Kitsons – Crossley SD42 – KTE 444

Kitsons - Crossley SD42 - KTE 444

Kitsons (Gee Cross, Hyde)
1949
Crossley SD42/7
Duple C35F

I photographed this coach near to Stalybridge Station in March 1966, but until recently, the only information I had was what could be seen in the photograph. Searching the web for more information, the first thing I found was that somehow, someone had got hold of a copy of my photo, which didn’t make sense, as I had no recollection of having provided anyone with a copy. The thumbnails in Google Images was at first sight the spit and image of my picture. The coach is clearly in exactly the same spot, taken from exactly the same location, and exactly the same Austin A40 is parked next to it. However, opening up the picture to the same size made it clear that the two images are simply a remarkable coincidence. The other picture was taken several months later, and there are two distinguishing features. Firstly the A40 is facing the other way, and secondly, sadly, someone has made a serious dent in the Crossley’s radiator.
Of interest to me is the chrome radiator, which I am not aware of having seen on any other Crossley. Presumably it was an optional extra on coaches.
Importantly, the picture and the comments with it gave me some information about what the coach was used for. It appears that it was on regular hire to Stockport High School to ferry sports teams around.
Looking at Bus lists on the web, it is clearly one of three similar vehicles delivered in December 1949 to Broughton and Walker of Great Harwood, registered KTE 443/444/446 but more interestingly, KTE 441/442 were similar chassis (and body, although C33F) delivered in October 1949 to Robinson, Great Harwood. Were these perhaps a joint order, or were the two firms linked?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Alan Murray-Rust


07/01/18 – 10:19

More peculiar than the chrome radiator, a lot of later Crossleys had them, so it was probably a customer option. More peculiar is the autovac, something I have never seen before on a Crossley. Given the dubious reputation of the Crossley HOE7 engine, has it been changed for something else?

John Anderson


08/01/18 – 07:13

Broughton & Walker was part of the Holdsworth Group which owned Robinson’s of Great Harwood. They were to all intents and purposes part of Robinson’s, in the same way that Walton & Helliwell of Mytholmroyd was directly run by O.& C. Holdsworth of Halifax. Looking at chassis and body lists it will often be seen that the Holdsworth Group bought batches of a type with consecutive numbers and allocated them to their various subsidiaries.

John Stringer


08/01/18 – 07:14

Oldham Corporation had both single and double deck Crossley buses with the chrome radiator with vertical centre strip.

Philip Halstead


08/01/18 – 07:15

The picture appears to be more complicated. We had an ex-Darwen Crossley that had been cut down for use as a gritter and that had an Autovac – I remember how it gurgled to itself when we shut the bus down. However, I look at photos and see there’s no Autovac on the bulkhead which means it was under the bonnet. As a consequence it’s difficult to tell which Crossleys have one and which don’t. That also doesn’t explain why the one in the photo has one visible on the front bulkhead.
Knowing what I do about the operator, I think it’s highly unlikely there was anything but a standard power unit under the bonnet.
I note also that this one has had its front wings trimmed back slightly.

David Beilby


08/01/18 – 07:16

The chromium plated radiator shell became an option from 1949. It was usually applied to single deck coaches, but an alternative version without the central dividing strip was offered mainly for double deckers. Older chassis were sometimes retro fitted.

Roger Cox


08/01/18 – 07:16

Could that be an Autovac in 1949… or?
Would still be grateful if anyone can tell me what a Potts Patent air Exchanger is, as found on Tony Peart’s 122?

Joe


08/01/18 – 15:49

Surely the car is an A35 as the A40 had a larger back window.

David Wragg


08/01/18 – 16:28

No David, I think its definitely an A40 Somerset. The A35 had, pro rata, a larger rear screen than the A40 Somerset.

John Darwent


08/01/18 – 16:30

And on my A30 and A35 the boot had hinges at the top not the bottom.

Peter


09/01/18 – 06:22

Potts was the MD at Doncaster at the time number 122 was being built. The Patent Air Exchanger is an early form of air conditioning. It consists of a large fan unit that effectively blew fresh air collected at the front of the bus and forced between the upper deck floor and the lower deck ceiling, before venting out of the rear platform. Next time you get to see the bus have a look at the perforations in the ceiling panels where the air comes out. I don’t know if it worked upstairs as well) Tony told me it was a battery flattener (engine off) but was happy to demonstrate it working many years ago.

