BH27 (originally BBH27), PHN 809, a KSW6B, is seen operating the 109 Seafront Service around North Marine Drive in Scarborough in 1966, previously the sole preserve of the dedicated ‘Queen Mary’ Bristol LWL’s. New in 1952, this fine machine was withdrawn the following year, and after being stored for a further year or so was sold to North’s, the dealer, who sold it for scrap.
Ah, Scarborough 1966 – my last year at school. We had a week’s geography field course in Scarborough. Stayed at a hotel on Castle Road, not far from the Court House where all the United town services started and terminated. I seem to remember many of them were in the hands of KSWs. We had some free time on the Sunday afternoon and three of us set off on a KSW out to Cloughton, then walked up the closed but still intact Whitby railway line as far as Stainton Dale station. Very picturesque and great fun.
Stephen Ford
29/03/12 – 11:44
As anyone who’s been on this site for long enough will know, I’m an AEC man. If you pay attention, you’ll also know I’m a Bristol/Bristol man. Many happy holidays, as a kid, in Scarborough confirmed this and Bristol engined KSWs like this (along with similar engined Lodekkas) are part of the happy memories. I can remember days like this along the Marine Drive – and also the sea fret which was like a cloak around you!
David Oldfield
29/03/12 – 17:57
I would imagine that the area covered by United must have made them ‘Geographically at least’ one of the biggest operators in the Tilling Group. Their territory included parts of the Scottish Border Region, the whole of Northumberland and Durham, parts of Cumberland and Westmoreland and a huge chunk of North Yorkshire, in addition, they had a lot of what would now be called ‘Inter City Express Routes’ including the legendary twice daily Tyne Tees Thames service. Apart from any vehicles that came into the fleet as a result of takeovers, they were all HN Darlington registrations. I don’t have a clue how many vehicles they had, but they were always immaculate and would put many an operator to shame
Ronnie Hoye
29/03/12 – 17:57
What a nostalgic shot this is, it looks to be a very bracing day on the Scarborough sea front. This one has special meaning for me as well, as I took some of my first bus photographs with the family Agfa at the Corner Cafe while on holiday in Scarborough in the summer of 1961. I ended up with quite a few rear end views, some better than others, simply because I was quite young and shy at the time, and thus a bit reluctant to point the camera at a bus load of passengers staring at me through the windows! Consequently I still have in my collection a rather nice shot of the back end of NHN 149, waiting to depart the North Sands terminus on local service 108 to Holbeck Road. Happy days.
Dave Careless
03/02/13 – 06:58
Brighton in the early 50s had a lot of B H & District Bristol buses and if anyone from Brighton remembers the route 14, on that route was a Bristol bus that seemed to have more power than its contemporise. The 14 served a cross country route from East Brighton to Hove. This particular bus must have been supercharged or something similar. I think the registration began with HAP…
Wilts & Dorset Motor Services 1952 Bristol KSW5G ECW L55R
Here is a view of HMR 59, a Bristol KSW5G with ECW bodywork. By the time of this view, the 1952 vehicle had been relegated to training duties. She’s seen in the yard of the Hants & Dorset depot in Southampton, in March 1975. By this time, NBC amalgamations were in full swing, and the Wilts & Dorset fleet name was soon to disappear.
The view is of particular interest in that both fleet names appear, in Tilling style, on the side.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies
01/08/13 – 18:24
I well remember the changeover to Hants and Dorset in the Salisbury area. A typical NBC waste of money. Everyone I knew always said they were travelling on “the Wilts”. Under different management we have W&D back but in the Salisbury area they call themselves “Reds” and in Poole/ Bournemouth they are known as “More”. Goodness knows what this is supposed to mean.
Paragon
03/08/13 – 14:28
I know what you mean about names. locally we have buses run by ‘Et Cetera’ in the Chobham area. It sounds like they were an afterthought! Whatever is wrong with good old-fashioned no-nonsense titles, that did what it said on the tin?
Grahame Arnold
04/08/13 – 06:47
Grahame. I think you’ll find that the outfit you are talking about is the illiterate ExCetera – from Croydon – who seem to be cleaning up in Surrey at the moment. Living in Ottershaw, I am often in and around Chobham but have not seen them in service there yet. Working regularly around Croydon, I have seen quite a lot of them – and in the intervening territory.
David Oldfield
04/08/13 – 14:52
David Thank you for the correction. I also live in Ottershaw (26 years now) so we may have crossed paths at some point. I have seen the ‘Ex Cetera’ brand name on the Chobham-Woking route but there are no doubt others, as you say.
Grahame Arnold
05/08/13 – 08:04
I was in Guildford yesterday and there was a Buses Excetera vehicle passing me. There also appears to be a Coaches Excetera arm as well, the website not only giving a London Phone contact number, but also a Milan one! they do seem to cover the Croydon Epsom, Guildford corridor.
Chris Hebbron
05/08/13 – 10:33
Chris. I believe the coaches arm came first but I also suspect that it was a pre-existing company known by another name.
David Oldfield
05/08/13 – 17:42
FWIW, I read on the web that the Excetera came out of Croydon Coaches, but when I rang the latter, I was told that the Excetera had come out of EPI Coaches, also of Croydon and London.
Chris Hebbron
06/08/13 – 06:11
As a Croydonian whose wife comes from Guildford, and who spent many formative years in the bus industry at Reigate with LT(CB&C) and LCBS, and at Aldershot with the “Tracco”, together with years of moonlighting with Tillingbourne and North Downs, I prefer to remember the bus network in those parts as it was before the devastating Black Death known as Deregulation. Nowadays, whole swathes of industry, not just transport, are besotted with ‘rebranding’, for which they surrender stupendous sums to shiny suited simpletons in the “marketing” sector, and, in return, receive offerings of extreme absurdity that appear to emanate from the ludicrous world of Edward Lear. Grahame asks why things cannot now do what they say on the tin. Sadly, and increasingly, they often do – the tin has very little in it. Public service is now so shaky that one concludes it must be a punishable offence.
Roger Cox
06/08/13 – 08:23
I worked in Guildford, early ’60’s, working at Bridge House (long gone), by the station. We nicknamed it Bridge House over the River Wey! I’ve visited the town periodically over the years (wife grew up in Woking). I also seem to recall Safeguard, too. Also, an LT presence, with GS’s and RLH’s at Onslow Street. Is it still there?
Chris Hebbron
06/08/13 – 08:27
Grahame. Saw one in Woking yesterday morning. Roger, don’t hold back. [No, I agree with you all the way.]
David Oldfield
06/08/13 – 11:49
Chris, Guildford town centre (many locals continue to be under the misapprehension that the place is a city by virtue of its cathedral) was “remodelled” in the ’70s around the river Wey crossing area with a brutish, concrete abomination of a one way system that, amongst other things, obliterated the fine Farnham Road bus station. Onslow Street bus station over a footbridge on the other side of the river disappeared too, and Guildford now has its decidedly basic Friary bus station adjacent (inevitably) to a big shopping complex of that name on the site of the old Friary Meux Brewery. Mercifully, the old Dennis building at the junction of Bridge Street and Onslow Street has survived the devastation. Progress? (Another thing – have you noticed that policemen look younger these days?)
