Copyright Ian Wild
Potteries Motor Traction
1946
AEC Regal I
Brush B34F
This shot shows PMT S315 an AEC Regal I about to be towed away from Milton Depot for preservation by Hollis of Queensferry ex Western Welsh Leyland Royal Tiger FUH 424 on 10th October 1970 – wonder what happened to it?
The engineless vehicle had been in use as a canteen/mess room inside the depot for a number of years until modernisation came in the form of a block work structure in its place. The large protuberances on the roof are mains light fittings used in its mess room role. The bus looks remarkably intact although obviously would be short of some interior fittings.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Ian Wild
17/07/11 – 12:24
A most interesting vehicle – the removal of the awful “domestic wheel spats” and the restoration of the rear mudguards would be quite a useful start in its restoration.
Chris Youhill
17/07/11 – 12:29
Strange how unattractive the vehicle looks with ‘spats’ over the rear wheels. Were they an original feature, or an attempt to fool the mess’s customers into thinking it really wasn’t a bus at all! Where is/was Milton Depot? Funny thing about streamlining in general. IMHO, the LNER’s A4’s always looked superb with streamlining, but better without the their spats. Bulleid’s Southern Railway Battle of Britain and sister classes always looked much better after they were rebuilt as ‘proper’ steam engines! But I digress!
Chris Hebbron
17/07/11 – 18:30
Definitely not original Chris – notice how the bus is now fitted with only an inner single rear wheel each side. The new “spats” are built in with beading and there are no release catches to be seen. The routine changing of wheels would have been made impossible with such fittings, and the sooner they’re removed – maybe already have been by now – the better eh??
Chris Youhill
18/07/11 – 07:25
The rear wheel covers were definitely fitted when it became a static mess room. Milton Depot was on the northern side of Stoke on Trent, on the A5009 near its junction with the A53 Leek Road. It’s over forty years now since the bus was taken for preservation – I have never seen any reference to it since so I assume it has been scrapped – unless someone knows differently?
Ian Wild
18/07/11 – 11:35
Just a note to point out this bus is fitted with the pre-war style bonnet, radiator and front wings, so would be a Regal rather than the Regal mk.III that was introduced for the home market around 1947/8.
Eric
Thanks Eric I have corrected it, my mistake.
Peter
19/07/11 – 17:01
The “Surviving Single-Deck Halfcab Buses & Coaches” website gives this entry:-
Potteries S363 > S315 (in 1953), Regal {O6624981} / Brush B34F, 1946, KEH 608, Tom Hollis, Queensferry, N.Wales. Sold by 1992. Scrapped?
I think that we should fear the worst.
Roger Cox
21/07/11 – 07:34
I’ve been trying to find a little more information about the batch that this was from because I have a good memory for registrations and I remembered that Silver Service of Darley Dale had one. I have been unable to find a PMT fleet list anywhere so all I had to go on were old copies of Buses Illustrated for 1961. Silver Service bought KEH 602 in 4/61, KEH 603 and KEH 609 were reported withdrawn in 4/61 and KEH 600 went to Eagre (contractor) Scunthorpe in 7/61. The interesting thing is, all of these are recorded as having been lengthened to 30ft and having had Weymann 39 seat bodies fitted. The vehicle above, KEH 608 is correctly reported as being a mess room at Milton depot but no mention of the body. Does anyone know if this was the only one of the batch not to be lengthened and retain it’s original body?
Chris Barker
From the fleet history 2PD1 (price 10/6!) it shows that S306/7/14 were lengthened to 30 foot and re-seated. S309/10/2/6 had the chassis lengthened and were fitted with Weymann B39F bodies. This left S305/8/11/3/5 in original condition.
I won’t attempt to go into any more detail as the fleet history of PMT is far too complicated and I’ll end up tied in knots. It was a fascinating fleet!
David Beilby
25/07/11 – 08:54
The engineering feats accomplished by PMT make the fleet history somewhat complicated.
There is a fleet list (to 1977) within Geoffrey Smith’s 1977 history of the company, and the text explains to some extent (without identifying exactly which bus got what outcome). Unfortunately his 2011 book does not attempt to repeat/update this.
From the 1977 publication –
KEH 598 – 609 (AEC Regal / Brush B34F) were delivered in 1946 as fleet number 353-364, re-numbered in the post-1951 scheme to S305-316.
Between 1952-55 there was a re-bodying programme
Four of the batch received 1949 Weymann bodies (lengthened to 30ft) that had been new on a batch of Leyland OPD2 chassis (yes, single deck PD2s) which in turn received either new Northern Counties double deck bodies, or 1951 NC double deck bodies that had been fitted to pre-war Leyland TD4s.
Another five of the batch had their Brush bodies lengthened to 30 ft. This suggests that only three of the batch retained their original bodies unmodified. This contradicts what’s been quoted from the fleet history above. However, the 1977 book includes a photo of S313 in lengthened form. The one pictured above also looks lengthened – the original body style did not have 5 full length windows. The Milton garage was originally owned by the Milton Bus Company, which was taken over by PMT in 1951. Milton closed in 1980 as part of the ‘MAP’ retrenchment. The building seems to have been quite basic. Photos of past PMT garages including Milton can be seen on the Stoke Museums website here. The land around Milton Garage was occasionally used as a parking area for withdrawn vehicles, e.g. those taken over from independents and not used.
Jon
17/03/13 – 15:45
The Milton Regal was stretched. The fleet number had an 8 in a circle. I visited the Hollis collection to do an inventory soon after he acquired the Regal, sadly it had been kept in open storage on a old colliery and had been heavily vandalised and had been scrapped.
John Cooke