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 at Ribble in Preston. This is a rather longer contribution than those from my previous jobs because it had such a range of activity and scope! I fear the chronology has got jumbled with so much happening in these reflections and rose-tinted spectacles may have affected the selection!
I arrived by train in Northampton to be met with my inherited company car and the General Manager’s (GM) driver. The GM’s driver reminded me of a fellow university student from the town who had the same open character and loud voice, allegedly a feature of the area due to the prevalence of very noisy shoemaking machinery! The car was a Triumph 2500 badged as a 2000 because 2500 was above the approved grade for a chief officer of a National Bus Company subsidiary company of its size. Most people knew and, to the knowledgeable, the wider rear track gave it away. I got used to cruising to Preston on Friday evenings and back on Monday early mornings, with the continuous flow of HGVs on the M6 for several months often through slush. Staying in an hotel while finding a house, it became an escape from the fine cuisine to go out for fish and chips from time to time!
The GM asked me to give him a first impressions report after one week. He considered Luton to be a major problem due to a continuing inability to meet traffic requirements with fit vehicles (let alone not able to rescue NBC vehicles in trouble on the M1). However, I reported back that Luton is a management problem – the staff are all working with gusto, but at Bedford, not seen as a problem, staff were wandering about between workshops with two managers who didn’t seem to work together.
RUNNING BUSES
In my first week I had a swift tour of my inheritance bounded by Daventry, Corby, Huntingdon, Hitchin, Luton, Aylesbury, and Bletchley with Johnny Johnson the soon-to-retire Assistant Engineer. I was worried at the implication of posters asking ‘do you know how much an engine air filter costs?’ I soon noticed several vehicles with holes punched in their engine air intake trunking for the use of easy-start and hence the ready ingress of dirt! After one visit, Johnny said “Did you see the air intake trunking on that VRT?” – “No” – “I didn’t think you did – there wasn’t one!” Other questions constantly brought forth the replies: “We used to…” or “We ought to….”
Johnny spent his mornings ringing every depot to see if they had met service and, if not why not, so he could report to the GM. He would then round up the needed components and race off in his car to deliver them. This was rather foreign to me after the calm at Ribble!
When I arrived, Luton depot was running short of 40 vehicles for service on top of its engineering spares allocation. (I had a nomenclature problem at first, often double correcting myself and calling it Chatham because the M&D Chatham depot was called Luton!) NBC took over Luton Corporation Transport and moved everything into the existing UCOC garage rather too soon, as a director later admitted to me.
It took time, (with new format Standing Instructions, Technical Instructions, All Depot Instructions, depot vehicle routine maintenance planning and record charts, every form scrutinised for purpose and ability to be filled in with a ‘thick pencil’, and soon a 4-weekly maintenance costing report for each depot) but we eventually got down to a weekly return of maintenance carried out and units changed. This fed into a new manual record system (“We used to..”) which enabled me to flick through each vehicle for unit life and engine fuel and lubricating oil consumption at a whim. Also, we were meeting service! When Johnny retired, Jim Weeks from Southdown helped me instil calmness and was soon whisked away to Cumberland and later as Chief Engineer at Northern General. He was followed by Peter Adams from Crosville who did a very professional job overseeing the Works, converting a batch of VRTs with 501 engines to Gardner 6LXB and then flat front VRT2s into VRT3 specification. This latter was initiated because the growth of Milton Keynes and its frequent roundabouts brought an urgent need to fit the later standard VRT3 full power steering. We had given up on the bolt-on solutions. He also developed the Works’ ability to install and maintain air conditioning units which served as a useful tool post Ridley!
At central works the AEU shop steward, who was an engine reconditioner, grumpily brought to my personal attention a seized Leyland engine that had come in for overhaul from Luton which he had only reconditioned earlier the same year.
I dug into this seizure from a former Luton Corporation RELL. Engine changes were quite efficiently dealt with either at Luton or at Bedford, but the need for them caused me concern. So, I was able to consult the vehicle’s record card to see that it had three reconditioned engines within two years but no radiator changes. Digging around at Luton, I discovered that the Drivers’ Daily Defects sheets were promptly put in a drawer after the running shift had dealt with what they could, and never looked at again. I made the Depot Engineer, sitting in a bus at the garage, aware that it was his job to monitor defect reports and make sure they had been fully dealt with and I was not too happy with his performance! He found another job quite soon. I could see no outstanding talent in the company for his replacement at our biggest and busiest depot. I advertised for a replacement and found a young GPO fleet engineer who I brought back for a second interview because he seemed too good to be true! Within a year of starting, he came to me and said I’ve done what you said – we are meeting traffic requirements with some real spares, we have restarted the M1 recovery service for NBC, what shall I do now – I said ‘Keep doing it until the Area Engineer retires’. In the meantime our radiator reconditioner had come to me with a scheme for an annual change of all vehicle radiators (including heaters and demisters) – Luton was the pilot depot and it worked.