Roger Cox
06/08/13 – 18:00
Roger, having spent many years involved with marketing from both sides of the fence, as it were, I can’t let your remarks on “shiny suited simpletons” pass without comment. Marketing – as opposed to sales, is a very tenuous art, perhaps even a dark art. Over nearly 50 years I’ve seen it evolve (or should that be dissolve) from a tool to solidly position products and services in the mind of the buyer to a cure all for poor management decisions, badly thought out products and lack of understanding of the needs of the potential market. Unfortunately water finds its own level and if you are running a marketing company, an ad agency or a design house and you find that poorly conceived ideas are just as much accepted and command just as much income as those which take real thought, testing and development, the tendency is to take the line of least resistance. Equally to blame as poor managers who are prepared to accept lazy or shoddy marketing are the purchasers of the products and services so presented. There seems to be a trend in these islands where, as long as the product is cheap enough, doesn’t take effort to access or is perceived to be offered by a large enough institution, people take a laissez faire attitude. Just look at some of the very poor, banal and often totally irrelevant product advertising on TV. What sort of management allows an ad with a strap line “92% of 121 women agree”. More to the point, what sort of end user accepts such rubbish and even makes a purchasing decision on such an ad? Unfortunately far too many. This attitude extends into far more important matters: banks, for instance who change their terms and conditions at will to their benefit yet, if you as the other party to the contract want to make changes, you are told you can’t. Then the same bank will run an ad supported marketing campaign praising its customer friendly attitude and encouraging you to discuss your finances “in branch” – YUK! So, don’t blame those who provide the tools for such mediocrity, they are just trying to make a living and responding to the feedback they get from those that buy their services. That attitude may be morally bankrupt but morality in business can be a sure fire way to bankruptcy. Rant over!
Phil Blinkhorn
06/08/13 – 18:02
Policemen may indeed look younger but this retired one didn’t when he looked in the mirror this morning! The country must be getting very dangerous as all the coppers go about in pairs. Some of them look so young I am tempted to say to them what the Colonel said to the young officer in Dad’s Army “Haven’t you got a comic to read boy?” Seriously though they do a difficult job and in my experience it has always been a case of Lions led by Donkeys which also sums up much of our dear old country today. Back to the posting. I do miss the sight and sound of Bristols trundling round the streets of Salisbury.
Paragon
07/08/13 – 06:55
Thx for the update, Roger. So another town has been partially spoiled in the name of progress. You mention Guildford being thought of as a city, but many thought it the county town, too. Maybe it is now, with Kingston being lost to Greater London! Damn Edward Heath for his county meddling! I do know that Woking, a pleasant enough town in the 1970’s, is really ruined these days! But I digress.
Chris Hebbron
07/08/13 – 06:56
Phil, I accept all your comments on the matter of marketing. Ultimately, the client has to bear the blame for accepting trashy publicity and absurdly exaggerated product description. I, too, have gazed upon television advertising in bewilderment as product promotion soars to stratospheric heights of improbability and idiocy. You will have a better knowledge than I of the costs of each individual form of media advertising, but, when a telly advert screeches on for several minutes at outrageous cost without giving a clue to its ultimate product USP, then one wonders what measure of expenditure control is exerted at the client company. Branding has become a particular nonsense, and one suspects that some of the smaller clients are being bamboozled by professional marketeers into accepting names that belong more in a Doctor Who script or a Tolkien novel than in the real world of product placement. Sententious twaddle infects almost everything we see around us nowadays. The guy across the road works for the local housing association, which has adopted the utterly meaningless moniker “Luminus” (serves ’em right that it is usually referred to as “Loony Mouse”). His van bears the utterly vacuous slogan, “Demonstrating a more excellent way of doing business”. Quite apart from the uselessness of this blurb – the van isn’t demonstrating anything – whoever thought that up knows nothing of English grammar; you cannot have varying degrees of excellence – it is an absolute. Yet we see this sort of gibberish in advertising all around us now. End of my rant. I must press a cold flannel to my forehead. I must sound like King Lear screaming into the face of the storm.
Roger Cox
07/08/13 – 08:27
Kingston is still the County Town following the failure to decamp to Woking a year or two back. Despite the abomination that is the “Friary area”, Guildford is still a “nice town” in other parts of the centre – that cannot be said of Woking which has an even worse “bus station” (the road outside the railway station). As a pilcock, sorry pillar, of the Church of England, for many years I was under the illusion that a Cathedral imposed city status on a town. I was only disabused of this quite recently. There is at least one plaque on Guildford High Street extolling the virtues of the City of Guildford. Well, it would be better than some recently ennobled towns!
David Oldfield
07/08/13 – 13:07
Roger, in explaining the evolution and descent of much of marketing into mediocrity I failed to mention that, like you, I rage against such rubbish. Another nonsense, foisted on us “for our protection”, is the Data Protection Act. Example: talking on the phone to a UK government department this week I told the person on the phone at the start of the conversation that, after speaking to me, my wife had a query and I would pass the phone to her. During both conversations it must have become evident we were in the same room, that we have been married 42 years and that were exchanging comments to check information asked of both of us. My wife then asked a particular question which would have involved the person on the phone divulging information about me. This was 20 minutes into the call. She had to pass the phone to me so I could give permission for the question to be answered. Total b****y nonsense. Back to buses. The rear doors on the KSW, whilst no doubt a welcome addition for conductor and passengers, spoil the look of the vehicle. The width of the short bay and the jack knife doors are too similar making the rear of the lower deck look unbalanced compared to the rest of the well proportioned design.
Phil Blinkhorn
07/08/13 – 13:08
Well, this view has invited some interesting comments, has it not!!!!!! How a County Town can be other than in it’s ‘home’ County is beyond me. One of the early forms of Local Government Reorganisation – one of the rejected ones – was suggesting that Lancaster should leave Lancashire and go into Westmorland! County Town isn’t always the administrative centre of the County Council, of course – Appleby was the County town of Westmorland, but Kendal was the Admin centre. At least they are/were in the same County! Blackburn is another Cathedral town, but it isn’t a “City”. I’m not too sure about Arundel . . . Chelmsford is another place that has long been considered a City – the local football club even has that name – but it was ‘elevated’ last year as part of the Golden Jubilee.
Pete Davies
07/08/13 – 14:13
I like the way it says ‘This is a Driver Training Bus…..’ on the side, and on the front it shows ‘Training Vehicle’. It always rankled me when Yorkshire Rider boldly proclaimed our training buses to be Driver Training Units. Units ? They weren’t learning to drive a Unit – it was a bus for goodness sake ! They didn’t change their name to FirstUnit.
John Stringer
07/08/13 – 15:30
Don’t give Wirst Bus ideas, John. Arundel is different, Pete – it’s a Roman Catholic Cathedral and never in the same mix of cathedral/city arguments.