MikeB


09/01/18 – 06:23

This is an interesting photo: the “twin” photo which initially fooled Alan is to be found here: www.flickr.com/photos/ The Austin A40 has travelled far from its original stomping ground, PJ being registered in Guildford, Surrey. And the poster is also interesting in that it has two accurate “possessive case” plurals, the first apostrophe being after the first “s”, but the apostrophe being before the second “s”, because children/men/women are rare plurals without an “s” on the end! BTW – the society still exists. But I see I’m boring you!

Christopher Hebbron


09/01/18 – 08:16

In the ‘Flickr’ version, the engine cover has either not been closed properly or the vehicle is in a state of distress . . .

Pete Davies


17/01/18 – 05:40

Yes, in the ‘Flickr’ version, it looks like there has been an impact to the front. The registration plate is bent, and possibly the radiator itself has moved back a bit at that point. The result is that neither the bonnet top or side can now be fastened down, hence the “state of distress” so aptly described by Pete! So what happened in the months between the two pictures being taken? We’ll probably never know! Hopefully the coach was carefully repaired.

Michael Hampton


17/01/18 – 05:41

I would guess that Alan’s photo showing the Crossley in reasonable condition is the earlier of the two. The Flikr pic shows the bonnet structure on the point of disintegration and the number plate has been re-profiled by accidental damage. This location must have been the regular parking place for the coach and the Austin. And well spotted, Chris, about the correct application of the apostrophes, something decidedly rare these days.

Roger Cox


17/01/18 – 05:41

Pete- it is either because of the bump mentioned here (look at the lower part of the radiator) or an advanced cooling system- not sure if Crossley needed it but Daimler engines seemed to.

Joe


17/01/18 – 05:42

Mike B- thanks for the info re POTTS PATENT. I’m yet to see 122 at close quarters: it did have a few later close cousins at Leicester Ave I think (but presumably only 7ft 6in wide!) but not seen “Potts” before. It is interesting that a municipality which couldn’t cope with enclosed radiators, automatic changes or 8ft bodies for many years had previously bought a bus with so many “revolutionary” features for that time. What became of Mr Potts and when, because that’s probably the answer?
The real need was surely upstairs where the fag fug made breathing difficult!

Joe


17/01/18 – 05:45

It is a pity that the reputation of the HOE7 continues to be unjustifiably traduced. It is certainly true that the earlier versions of the HOE7 were not that successful, but the later downdraught version was a good engine. AEC engineering designers certainly played a large part in that. Birmingham for example managed to get between 18 and 19 years out of their downdraught DD42/6s. According to Messrs Eyre, Heaps and Townsin (Crossley OPC 2002) Birmingham rated their HOE7s rather better than their Daimler engined CVDs. I drove a few thousand miles in HOE7 powered Crossley in the late 60s/ early 70s, and considered their hill-climbing abilities more than acceptable.

John Grigg


17/01/18 – 05:46

The vehicle was certainly in a state of distress when the Flickr photo was taken, with the radiator substantially stove in. Also, that picture has the A40 the other way round, confirming the model.
Thank you to those who have sorted the matter of the chrome radiator.

Alan Murray-Rust


17/01/18 – 11:59

I’ve read of Crossley’s HOE7 in different places. Why does it always conjure an impression of one of Birmingham’s Crossleys?