In those times, the Certificate of Fitness (COF) for a vehicle expired after seven years from new. Subsequent re-certification was usually for six years, then five and so on. In common with many companies expiry of COFs was a serious matter as the recertification examinations were getting tougher and no COF meant vehicle off road. At an early stage I found that we were overhauling vehicles in Central Works on an age basis. I was happy with the standard and level of work and particularly liked the recently overhauled fleet of RELH dual purpose vehicles re-trimmed in standard NBC moquette! I could see problems over the next 2-3 years due to large batches of new vehicles 7 years earlier. I had heard of some NBC companies farming out COF preparation to contractors across the country at great expense and of a case of fraud. I calculated that with anticipated new vehicle intakes and, if we recertified every vehicle as it was overhauled, the problem would level out and go away. The cost of the re-certification examination by the Ministry of Transport was peanuts. After speaking to the East Midland Traffic Area Certifying Officer at Northampton (who thought I must be daft) and then with the Eastern and Metropolitan Traffic Areas, I instructed that after every Works overhaul a vehicle would be recertified, whatever its expiry date! It just happened – no problems, no outside contractor costs!
To overcome previous maintenance difficulties and to save taking in other companies’ cast-offs, to the detriment of maintaining the home fleet, 110 Bedford/ Willowbrook buses had been added to the fleet in the early 1970s. They most probably saved the company from floundering. Depots just phoned up the local Bedford dealer for parts and could order a half engine, with no central control, to keep them on the road. In their latter days, we brought engine rebuilds into the Works and all Bedford parts were supplied through the central stores after I appointed a Stores and Purchasing Controller from Rockwell Glass to make both functions operate very much more effectively. A final batch of 10 Ford /Duple buses was added with NBC ignoring my predecessor’s vehement complaints of non-standardisation and they were soon shifted out.
With better financing, the company was able to afford large intakes of new heavy-weight vehicles in my latter years. We had a phase when every double decker in the fleet was a Gardner-engined Bristol VRT. I cautiously ordered a small number of the new, unseen, untried Olympians, but despite central NBC, the SE Regional Director rehashed the orders between his companies that year. Our last batch of VRTs were ready for service but held in store at non-operational Desborough garage – they were sent to Eastern Counties who didn’t want new-fangled vehicles but could repaint these red! Instead, we were topped up to a total of 20 Olympians from Alder Valley and Southdown – who couldn’t afford their orders. I had specified our Olympians with an axle ratio for town service at Bedford and Luton -a slower top-speed and faster acceleration. Three chassis from Alder Valley had already been specified and built with high speed, lower acceleration, so those spent their lives in the countryside around Northampton depot. We were offered and took an extra batch of the last Leyland National Mk 1 that seemed surplus to NBC requirements. When NBC deleted the white band on these vehicles to save cost, we painted the band on before they entered service. This was a kick back against a colleague from my Norwich days, by then at NBC head office, who persisted in referring to the company as ‘Untidy Counties’. We kept to hand-painting at central works during my time. There was nothing more satisfying than looking around the Works before going home on Friday evenings to see the paint and overhaul output awaiting collection over the weekend!
BUILDINGS
The GM had rapidly raised the company from one that nearly went bankrupt to reasonably prosperous, amongst other things, by talking nicely to county councils. An engineer, he had already started to spend money on aged maintenance facilities. In the meantime, the most visible signs were the provision of heavy duty rubber curtains around the narrow pits in open garages.
Building maintenance annual funding was also coming through such that over following years we were able to reroof several depots and the Works and improve heating with gas fired overhead radiant tubes. Rance Muscott kept the buildings maintenance underway and got on with the routine redecoration work using the surprisingly varied NBC corporate decoration schemes.