David Oldfield
07/08/13 – 15:30
Many of these comments remind me of my last years before retirement. For seventeen years I was a driver with one of the major supermarket chains, for the last seven of those I was a DSA registered HGV driving instructor/assessor, and as such I was regarded as management. All the instructors at the 20 odd depots used to say that there are two phrases that cover everything from incompetence to downright stupidity, they were “Company policy” and “Operational requirements”
Ronnie Hoye
07/08/13 – 17:24
The County Hall for Surrey is still in Kingston, though that town is now within a London Borough, having been annexed by the GLC in 1965. I think that this situation is unique, unless, of course, someone on the OBP knows different (and I bet that proves to be the case). It does seem remarkable that Surrey CC has been unable to find suitable premises for relocation in 48 years.
Roger Cox
08/08/13 – 07:27
It may be unique at county level, Roger, but certainly not at lower levels. The offices of North East Derbyshire District Council are within the Borough of Chesterfield, and when I lived in Newport in 1969 I was surprised to find the offices of Magor and St Mellons Rural(?) District Council there. In both these cases, however, the offices are/were geographically central to the strangely-shaped administrative area, despite being located outside it!
Peter Williamson
10/08/13 – 06:01
Two examples of ‘market-speak’ that irritate are ‘logistics’ and ‘solutions’. Haven’t the foggiest idea what either looks like, but there seem to be increasing numbers of trucks (logistics) and vans (solutions) carrying such items nationally. Presumably solutions are smaller or lighter than logistics. Whatever happened to the good old no nonsense word ‘haulage?’ As we know, in the bus and coach industry much heritage has been lost with the demise of such appendages as Traction, Automobile, Road Car, Motor Services, Omnibus etc. These titles of character and distinction have sadly been brushed aside in favour of the bland term ‘Travel’, or such corporate regional suffixes as ‘SouthEast’ and ‘The Shires’. Wonder how long it will be before a certain design and marketing consultancy will have us believe that bus operators are no longer bus operators, but actually ‘providers of local mass travel solutions’.
Brendan Smith
10/08/13 – 09:24
The word you need Brendan is “transit”. I’m sure Google used to use this on their travel directions, but it now says “Public Transport” presumably because people thought that was a route for white vans seeking logistics solutions. Logistics means we have GPS and know which layby you’re holed up in: solutions means we go very fast so the thing you forgot to send will still arrive.
Joe
10/08/13 – 18:33
In a similar vein, have you noticed that new roads are always named “Way” – never road, street, lane, avenue, drive, crescent or (a special Nottingham favourite this) Boulevard.
Stephen Ford
10/08/13 – 18:34
On the topic of logistics, the use of the word by transport companies is legitimate where you are dealing with certain types of haulage. Without getting too technical or digressing too far, logistics is the art or science (a bit of both really) of ensuring goods, equipment or personnel arrive where they are required, only when required and are fit to be used/take up their role on arrival. Originally a military concept, it has been applied to the shipment of critical items around the world using multi-modal transport, often through specialised hubs and can see an item in the course of its journey being transported by road air and water. There are specialists in areas from Formula One to oil rig equipment but the most well known true logistics companies are FedEx, DHL, UPS and TNT who, apart from transporting packages have worldwide contracts to move sensitive equipment and data for major corporations and governments in a way that ordinary post and parcel handling would not offer. Industry’s demand for continual production without the need to hold large stocks of components spawned the idea of “Just In Time Delivery” which created the need for much of the logistical planning that goes into haulage today. Even the delivery of greengrocery to your local supermarket from the point of origin in, say, Kenya or the Caribbean in a state where it is fresh, has a reasonable shelf life and can be consumed days after purchase, is far more complex today than just haulage from point A to point B.
Phil Blinkhorn
10/08/13 – 18:35
Once upon a time, when the universe was young, and a long lost language called English was spoken in the land, the term ‘logistics’ meant either a branch of mathematics, or the planned organisation of troops, armaments, supplies and transport for an advancing or retreating army. Transport, or as it is now seemingly forever to be known, ‘transportation’, is just one element in the complex package that constitutes logistics. The people that carry goods in vehicles from A to B are simply hauliers, whatever nonsense they choose to display on their lorries (though even these things are now to be called ‘trucks’). Taking up Brendan’s point, I think that the solution for mass travel must surely be the water on which a passenger carrying ferry or canal barge floats. In a world blighted by pretentious marketing piffle, the solution that we all need is a return to the language of Shakespeare and Doctor Johnson. I am not holding my breath.
Roger Cox
11/08/13 – 06:46
I always thought that TNT meant Tomorrow Not Today.
Paragon
12/08/13 – 19:23
Thanks Joe, I think you are right about transit – it flows much better than travel in the ‘strapline’ (now there’s another new word to conjure with!). Thank you too Phil for your comments as to the true meaning of logistics. As you state, the modern art of ‘just in time delivery’ is much more involved than traditional haulage, and there does appear to be a big difference between the two. However, the waters are muddied by the pretensions of some operators whose vehicles carry the ‘logistics’ title, when they should really be proudly displaying the word ‘haulage’ instead.
Brendan Smith
13/08/13 – 06:19
Brendan, you are correct about the pretensions of some hauliers. Strap line is hardly new. Originating in newspapers it describes a secondary headline or caption and Dickens, as a newspaper editor, certainly knew the term. It was adopted by the advertising industry in the early part of the 20th century.
Phil Blinkhorn
13/08/13 – 06:20
Phil, going back to your comment about the KSW’s platform doors, I think ECW may have been dabbling with improving the design at some point. Early KS/KSWs originally had the quarter bay ahead of the entrance panelled over, but on later models the quarter bay was glazed. In either case, with an open platform the design looked balanced as you say. However, with platform doors fitted and closed, if the bay was panelled, a ‘thick pillar’ effect resulted between the fourth bay and the first door glass. If the quarter bay was glazed, the result was the ‘three window’ effect you describe. The same thing affected the LD Lodekka when fitted with platform doors. However, both it must be admitted were still very handsome designs. In order to ensure perfect nearside balance on either model, I suppose the only answer would be to leave the platform doors open at all times!
Brendan Smith
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
16/08/13 – 14:35
A piece of totally useless trivia for you, Stephen, and nothing what so ever to do with the original subject. It would take far too long to list them all, but within historical boudaries of the City of London, you will find Squares and Alley’s, names ending in Lane – Side – Gate – Wall – Street Etc, and single words such as Barbican – Eastcheap – Poultry, but no ‘Roads’. However, with the boundary changes of 1994, part of Goswell Road in Islington became EC1 so technically it is now part part of the City, but it is not within The Square Mile.
Ronnie Hoye
16/08/13 – 18:31
Thanks Ronnie – I do totally useless trivia !
Stephen Ford
21/08/13 – 06:33
A London EC post code does not indicate that the place is in the City. Fifty odd years ago when I was at school there Goswell Road and nearby City Road had EC1 postal addresses. Incidentally the Tower of London has an EC3 post code but is not in the City.