Pete Davies


23/01/18 – 06:28

No, the reputation of the HOE7 has not been unjustifiably traduced. The initial design incorporated the principles of Saurer’s four valve cylinder head, and was outstandingly successful. On the strength of demonstrations by the prototype DD42/1 orders flooded in and Crossley fully anticipated capturing the bulk of Manchester’s future bus requirements. However, when Saurer requested a licence fee for the use of its cylinder head design, Crossley Motors MD Arthur Hubble refused to pay and a hurried two valve redesign was instigated. This crippled the breathing, caused serious crankcase back pressure and led to very high oil consumption, resulting in an unreliable unit that was deficient in power output. Customers who had been impressed by the prototype found that the beast they were receiving was something of a curate’s egg, good in parts (the chassis was excellent apart from heavy steering) but seriously abysmal in the engine department. Many early recipients, notably Manchester, didn’t trust Crossley ever again and never went back for more, though the less demanding nature of coach operation did not tax the engine so severely. When AEC took over Crossley in 1948, it did not have an engine of around 8.5 litres of its own, so it instructed its new subsidiary to rectify urgently the deficiencies of the HOE7, and also offer the DD/SD42 with Gardner engines as options. Hubble, ever resistant to AEC “interference”, soon (and probably deliberately) crossed the equally autocratic Hugh Gardner, who adamantly refused to supply Crossley with any LW engines. AEC then ran out of patience with Crossley and itself produced the design for the greatly improved “downdraught” HOE7/5 in 1949. This differed quite significantly from earlier versions of the HOE7, and conversion of old engines to the downdraught head was an extensive and costly exercise, so most remained unaltered. Incredibly, despite at last having a competitive power unit, Crossley still continued to supply some outstanding customers with the earlier version of the engine, presumably to use up stocks of old components. The downdraught HOE7/5 certainly did remedy the basic faults of the Crossley engine, but by late 1949, when this engine was fully available, the heyday of bus orders was over, and, largely because of its earlier failings, the Crossley Motors undertaking was in terminal decline. Had the original four valve engine been offered as the standard power plant from first production, then the impact of Crossley upon early post war bus deliveries would undoubtedly have been much more significant.

Roger Cox


24/01/18 – 06:02

“My personal honour is more important than the future wellbeing of the company and its workforce…!” A sadly common disease in industry of all descriptions.

Stephen Ford


24/01/18 – 06:03

A few years on, some operators – mostly municipal ones – re-engined their Crossleys with other types presumably removed from older withdrawn vehicles. I’m sure I’ve heard of Gardner 5LW, AEC 7.7 and Leyland 8.6 engines being substituted. If the main deficiency in Crossleys was related to their HOE7 engine and it was otherwise an excellently engineered bus (and especially if it had a well built Crossley body), then this should surely have then made them into good buses. Yet we never seem to hear of how these re-engined Crossleys performed – I’d be very interested to learn, though I don’t suppose there will be many former engineers or drivers with experience of them around these days. I did once drive the former Rotherham Crossley – HET 513 – whilst it was in the care of Geoffrey Hilditch at Halifax. Presumably, being the last DD42 built, it would have had the later redesigned engine, but other than having heavyish steering (though probably no more so than a CVG6) and maybe its performance on hills was not exactly sparkling, I found it a fairly pleasant bus to drive, with the easiest of gearchanges, good visibilty due to the low bonnet line, and possibly the best suspension of any halfcab I’ve ever driven. It got so near to being a really good bus.

John Stringer


24/01/18 – 09:34

The Portsmouth Crossleys were delivered with turbo transmitters, which I understand would have limited performance even more! Those with Crossley bodies (25 of them, new in 1949) were re-engined c.1957-59 with Leyland engines from withdrawn TD4s. In this guise they were switched from cross-town routes such as G/H and O/P to trolleybus conversion routes such as 19/20, this demanding route being extended. Many of the batch also had seating increased from 52 to 58. I think that this amply bears out evidence of the effect in the improved performance from the change in engine for these buses. There were six with Reading bodies which retained original engines and transmission, and were retained on cross-town routes and school specials, etc. I was a schoolboy at the time, so unfortunately driving experience is nil!

Michael Hampton


27/01/18 – 06:23

Roger, thank you for a fascinating insight into the sorry saga of the Crossley HOE7 engine. I don’t know a great deal about Crossley, but am aware through reading various bus articles over the years that there was a problem with at least one of its engine types. It is a real shame that the apparent foolhardiness/stubbornness of Arthur Hubble’s “spoiling the ship for a ha’porth o’ tar” in effect brought the Company down, especially as you say that the prototype proved popular and orders started to flow in. I seem to recall that Dennis had success with its ‘four valves per cylinder’ engines, designed with Saurer involvement. Would I be right in thinking that Dennis simply paid Saurer the licencing fee for the right to build a superior product? Just as Arthur Hubble, with hindsight, should have done?