GM asked me to plan a scheme for Wellingborough depot in my first weeks. I found myself working on my hotel bed and doodled a hole in the garage’s back wall, a drive through washer, and new enclosed pits on the other side of garage. This meant that the work could be done whilst vehicles were still maintained behind the heavy duty curtains! He said that it was rather more than he intended to spend but went with it. Bit of a strategic failure – as the depot was closed and sold in 1990, but then we, and many others, hadn’t anticipated Nicholas Ridley becoming Mrs Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Transport!
In 1976, the company’s Northampton Derngate bus station which doubled as covered vehicle parking had been sold to the council in exchange for new facilities incorporated into the new vast Greyfriars building. I became aware of the former when its temporary use, before change of ownership was completed, as a grain silo causing the sprouting grain to block the drains. The latter came to my attention with constant complaints from office staff of poor ventilation, being purely mechanically ventilated with no opening windows. The latter situation was taken well into account later when the original new Milton Keynes bus station and offices were specified with opening windows! Vehicles were parked overnight in Greyfriars which had a fuelling and drive through wash but no other maintenance facilities.
On one occasion a vehicle was stolen and driven away, causing havoc to several cars in a narrow residential road. Our insurers fought claims from the insurers of those damaged cars against us for not keeping our vehicles secure. My evidence was that the risk of damage to the business by fire destroying the fleet was far greater and ability to drive the vehicles out without delay was paramount. We won the case. Greyfriars later still became nationally famous as being voted the third most hated building in Britain and indeed was duly demolished in 2015.
I was aware that plans were underway to improve Northampton depot maintenance facilities, which were housed in part of the Art Deco head office and central works complex at Bedford Road.
When working on the Wellingborough plans with the Regional Architect, I intimated that I was not happy with my predecessor’s Northampton project and the more I saw the plans, the more I worried. Indeed, I was not convinced that a bus could be readily backed out of the proposed inspection / MOT/ brake test bay and there was nowhere to store tyre stocks or for the tyre man to work. It also dawned on me that the plans did not allow for separation of the central works and depot running shift. The depot staff had had free rein over the years to plunder the Works for anything out of hours with resultant overhaul scheduling delays. So, we added a proper store indent and separate staff facilities and a lock or two! This meant that it would encroach more into the central works space and areas used for unit reconditioning would be devoured. Happily, there was a large new building extending the central workshops, laughingly known as the new paint shop, but had never been used as such. So, I set the Assistant Engineer / Works to design how he wanted it and to gradually shift reconditioning into the area. He did a grand job and it must have given him some satisfaction in his run up to retirement. I recall musing with the GM one evening when admiring the recently completed depot facility “a bus company can run without a central works, but not without a depot” which turned out to be very prophetic and the norm from 1986!
Thereafter building projects rolled out. Milton Keynes Development Corporation was going great guns and our small garages at Stony Stratford and Bletchley came under pressure. A redundant bakery was made available for conversion into a temporary new workshop. This was to suffice until a new bus depot for 100+ vehicles was constructed at Winterhill alongside the West Coast mainline. The NBC regional architect had to make it “look like an upside-down biscuit tin, preferably with no chimneys”! I got stuck into how it would be run: – as a small depot to start with and later with up to 100 vehicles; a running shift facility that left the main workshops secure out of daytime hours; vehicle washing either by service driver or shunter; a simple parking scheme so that everyone could readily identify vehicles that were ready for service and those waiting attention; a single point for a supervisor to see every bus leave at morning run-out. I reckon I got it right – I would, wouldn’t I? The only failing was that the pits were too wide for minibuses which became a major vogue soon after, but that was readily dealt with. The first thing the architect got the contractor to do was to lay three small samples of smooth concrete and to draw different stiff brushes across them so we could decide and preserve the finish to be used in the workshops and parking areas! Alas, the site has become a retail superstore area!
The financial and legal arrangements with the Development Corporation for the Winterhill depot and new bus station led to NBC recommending a specialist solicitor from Newcastle upon Tyne. The solicitor was a real character – often using the expression “My dear old thing..” while brushing the Woodbine ash off his overcoat. From his manner we did not expect him to know much about operating buses, but he amazed us with his grasp of the precise details of operations and the possible scenarios that could cause us grief. Indeed, he tied it up so well, that there was some doubt that UCOC would be able to extract itself when privatised and I think that is why Milton Keynes City Bus was set up as a very small company, that could fail without causing widespread damage when UCOC was split up!
Significant work vastly improved the Bedford maintenance facilities (still in use!) and Luton had a bodyshop and MOT inspection bay with brake tester incorporated, now the site is abandoned. At Kettering, such was the layout of the garage that we installed a ‘drive through’ bus wash which gave a very good clean because you had to reverse into it and drive back out again!