Wilts & Dorset Motor Services 1952 Bristol KSW5G ECW L27/28R
HWV 294 is a Bristol KSW5G dating from 1952 [like the photographer] and has been fully restored by Roger Burdett internally, externally and mechanically. It will be at various rallies in 2014. It has a L27/28R ECW body and was new to Wilts and Dorset as their 365. If anyone has more information or dates as to it use between it’s withdrawal and now please do not hesitate to leave a comment. The restoration was completed in March 2014.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones
29/04/14 – 10:17
Odd how with the passage of time you learn to see things differently. As a young enthusiast 50-odd years ago, on the lookout for surviving prewar stuff and always drawn to fleets where scarcely any two vehicles were alike (the storeman’s nightmare) I used to think: “Oh, no! Not another Bristol! Can’t we have a bit of variety?” In my short spell at Thames Valley I came to realise that the KSW was one of the great classics of all time, which fully deserved its ubiquity, so many thanks to Roger Burdett for this fine restoration. Looking forward to a ride! Will she be at Warminster? Keep us posted, Roger!
Ian Thompson
29/04/14 – 13:25
I think I would agree, Ian. The KSW was a classic – but I preferred the less common highbridge version; Lincolnshire and United in particular. This was also the same body as Sheffield’s B & C fleet PD2s. I was ambivalent about the tin fronts but erred on the side of exposed radiators. A KSW against a Sheffield PD2? The exposed radiator KSW any time.
David Oldfield
30/04/14 – 07:28
It was meant to make it’s first public appearance at The Quorn Rally last Saturday. I was one of those on board when it left Roger’s place to pick up others at Birmingham International, and then onto the M42 where the front offside tyre went before you can say I like Bristols. We had to wait for a following BMMO S15 to come to the rescue and Roger had to wait with the bus for a recovery vehicle. He hopes to have everything sorted so that it appears at the Taunton Rally on May 11th.
Ken Jones
30/04/14 – 07:29
Thanks for pointing out the ECW-bodied PD2s to me, David. I was completely unaware of them! Very handsome machines. If only one had survived… Forgot in my previous comment to thank Ken for these fine shots—especially the interior one.
Ian Thompson
30/04/14 – 18:48
Two superb pictures of a gloriously restored classic vehicle – takes me back happily to 1951, when four such vehicles positively stunned us all with admiration when West Yorkshire RCC treated us to the allocation at “Lil’ old Ilkley depot.” 806 – 809, later becoming DBW 1 – 4, and returning briefly to ECW to be retrofitted with platform doors – long before “retrofitted” became an “in” word. Now Boris, why didn’t you order a few hundred of these eh ????????.
Chris Youhill
02/05/14 – 07:42
Roger has found a gash in the tyre, has sorted it and is back on track for it to appear in Somerset for the Taunton Rally
Hants & Dorset Motor Services 1951 Bristol KSW6B ECW L27/28R
KEL 728 is a Bristol KSW6B new to Hants & Dorset in 1951. The ECW body was of the L55R variety when new. After withdrawal from passenger duty in 1969, it became one of the driver training fleet, with various alterations including the fitting of a sliding door and the replacement of most seats by concrete blocks. This was to simulate ‘loaded’ condition. We see it still in Tilling green and cream but with NBC fleetname in Grosvenor Square during the lunch break one day in August 1975.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies
24/05/16 – 07:05
Grosvenor Square where, Pete?
Chris Hebbron
24/05/16 – 09:01
Southampton! Shame cant see the registration of the coach behind. Wondered if it was H and D or Shamrock and Rambler.
David Rawsthorn
25/05/16 – 06:18
It was one of the ORU …G group, so H&D, but don’t ask me which one of the three!
Pete Davies
26/05/16 – 18:40
Living in Southampton as a schoolboy in the fifties, the Bristol engined Ks were familiar and friendly vehicles in the area. The KSW like 1285 was one of my favourite marques. The extra width, the style and finish of the interior trim had an edge (in my view) over other contemporary buses and maintained a brighter environment when compared to its successor, the Lodekka. This vehicle was the first of the lowbridge KSWs delivered to H & D and all fourteen were allocated for the bulk of their lives to Southampton or Fareham depots. In the final years most migrated to Bournemouth and Poole, where they still maintained an elegant presence in the ‘Pines Territory’. My final journey on this type was on 1294 in November 1970 on a service from Bournemouth to Wimborne. Happy days!
Peter Elliott
29/05/16 – 05:47
About 30 years ago a letter appeared in Buses Illustrated commiserating with the hapless drivers of Bristols and comparing their lot with that of those lucky folk who drove London buses. The writer suggested that you don’t so much drive a Bristol as wrestle with it and finish your shift in utter exhaustion. Well, he can never have driven a KSW, which has light, positive, bullet-straight steering, a light clutch, good progressive brakes, a gearbox less forgiving than some but still easy to get used to, a roomy cab with a good step and a firm handle to pull yourself up with, good visibility, reasonable level of engine noise, good stability… There must be something I’ve forgotten… As a teenage enthusiast I found the ubiquitous KSWs and LDs uninteresting but a short spell of driving for Thames Valley in 1968 taught me what superbly designed vehicles they were. What an indignity for KEL 728, having to carry concrete blocks around!
Ian Thompson
30/05/16 – 05:48
For my last 12 weeks RAF National Service (Jan-Mar 1959), I was posted to RAF Calshot, my mother living in Southsea. On Mondays, I’d take a trolleybus to Hilsea, a Southdown 45A which terminated at Fareham Bus Station, then the 77 H&D Bristol to Warsash service, then getting an air-sea rescue launch over Southampton Water to Calshot. The Bristol would have been in the yard all night and freezing cold, with frost inside the front windows needing to be scraped off! Arrival at our Calshot office necessitated laying the free-standing coke stove and getting it going before work started. It was noon before I’d really warmed up! The return journey on Fridays usually involved the Southdown 45 route which went all the way from Warsash to Southsea. So Fareham to Warsash was a shared route, with Southdown at its Westerly extremity at Warsash and Fareham being H&D’s Easterly extremity. Southdown usually put on PD2’s or Guy Arabs, but I seem to recall one Queen Mary, overkill for the route. But H&D had these KSW’s usually, which seemed quite civilised as I recall. It’s fair to say that these dozen trips on a Bristol bus constitute about a quarter of all rides I’ve ever taken on a Bristol in normal service!
Chris Hebbron
30/05/16 – 16:53
Fareham was not quite the easterly extremity of Hants & Dorset, Chris. During the three years I spent at Alverstoke (1949-52) my mother and I sometimes used to catch the Hants & Dorset service from Gosport (marginally farther east) to Lee-on-Solent or Tichfield and Southampton. The buses were Bristol K types back then, of course, probably K5Gs.
Roger Cox
30/05/16 – 16:54
As a very happy conductor and driver with Samuel Ledgard at Otley and Ilkley depots I regularly regretted that I would never drive a Bristol vehicle. However one morning I had to pinch myself as I reported to the garage to operate the 0807 duplicate from Otley to Leeds and back. Parked near the bus station with “Harrogate via Otley” on the destination blind was K6B KHY 746 (ex Bristol) – yes, it had suffered a front wheel puncture a few minutes earlier and had been replaced by one of our Otley vehicles. With fingers crossed I approached the output man for my bus to be told “You’ll have to take that 746 outside.” Well, what an utter delight the vehicle was in every way – the gears were like silk, the brakes smooth and superb, visibility great, and the Bristol AVW engine enabled it to ascend the two mile long A660 in fine style. When we got to Leeds the disgruntled and totally disinterested young conductor came to the cab and said “I don’t know what you’re getting excited about, its only a b***** bus.” So naturally I fully agree with everything that Ian Thompson says in favour of the model even though “mine” was slightly earlier and “thinner” – the pedigree was the same !!