Brendan Smith


27/01/18 – 06:25

There is no doubt as Roger Cox says, that the post war saga of “what might have been but never was” as far as Crossley is concerned, is a valedictory lesson, but then there have always been personalities in the bus industry with more ego than common sense.
I can only speak as I found almost 50 years ago that the FINAL version of the Crossley engine was a fine bit of engineering. Now as to who takes the credit for that whether it be Crossley, AEC, Saurer, or any individual, I know not; and I still believe that particular engine has been unjustifiably maligned because of the wider problems of and within the company.

John Grigg


29/01/18 – 06:35

I often travelled on the Portsmouth Crossleys, both with Crossley engines/Brockhouse Turbo-transmitters and Leyland engines. It is difficult to compare performance of both types, because the original setup required no delays through gear-changing, compared with the Leyland engines/gearboxes. Portsmouth routes being flat would not challenge their hill-climbing abilities.My view is that the conversions took place in order to save fuel, since these engines were running up to the governor whilst accelerating, although they did freewheel along briefly until the next reason to slow or stop. Without the ability to use engine braking, I imagine that brake shoe wear was greater than otherwise, too.

Chris Hebbron


28/10/18 – 08:13

Joe asked in an earlier posting “what became of Mr. Potts and when?” Tom Potts was the first Transport Manager of Doncaster Corporation, apparently took office in 1920 and claimed the chair until he retired in 1953, to be replaced by Tom Bamford. For further info., see the 3-part article on Doncaster Corporation in ‘Buses Illustrated nos. 60-62, for the months March – May 1960!

Dave Careless


04/11/18 – 07:07

My 1967 ‘Little Red Book’ lists A. Kitson & Son at 222 Mottram Road, Stalybridge.
Proprietor: J Kitson
Rolling stock: 3 coaches
Chassis: 2 Crossley, 1 Leyland
Bodies: 2 Duple, 1 Burlingham
Fleet livery: Green/Ivory

Roger Taylor

A. Davies – Crossley SD – FAW 334

A. Davies - Crossley SD - FAW 334

A. Davies, Acton Burnell
1949
Crossley SD 42/7
Plaxton C33F

Photographed in Piccadilly, London, in 1961 is the Crossley SD42/7 with Plaxton C33F body bought new by A. Davies (Transport) of Acton Burnell near Shrewsbury, Shropshire in March 1949. To address the shortcomings of the Crossley diesel engine the new AEC designed downdraught HOE7/5 began appearing during 1949, but the March 1949 delivery date of this coach – the chassis must have been produced some time earlier – suggests that it was fitted with the unmodified HOE7/4. In practice, as with the Daimler CD6 engine, the use of the HOE7/4 in single deckers, particularly coaches not subjected to intense stop/start work, taxed the power plant rather less severely than in double deckers, and it generally performed satisfactorily on such duties. This is borne out by the retention of FAW 334 by its original operator for a full working life, and, happily, this coach still exists today:- www.classicbuses.co.uk/faw334.JPG

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox


11/03/21 – 08:15

My experience of Crossleys was really only with Portsmouth Corporation, which had a sprinkling of DD42/5s with rather fragile locally-built Reading bodies loosely resembling their Craven-bodied trolleybuses at the front. However, their DD42/7s, with very attractive and sturdy Crossley bodies, always impressed me. Of course, the let down was their engines, but, coupled to turbo converters, they made a unique sound, with only two engine notes, either hard up on the governors when accelerating, or on tick-over when coasting along to the next bus stop. And then the Corporation finally decided that the fuel consumption was too much and replaced the mechanicals with renovated Leyland TD7 engines/gearboxes from scrapped buses. Then, to my ears, they sounded very out of keeping! It was a sad day for me, though, when their numbers dwindled….and then they were gone.