STAFFING
I inherited a near-retirement Assistant Engineer and an Area Engineer. Also an Area Engineer who soon moved to assist NBC Regional Engineering Office. We recruited a very able Area Engineer from UAS, and another from South Wales to replace them. We promoted the assistant to Depot Engineer at Northampton and brought more northern talent from UAS as deputy at Luton.
We could not get a Works Manager to replace Jock, and the new Area Engineer volunteered to take on the Works as well, which he duly did very effectively, before being shifted off to be Fleet Engineer for the newly split off Luton and District company.
We soon had a very much stronger supervisory team performing well. Indeed, when times got a bit tight, I thought that we had too many managers and took a large step to reduce costs by making three Depot Engineers redundant with their Area Engineers tasked to run the depot as well. We did upgrade the Milton Keynes depot to be an Area to cope with all the constant growth and change. That was one of my hairiest decisions but was topped by making 90 redundant as United Counties Engineering was reduced to cope with the new situation of having no tied customers. This latter confirmed my view not to trust the press. I had toyed with the idea of providing a press release embargoed until after I had told the employees, then had cold feet. I sent that notification after I had already told the staff from the top of a painters’ tower, only to hear on local radio later that “employees at UCE will be hearing bad news today” – they had misread the date and would have broadcast that comment before my announcement, had I sent it as intended originally!
Despite an ever-aggravating T&GWU shop steward the central works was also represented by the AEU. I still don’t understand how we ended up with an engineering staff strike at the Works and Northampton depot for a week over training of apprentices! I wanted an apprentice training officer to run a rotating programme for all depot and works apprentices and keep their further education on track. Eventually we ended up with the AEU shop steward as the engineering training officer which he carried out very successfully until and beyond his retirement!
It might have had something to do with the work study based incentive scheme – a source of continual aggravation within many companies, but I don’t think it was. When we were allowed to negotiate it out, I did my homework very thoroughly and was able to lower percentage additions for unsocial shifts to keep the overall costs very similar.
CORPORATE PLAN
When Sir Freddie Wood chaired National Bus Company he wanted to be able to show off his empire, hitherto hidden by local liveries and names from easy identification. Standardised liveries, logos and procedures started flowing through. I never fathomed why buses were red or green and not red or blue! Perhaps as chair of a paint company he knew something about blue paint (not that the poppy red stayed red but faded pink and the green was not so vibrant as Tilling green!). Then we had corporate plans. These seemed a bind at first, but I soon discovered that if you can get capital expenditure into the plan it just flowed through – lorries (how many times did we replace the stores lorry without a disposal?), vans, cars, garage sit-on sweepers, floor scrubbers, push-around bus washes. National maintenance schedules were imposed which seemed to sorely perplex some of my colleagues. I took the view that we maintained buses satisfactorily and we just needed to fit what we were already doing into a different (but very similar) form. Don’t hassle the workers with unnecessary change!
The company had what I have come to call a canteen culture that endured in the southern depots which came from ENOC in 1952, but when splitting in 1989, Luton and District which was in the Metropolitan Traffic Area took with it Hitchen and Aylesbury; Bedford stayed with the pre-1952 UCOC depots and Milton Keynes was separated. This I think was because the agreements between UCOC and the MKDC over the bus station and the Winterhill depot had been tied up so tightly that it was thought most likely to fail and if so would not affect the rest of the company. United Counties Engineering was grouped with similar fellow company central works for sale. I went for MD of the Engineering part, not expecting to be a suitable hands-on candidate to make Fleet Engineer in Stagecoach style!
THE END
The remaining UCOC was bought by Stagecoach, one of three direct from NBC. Luton & District eventually ended up with Arriva, Milton Keynes Citybus became a political football between the Competition and Markets Authority and Stagecoach with several, sometimes enforced, changes of ownership. United Counties Engineering failed after a gamekeeper turned poacher bought the engineering group through Frontsource and passed them to Vancrown to close them all. This led to my redundancy without any of the terms agreed with NBC and having to go to an Employment Tribunal to be declared redundant and to claim the due minimum redundancy payment from government. I couldn’t help constantly remembering a meeting of managers with the Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley (who was determined to split the NBC up into small competing units, unlike his predecessor who was on the verge of selling NBC off to its management like British Road Services) saying that some of you will be millionaires in a few years and others won’t be. Guess what!
Jan & Sept 2024