Chris Youhill
31/05/16 – 06:24
Geography and popular opinions of places’ locations do contradict each other sometimes. Chris Hebbron comments on his trips to RAF Calshot. One might think that, being on the western side of Southampton Water, it is west of Southampton. Certainly, buses head westwards out of Southampton towards Totton, Marchwood, Hythe, Fawley and Calshot, but Calshot Castle is actually due south of the mouth of the Hamble, east of Southampton. Roger Cox mentions his time at Alverstoke which, although many of the present residents refuse to acknowledge it, is actually in Gosport and east of Fareham. A strange situation applies at Fareham, which used to have two signal boxes. ‘East box’, being nearer to Waterloo on the original line through Basingstoke and Winchester, was actually WEST of ‘West box’ which was further away from Waterloo. I have some American Railroad DVDs in my collection, with maps. The commentary mentions ‘compass west’ which is the actual direction of travel, and ‘timetable west’ which is the nominal direction. What fun!
Pete Davies
31/05/16 – 06:24
One summer in the mid to late ‘sixties I remember my Dad, a West Yorkshire driver, saying that he had performed a duplicate on the 84 Harrogate-York-Scarborough service. His trusty steed was an ‘SBW’ (Bristol LWL6B/ECW B39R) and I’d assumed he would have been disappointed at the prospect of having to drive such an ‘old’ bus, heading up towards it’s retirement, over such a distance. (What shameful thoughts Brendan, even for a early teenager!). Well Dad said much the same as Ian and Chris (Y) have done and relished the experience. I recall him saying how light the steering and clutch were, and that the gearbox combined with the Bristol AVW engine worked a treat. All in all an enjoyable day out by the sound of it. Just wish I’d been along for the ride.
Brendan Smith
31/05/16 – 09:03
Brendan – I can well appreciate your Dad’s delight with the SBW. Although as an Ilkley depot conductor I never drove one I consider the SBWs to be the very finest examples of the wonderful ECW postwar “L” variants. Not only were they supremely handsome and “tidy”, but within there could never have been anything finer – wide gangways, useful luggage racks, excellent stairs and sliding doors, good visibility, and easy passenger flow even with standing customers – that barmy over the top trendy term means passengers, customers patronise shops !! At Ilkley we had EB2/3 (31 seat luxury), SGL 14 (slim) and SBW 17/26/33.
Chris Youhill
01/06/16 – 06:53
Agreed Chris Y! A colleague used to define the difference this way (in connection with the railway industry): Passengers travel; Customers merely pay.
Stephen Ford
02/06/16 – 06:50
Chris and Stephen, bus drivers may be told by their employers to see passengers as ‘customers’ nowadays in order to promote real ‘customer service’. However, how many times do we see these same ‘customers’ treated with disdain, not by the drivers, but by the employers who cover the windows with Contravision, or vinyl promotional stickers and overlays, so that the allegedly all-important ‘customers’ cannot see out? ‘First still seems to be Worst’ in this regard, but sadly there are others out there. Thomas Tilling will be turning in his grave – if not already spinning like a starter motor.
Brendan Smith
04/06/16 – 06:46
Absolutely spot on Brendan. As is widely known, I ‘m in total despair these days at all the marketing, route branding, swooping “playschool” liveries etc – 99% plus of which goes right over the heads of the travelling public or simply understandably confuses them, and costs unimaginable amounts of money When will operators realise that all the Public want is a clean smart bus at the right time at a sensible fare. Now, where did I put that tin helmet?? I’m sure I got it back from refurbishment not long ago !!
Chris Youhill
04/06/16 – 06:47
Thx, Roger, for making me aware of back-door H&D route to Gosport. I confess that on the few times I used to go over to Gosport, I never saw saw an H&D bus/bus stop to raise my curiosity!
Chris Hebbron
05/06/16 – 07:10
Hants & Dorset did have a presence in Gosport, though. On the occasions when I travelled across the water (or took the long way round via Fareham), there was often an H&D Bristol K lurking against a wall behind the Provincial line up at the bus stands. I don’t recall if it displayed any route number or destination, but my impression at the time was that it was parked up for later use. As the Provincial fleet had my stronger interest, I didn’t take so much notice of it! I don’t know whether when it came to service, it drew up on one of the Provincial stands, or whether it went somewhere else to begin it’s journey.
Michael Hampton
07/06/16 – 07:01
H&D ran several services to Gosport. The 70 and 93 ran from Southampton, each one hourly. The 70 was converted to OPO and became limited stop as X70 around the time the last REs (XLJ725/6K) were delivered. As far as I recall there were other local services, including an indirect service from Fareham.
Nigel Frampton
08/06/16 – 06:06
The construction for an embryonic new resort (intended to rival Bournemouth) given the supposedly prestigious name of Lee-on-the-Solent began in 1885 and proceeded apace. A pier was completed in 1888 and a light railway line (maximum permitted speed – 25 mph) was built in 1894 to connect with the Gosport/Stokes Bay main line at Fort Brockhurst on the western fringe of Gosport. In 1910 Provincial Tramways began operating connecting services with its tram operations from Bury Cross and Brockhurst into Lee, but these stopped during the First World War. (The railway services to Stokes Bay and the Isle of Wight also ceased in 1915, never to resume). The overambitious original scheme for Lee-on-the-Solent was never realised and public transport revenues on bus and rail services were poor. Provincial lost interest in Lee as a traffic objective and the railway, too, entered a period of terminal decline. It was Hants & Dorset who stepped in with viable bus links through Lee to Gosport and Southampton, and I understand that these still exist, though the vehicles when I last travelled on the route were attired in the absurd Barbie apparel.
Roger Cox
09/06/16 – 16:56
Hants & Dorset had an outstation at Gosport – in the early post-war period at Little Beach Road, and from the mid 1950s until early 1970s in Harbour Road (just off the A32 Mumby Road, north of the High Street), where there was a small waiting room as well as parking space. There were ‘local’ services to Hill Head, Lee-on-Solent, Heathfield and HMS Aerial, together with Gosport to Fareham via Rowner (79) and 3 routes from Gosport to Southampton 70 and 93 (both via Lee-on-Solent and Bursledon) and 76 (via Fareham and Botley). Hants and Doret had acquired the operations of independent, Tutt, in 1924 to which were others were – which formed the basis of the H&D services in the Gosport area.