Chris Hebbron


19/03/21 – 06:56

The Brockhouse Turbo Transmitter transmission evolved from the pre war designs of Piero Salerni, a non Fascist Italian long resident in Britain with an English wife. One of his earliest transmissions was in a Tilling-Stevens B10 in 1932, and he continued to develop his designs in several applications, including private cars, in the years up to WW2. During the later 1930s he worked for the Ministry of Aircraft Production until, in the fraught political circumstances of wartime, he was arrested as an alien on 10 June 1940. The first that the MoAP knew of this was when he failed to turn up for work. Repeated pleas by Beaverbrook’s ministry failed to secure his release, and he was despatched from Liverpool to internment in Canada on the Arandora Star. On 2 July 1940 the ship was torpedoed and sunk by U47, and Salerni sadly perished together with 805 others, mostly the Italian and German deportees held in the lower decks. Lifetime patents for the gearless transmission designs were subsequently secured by his widow. The Salerni hydro-kinetic transmission principles were taken up post war by Brockhouse of Southport who foresaw applications in private cars, tractors and commercial vehicles. Crossley offered it as an option in the DD42, but ultimately only a total of 65 such chassis were so fitted. Portsmouth took delivery of Crossley’s largest ever turbo transmitter order – four DD42/5T in 1948 and two more in 1949, all six with locally constructed Reading H26/26R bodies, followed by twenty five Crossley bodied H28/24R DD42/7T in that same year, a turbo total of thirty one. The turbo transmitter propelled the vehicle by running the engine at or near maximum revs under load and acceleration, yielding a low mpg figure. It is thought that the typical transmission efficiency barely exceeded 85%. The reliability was also suspect, overheating being a particular problem, and it never matched that of the Lysholm-Smith hydraulic torque converter transmission of some pre war Leyland TD Titans. Between 1957 and 1959 the Corporation replaced the dubious Crossley HOE7 engines and the dipsomaniac turbo transmissions in all the Crossley bodied DD42/7T buses with Leyland 8.6 litre engines and “silent third” gearboxes from withdrawn TD4 s of 1936/37. (In 1952, the prototype DD42 in the Manchester fleet had also been fitted with a pre war Leyland engine and gearbox.) The Reading bodied buses were not so converted, however. Ironically, the post war HOE7 engine, and the contemporary Daimler CD6, had copied exactly the bore/stroke dimensions of the excellent pre war Leyland unit, no doubt believing that future market success lay therein, an optimism that turned out to be misplaced in both cases. The DD42/5 did carry the Maltese Cross badge on the radiator, which was supplanted by the word “Crossley” on later variants. Portsmouth’s six unmodified turbo transmitter machines were withdrawn in 1963, with the “Leylandised” DD42/7s going during the following years up to 1967. I lived in Alverstoke as a child from 1949 to 1952 and visited war damaged Portsmouth often during that period, when my mother and I usually used the trolleybuses. I remember seeing the Crossleys out and about but never travelled on them, so I have no personal knowledge of their performance in the relatively flat terrain of the city. My own very limited experience of Crossleys occurred as a schoolboy during the extended London Transport strike of 1958, when the flamboyantly named Peoples League For The Defence Of Freedom obtained permission to run buses on some parts of the LT network. Route 2 ran on the fairly hilly section between New Addington and Croydon, and two ex Lancaster SD42/3 Crossley B36R saloons, HTC614/5, of 1947 were allocated, plus an ex Crosville Leyland TD7 and a former Lytham St Annes Daimler CWA6. I was amazed how severely the single deck Crossleys struggled on the gradients despite them being just eleven years old, whilst the more elderly Leyland and Daimler, the latter having an engine 1 litre smaller in capacity, coped significantly better.

Roger Cox


24/03/21 – 06:28

Although LT route 93 from Epsom to Putney was the haunt of pre-war RTs in the 1940s and 50s, for a short period, on Sundays, Merton Garage would supply the odd Daimler CWA ‘D’ Class austerity vehicle. Wimbledon Hill was the challenge, at 1:15 gradient, if memory serves, one reason, I wonder, why the modern RTs, with 9.6 litre engines, were allocated the route. On one occasion, I was on a Daimler which climbed the hill and was quite surprised just how well it performed. These had 8.8 litre engines. Of course, such a large class (281) in just two garages meant they were well maintained and with drivers almost exclusively driving them. By contrast, the nine Portsmouth ones, the only ones with pre-selective gearboxes, were greatly abused, with the gearchange pedal being used as a clutch etc.