Peter Delaney
18/06/16 – 06:08
Here is a picture of another KSW6B of similar vintage to KEL 728, but operated by the neighbouring company of Thames Valley. GJB 275, fleet no. 637, was also a 1951 vehicle, but differed in being equipped with a “coach” CL27/26RD body with platform doors. Thames Valley had nine of these buses for the Reading-London service “B”, though, because the route was covered by Green Line 704 and 705 between London and Slough, pick up and set down restrictions applied over that section. All the early production KSWs had either the Gardner 5LW or the alternative Bristol AVW of 8.1 litres supposedly developing the magic figure of 100 bhp that was often optimistically claimed by manufacturers in the early post war period – Leyland, Crossley and Daimler were others, together with Dennis, though the Guildford claim was accurate. The AVW was a basically sound dry liner engine manufactured also in horizontal form, unlike the troublesome wet liner BVW 8.9 litre design that succeeded it. The KSW6G did not become available until 1952 with the “K” version of the 6LW yielding a genuine 112 bhp. Were there initially some behind the scenes pressures on Tilling Group companies to accept the Bristol six cylinder engine to reduce production costs and free the manufacturer to some extent from the constraints of Gardner supplies? The Thames Valley “coach” KSWs ran on the “B” service for many years, latterly as relief vehicles, and GJB 275 is pictured in Victoria Coach Station on such duties in the summer of 1960. One wonders how a lowbridge bus of this type would be received by the “discerning customers” on such a lengthy route today, though I, for one, would jump at the opportunity.
Roger Cox
21/12/16 – 06:32
I remember taking a bus similar to this model from Romsey to Southampton on Route number 63. In the late 1960s, all the buses that ran to and from Romsey used to terminate or start their routes actually from Romsey Town Centre, this was before the Romsey bus station was even built, the sight formally having been occupied by the old Jam factory. I can remember that there were several routes operated by Hants and Dorset, and one of these was shared with Wilts and Dorset. Whilst single decker’s ran the routs 60 Braishfield to Southampton ( via Romsey, Ower, Totton, Millbrook. ) Route 66 Romsey to Winchester and then back and then ran Romsey to Salisbury via West Wellow, Shootash. This service was the shared route as you either got a Hants & Dorset or Wilts & Dorset bus in either direction. The 65 went to Eastleigh via North Badesley, and the original Castle Lane. The 65 was run by both single and double deck vehicles. The number 61, 62, 63 all ran Romsey to Southampton. One via Upton Crescent Rownhams and Nursling, Shirley and Southampton. 62 Romsey to North Baddesley Rownhams Lane, Horns Inn Nursling, Shirley, Southampton and the 63 Romsey North Baddesley, Chilworth, Inner Avenue, thence into Southampton. The 64 route ran Shootash and also served a number of the local villages, this was always a single deck service. Hants and Dorset and Wilts and Dorset drivers were some real characters, very friendly and helpful. I remember two particular drivers who did long service on some of these routes. Geoff Whitfield being one of these people. There was also a older chap called Stan. Didn’t ever know his last name, and it wasn’t Butler! but he was a character that made travelling on these routes a pleasure, and a lot of fun. Pity we don’t have these routes now.
Western National Omnibus Co Ltd 1950 Bristol KS5G ECW L27/28R
In 2009 preserved Western National LTA 813 visited the Plymouth Rally travelling under it’s own power there and back from it’s base in Coventry. One of the people travelling back with it was Ken Jones originally from Taunton in Somerset. He managed a photographic stop in the rain at The Parade in Taunton recreating a scene for the 274 service to Roman Road which he used to catch in his youth.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones
07/02/12 – 06:51
A superb photograph of what a good British bus should look like! Having said that being brought up in Municipal Lancashire, BTC group buses and Bristol/ECW products were a bit of an alien concept to me as a youngster. They were only seen when holiday trips were made to far flung places like North Wales (Crosville) and Whitby (United) for example. Looking back now however I realise what fine vehicles the BTC had and what classy liveries they used, even if they were standardised on two colours (with odd exceptions). I think of the two standard colours I preferred the red. In the 1950’s they also sported very clear and practical destination displays. It’s a great pity they were not always used correctly and as time progressed were reduced by painting out or taping over. Speaking of destination displays, many of the BTC companies showed the fleetname in the destination display. On an outing by coach to Chester Zoo as a boy, I remember seeing lots of vehicles showing ‘Crosville’ on the front and rear destination display. In my innocence I thought this was a place and with the number of buses going there, a pretty big place as well. I never did find it on any map!
Philip Halstead
07/02/12 – 10:58
I think that destination blinds could easily warrant a subject of their own! Two from opposite ends of the country were ‘WORLD’S END’ on Southdown buses around Petersfield. and Glasgow trams sporting the mysterious ‘NORMAL SCHOOL’, the answer to which has always eluded me!
Chris Hebbron
07/02/12 – 15:11
Not to mention Booth and Fisher going “Halfway” (current terminus of the Supertram) or Sheffield Corporation Trams “Intake” – not a suspicious breathing activity!
David Oldfield
07/02/12 – 15:12
Destinations:- a few others that come to mind. “LOOSE” in Maidstone, “BEEHIVE” in Halifax and, uniquely in my experience, “NR. WILLESDEN JUNCTION” on the 630 trolleybus in London. I have never since seen a bus destination blind displaying a point other than the true terminus, but I am sure that our experts will come up with another.
Roger Cox
07/02/12 – 16:34
…and of course there’s the Tracky bus to (or via) JUMP!
Joe
08/02/12 – 06:10
Philip conveys my feelings exactly about what a bus should look like. I became aware of the new Bristol KS6Bs 810 to 813 delivered to West Yorkshire in 1950 when only 9 years old. This was the time when my interest in buses developed and when I see a lovely photo of a Bristol KS, I get flashbacks to my first sighting of a West Yorkshire one in Bradford. The Bristol KS/ECW was a classical design of bus and hopefully I can find one in my photo collection for a future posting.
Richard Fieldhouse
08/02/12 – 06:12
Other destinations that spring to mind are Spittal Tongs and Two Ball Lonan both Newcastle, Clock Face in ST Helens, Bleachworks in Wigan, Load a Mischief in Accrington, Boggart Hill Drive in Leeds who also went to Intake as did Doncaster. Bristol went to Fishponds and Hotwells while Manchester ran to Southern Cemetery. North of the Border Edinburgh ran to Joppa while Glasgow served Nitshill. West Riding used to serve Bottomboat while Pennine still serve Giggleswick
Chris Hough
08/02/12 – 09:08
Interesting comments about both odd destinations and the attractiveness of the Bristol Ks with ECW bodies. Can’t add to the destination discussion, (Loose was served by Maidsone Corporation and not M&D, so we confined our amusement to corny remarks about the Loose Womens’ Institute), and I do remember a lad at M&D causing an upset by producing a load of traffic notices referring to ‘Five Aok Green’. Richard and Phillip are absolutely correct, in my view, in their opinion of what a fine example the Bristol K/ECW combination was of excellent design that proved itself so well in service. I had exactly the same reaction as Richard when York-West Yorkshire took delivery of their first K6Bs, (highbridge, of course). Tilling/Bristol/ECW give the lie to the currently fashionable nonsense that state-owned commercial concerns can’t ever be successful or compete effectively with private enterprise.
Roy Burke
08/02/12 – 11:30
I preferred the KSW6B with highbridge body (United) or similarly clad KSW6G (Lincolnshire and Midland General group). …..an elegant and balanced design.
David Oldfield
PS: How many of you thought LMS was a railway station in Manchester?
08/02/12 – 13:42
I always thought the lowbridge KSW was the least attractive of the K/ECW combinations (though by no means ugly). As David says, the additional height on the highbridge version gave it balance. Personally I thought the narrower KS (and K) looked well in lowbridge format. In always associate them with Summer holidays in Devon and West Cornwall, where narrow roads made their 7 foot 6 width useful well into the Lodekka era. LMS? Nice one David. The giveaway was that all four (five if you include Mayfield) mainline railway stations in Manchester were LMS (though LNER managed to have a bit of London Road)!
Stephen Ford
08/02/12 – 13:43
Speaking of destinations, from Newcastle you can go by bus to New York – Washington – Quebec – Toronto and Philadelphia
Ronnie Hoye
08/02/12 – 16:30
Roger mentioned Halifax buses going to ‘Beehive’. They also went to ‘Cunning Corner’, whilst Wigan’s ran to ‘Dangerous Corner’. Bradford served ‘Idle’, and Huddersfield’s ran to a ‘Hard End’. No further comment on that one.
John Stringer
Careful everybody, the better half is a ‘Cunning Corner’ lass.
I’m surprised ‘Wetwang’ as not been mentioned yet.
Peter
08/02/12 – 16:37
I have to agree that this is a superb bus picture, and it brings back to me those happy days of working for Eastern Counties at Hills Road Depot in Cambridge, when I first started bus driving in 1970. At that time they had several ageing K5G’s with Gardiner engines–so easy to drive. The gears would fall in once you’d got the hang of it. I don’t give all these modern buses a second look, as they seem to be without any character. I progressed to London Transport at New Cross Gge onto RT’s which took more skill, especially changing down for sharp corners. What a brilliant website this is…it makes me wish I could do it all again.
Norman Long…Retired
08/02/12 – 17:36
Lincolnshire Road Car also did New York, as well as Jerusalem, and the quaintly named Drinsey Nook.
Stephen Ford
08/02/12 – 17:38
Is that Norman Long (retired) or Norman (long retired)? Peter, you’ve just mentioned Wetwang – actually a very nice village in the Wolds. …..but what about the late Mayor of Wetwang? As Stephen says, the lowbridge were not ugly – I can never remember ECW doing ugly. …..and can anyone tell why I can visit Washington and Ashington in West Sussex?
David Oldfield
08/02/12 – 17:39
How wonderfully correct are Richard and Roy when remembering the introduction of the KS series. I share that memory, and can still feel the excitement they caused, as they were so modern looking with their well radiused windows, and “unfussy” squarish outline….so unlike any other marque. Ours (WY) were KS6Bs of course, and I well remember the whole West Yorkshire Information Service fraternity being equally impressed, and coining the phrase “window specials”. It all goes to show what a quality outfit was the whole BTC enterprise. Unlike other nationalised organisations, it seemed to embody total efficiency, which must have been a carry over from its original Tilling parentage. These preserved ECW buses, and I have seen many over recent years, still exude that feeling of solid quality which they had when new!
John Whitaker
09/02/12 – 05:49
Morecambe and Heysham went to Battery, Bury went to Jericho, Manchester went to Exchange (sometimes via FOG!)
Peter Williamson
09/02/12 – 05:50
…..but there’s one I don’t recollect ever seeing on a bus destination display – Normandy. [In Surrey, between Guildford and Aldershot.]
David Oldfield
09/02/12 – 05:52
ECW quality – as a little lad I always had to sit down hard about three times before I was satisfied that I had got my money’s worth out of the satisfying “wheesh” that you got from standard ECW seats with the standard green and red criss-cross pattern moquette.
Stephen Ford
09/02/12 – 05:53
To my mind just about everything ECW produced looked just right – until the ‘sliced-off-to-length-on-a-conveyor-belt’ RE bus, and the early LH spoilt their reputation somewhat. They always managed to achieve the perfect balance of understated elegance and practicality. I also particularly liked the appearance of the lowbridge KS (in spite of its awkwardness from a passenger’s and conductor’s point of view), but it would have to have a Bristol engine for me. I know what Stephen means though about the lowbridge KSW – its extra width emphasised its squatness. Not bad though. One of my ECW favourites was always the LS coach. Just look at old photos depicting these on coach parks in their dignified, well maintained BTC liveries, parked alongside all the other 1950’s monstrosities and ‘chromeblazers’. (I speak purely from a design point of view, not their driveability, which may well have been a little different).
John Stringer
09/02/12 – 14:09
Couldn’t agree more about the Bristol engine, John, but even the RE bus body could look good in the right livery. [I’m thinking of the East Midland DP versions in pre NBC cream with maroon stripes.] I have nothing but respect for (especially the 6 cylinder) Gardner engines – in just about all applications; but I still prefer the Bristol powered (and indeed the Leyland powered) Bristols on offer at different times in the company’s history.
David Oldfield
09/02/12 – 14:10
You raise a very interesting point, John S, when you say ‘it would have to have a Bristol engine for me’. My own experience of Bristols is really limited to the comparison between the Bristol engine and the 5LW, and I’m sure everyone would agree with your conclusion in that comparison. On the other hand, I later developed a great admiration for the 6LW in Guy chassis, (and the 6LX too, but that really post dated the K series Bristols). I’d be grateful for the views of other correspondents with experience of both the Bristol engine and the 6LW in Bristol Ks.
Roy Burke
11/02/12 – 07:28
I agree with John Stringer about ECW LS coaches looking dignified. I think my top three coaches for being eye catching without being flash would be, ECW LS in United green and cream, the centre entrance Burlingham Seagull in Yelloway livery, and the Weymann Fanfare in a photo finish between BET cream and maroon and Southdown green
Ronnie Hoye
11/02/12 – 07:28
On the subject of destination blinds, Bradford C T ran buses to Tong Cemetery and also to Shelf. (Their operating territory also included Idle, famed for its Idle Working Men’s Club). Sandy Lane could also be seen on the front of a BCT bus – not sure who she was, but may have been related to Lucy Hall seen on some of West Yorkshire’s Bradford-based vehicles. Her distant cousin Hazel Grove, could be seen over in Stockport. (West Yorkshire and BCT could also take you to Dick Hudson’s if you so wished). East Yorkshire had the quaintly-named North Cave, and West Riding had buses stating “Hall Green”, which pre-NBC, most of them were, give or take the cream band…..
Brendan Smith
11/02/12 – 09:23
Ronnie, I would tend to agree with you on all three counts – but what about Sheffield’s cream and blue Fanfares?
David Oldfield
11/02/12 – 11:47
To add to Roys’ comments, I would like to contribute my own experience of the Bristol KS. I have always regarded the KSW6G as the “cream” of the marque. The Gardner 6LW was slightly larger in engine capacity at 8.4 litres compared to the Bristol AVW engine at 8.1 litres so consequently was more responsive and in my view gave a better ride. I would like to know what drivers liked with the Bristol KSW. I was fortunate enough to ride on both West Yorkshire KSW6Gs and KSW6Bs on a regular basis as these were rostered as School Specials each weekday morning. These were halcyon days in 1954 which I treasure and I was always thrilled when KSW6G 855 or 856 appeared. However KSW6Bs 853 and 854 were also good, as all the LWR registered buses (845 to 864) had rear platform doors, so I felt superior on my school special to other Bristol KSW6Bs on normal services with open platforms. Perhaps this was a case of bus snobbery but perhaps excused when you are young.
Richard Fieldhouse
11/02/12 – 15:12
David, you’re right about Sheffields livery being smart, but I think the destination blinds on the Fanfares made then look too much like a bus and just took the edge off them. As to the debate about Bristol engines, I can’t comment on that as Northern Group being a BET company we didn’t have any, however, we did have quite a lot of Guy’s with the Gardner 5LW, and later we had Daimler Fleetlines with the 6LX, and both were virtually indestructible. As a foot note, we had both, and for my money the Fleetline was a far superior vehicle to the Atlantean, one bad thing with the Gardner, or to be more accurate, the garage staff, was that they would check the oil level when the bus came back to the garage at the end of it’s shift and the engine was still hot, the less intelligent ones would then put about a gallon of oil in and complain about the amount of oil that Gardners used, the more experienced garage hands would check the level when the engine was cold and the oil had had time to settle
Ronnie Hoye
11/02/12 – 15:12
As one who has driven a preserved KSW5G (with platform doors) for nearly thirty years I would say that the 5LW is not really powerful enough for the vehicle. Although it will climb a mountain it just takes so long to do it. The problem is made worse by the maximum revs being governed so tightly. This means that on ascending a hill you cannot change from fourth to third until the speed drops to 20mph by which time too much momentum has been lost. The other aspect of this is that I’m never sure what to do at a roundabout, do I chug round at 21mph in fourth or use maximum revs in third at 22mph ? I suppose that there weren’t many roundabouts in existence when it was designed. One very positive thing about the KSW is the lack of corrosion on the chassis or the alloy frame of the ECW body after almost 59 years on the road. Having seen the amount of rebuilding that some enthusiasts have had to do on their vehicles, we are very grateful for that.
Nigel Turner
11/02/12 – 16:05
Point taken, Ronnie, and I would agree the Fleetline was superior to the PDR1 Atlantean – but the AN68 was a different story.
David Oldfield
11/02/12 – 17:17
Todmorden buses ran (and still run) to Portsmouth, a 15 minute journey, although not many terminate there now. I’ve read about Manchester buses showing “fog on route” and wondered what it was for – was it to warn drivers going the other way?
Geoff Kerr
12/02/12 – 07:13
I worked as a Schedules Clerk for SELNEC Central at Frederick Road for an all too brief spell in the early 1970’s. I seem to recall being told that fog around the docks area could be really severe and wreak havoc with timekeeping, and that ‘FOG’ (on the via blinds of ex-Manchester buses) was just to indicate to would be passengers the reason for late running.
John Stringer
12/02/12 – 07:22
Gentlemen..having lived in Bristol and for many years close to the Bristol works, I grew up thinking all buses were as good as “ours” and the ECW bodies were normal. In those days my travels to other areas were mainly, Dawlish and Devon General, South Wales and so Rhondda, Newport, Red & White and up to London for the joys of London Transport. Whilst I loved seeing something different, even then I appreciated the outstanding construction of the KSW and later LD/Lodekka plus all the other different Bristol variants. I clearly remember the joy of finding out when a brand new bus was due out and recall riding on KSW’s fresh from the works. Now, some 54 years later, on Bristol Bus Running Day held each August, I can actually stand at the same bus stop (now 100 yards further up the road due to “improvements”) and catch one of the batch of KSW’s that I caught each night to come home from school. Whether any of the preserved vehicles are one of those I caught on the No.1 Cribbs Causeway route I do not know but they are identical and so I can recreate that exact journey on a KSW/ECW that looks, feels and sounds just like those years ago.
Richard Leaman
12/02/12 – 11:00
Thank you, gentlemen – especially Richard F, Ronnie and Nigel – for your illuminating comments. Fascinating. West Yorkshire didn’t have many 6LW-engined Bristol Ks, (ten, I think?), and I never really came across them in York. I totally understand Nigel’s opinion of the 5LW; great engine, quite indestructible, utterly dependable, but, by the 1950’s its limitations in powering heavier vehicles – not just Bristols, of course – was making it a retrograde choice, even though a few BET companies persisted with it. Ronnie’s and David’s comments comparing the Fleetline with early Atlanteans struck a note with me, too. My views exactly! In his posting of a PMT PDR1, Michael Crofts makes the point that the Atlantean easily out-performed the Fleetline. True, but from a management point of view, early Atlanteans could have worryingly high running costs. Nigel’s ‘dilemma’ about gear choice for roundabouts in the KSW5G reminded me of one particular instance of that at Chatham. In a Guy Arab, you knew that you had to slow to 20 mph at the top of Chatham Hill in order to be able to select 3rd gear; bad drivers could, however, abuse the Atlantean pneumo-cyclic gearbox by changing at higher speeds part way down. I have seen a hole in a cylinder block that I could put my fist in, caused by this practice. Then there was the issue of centrifugal clutches requiring conversion, fuel and oil consumption, and maintenance costs generally. No wonder to me that M&D changed to Fleetlines.
May I venture another view on Bristol/ECW? In my youth, I was not a regular user of ex Tilling companies like West Yorkshire. When I did have contact with them, they seemed to be another version of British Railways: boring conformity in liveries and bus styles- red or green with no attempt at modern graphics in fleet names. The Lodekka seemed to be an old rather quirky design, again with a depressing uniformity wherever you went: drivers looked uncomfortable in that “half-decker” cab and they could sound like tractors (when we did live on a WY bus route eventually, the electrics played havoc with our TV/Radio reception). Compare this with Sheffield- say- dirt-defying livery, modern fleet name, early introduction of “new generation” buses & variety- even a few Bristols. Give me a Roe-bodied Daimler CVG6 anytime!
Joe
14/02/12 – 07:36
I think you’re being a bit harsh, Joe, but surely you mean a Roe bodied AEC – especially in Sheffield!!!???
David Oldfield
18/02/12 – 07:08
Bristols are definitely the best buses – but I’m glad my first contribution has generated so much discussion on so many points.
Ken Jones
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
23/02/12 – 07:16
To add to the destination screen saga Southdown showed High and Over on the 126 Eastbourne to Seaford route. My abiding memory of ECW bodies is of M&D’s Bristol L6A’s they seemed to have such deep plush upholstery, extremely comfortable. I made frequent journeys on the 35 route which ran from Ore (another odd destination) to Cooden Beach which had two low bridges. The LS coach was an elegant design especially those with curved glass in the front corners, the bus bodies were also attractive much more so in both cases than the later MW’s. Unfortunately my driving experience was limited to the later and lesser types VR, RE, LH the RE being the best of those. Being born and bred in Sussex guess whose colours I prefer on the Weymann Fanfare.