Chris Hebbron


25/03/21 – 06:57

Chris, the Daimler CWA6 was powered by the AEC A173 7.7 litre (actually 7.58 litres) direct injection diesel. The 8.8 litre engine of 1931, using indirect injection, was AEC’s first production diesel and became the usual diesel power unit in the Regent until 1935. Thereafter the more economical indirect injection 7.7 A171, developed in 1934 for the side engined Q type, became the more common AEC diesel unit. From 1936 this was additionally offered as the direct injection A173. However, in 1938, a new version of the 8.8 appeared for London Transport using the Leyland design of ‘flower pot’ piston cavity, and yet another 8.8 variant was produced with toroidal piston cavities for some municipal operators. This latter engine then became the design basis of the new 9.6 litre power plant that was a major player on the postwar stage. The 7.7 continued in production during the war when it became the power unit of the Daimler CWA6 and the Bristol K6A, the standard utility output being set at 86 bhp, almost identical to that of the 85 bhp Gardner 5LW. Wartime London Transport looked more favourably upon the preselective Daimler over the utility Guy Arab and ultimately took a total of 281 up to 1946. Of these, thirteen were originally powered by the new Daimler CD6 engine of 8.6 litres rated at 100 bhp at 1800 rpm. Like the Crossley HOE7, the CD6 copied exactly the bore/stroke dimensions of the pre war Leyland E102 diesel, but, in practice, the Daimler engine proved to be generally troublesome and very variable in quality between individual examples. Indeed, Birmingham Corporation considered the Daimler engine to be inferior even to the Crossley. By 1950, all the CD6 engines in the LT ‘D’ class had been replaced by AEC 7.7s. The Crossley HOE7 also claimed to produce 100 bhp at 1750 rpm, but in reality that was the genuine output of the Saurer four valve cylinder head prototype. The much inferior two valve head production version never reached that figure until AEC brought out the 114 bhp downdraught version in 1949.

Roger Cox


28/03/21 – 07:53

Thx for the correction and other information, Roger. So the performance with the CWA6’s 7.7litre engine goes even higher in my estimation for Wimbledon Hill(climbing)! ! I recall that the inside cab front of one D had a chalked comment “Dxxx”, the fastest D of them all” so it is likely to have been one of the (6, I think) CD engined ones! I seem to recall that the CD6 engine was also unpopular because it had the timing chain at the rear of the engine, making access much more difficult, with likely engine removal. This reminds me of a friend who had a Renault car with rear timing chain. It shifted cogs (and valve timing) when he tried to start the engine in freezing cold weather. Without access to garage facilities to lift out the engine, or money for a garage to resolve the problem, he cut a hole in the car’s front bulkhead, reset the chain, cut a slightly larger cover and screwed it in over the hole. Job done! And why a rear timing chain? The engine was originally designed for a rear engined car. In his later model, it was fitted at the front!

Chris Hebbron

Darwen Corporation – Crossley Regent V – 434 BTE – 17

Darwen Corporation – Crossley Regent V

Darwen Corporation
1957
Crossley Regent V D3RV
East Lancs H31/28R

Darwen Corporation was well-known for buying buses which weren’t quite what they seemed, and 434 BTE is typical. “Ah! AEC Regent V with East Lancs body!” I hear. Sorry, folks. 434 BTE is in fact badged as a Crossley.

Darwen Corporation – Crossley Regent V

This was something associated with the allocation of spaces at the Commercial Motor Shows. It is of the Regent V D3RV variety and the East Lancs body is of the H59RD layout. It is seen on Southampton’s Itchen Bridge in the first view, on 6 May 1979, while the close view of the radiator grille was taken in the museum at St Helens on 15 July 2012.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

16/12/16 – 06:26

A true classic municipal bus of the era. Everything just sits together so well. The shapely East Lancs bodywork matches the AEC design tin front so well and it is all topped off with a dignified livery. Darwen also had three Reliances which were similarly badged as Crossleys and also with East Lancs bodies.

Philip Halstead

17/12/16 – 06:31

It looks rather narrow, was this bus 7ft.6ins wide?

Chris Barker

19/12/16 – 09:27

Yes Chris this bus is 7ft 6in wide. Darwen also had some similarly bodied Leyland PD2/31’s which were also 7ft 6in wide. The Regent V and PD2’s had an unusual sliding platform door to the rear platform which was an arrangement used also by Southdown. There was a hinged lower section which turned in to avoid the rear wheel as the door slid forward to open.

Philip Halstead

01/05/17 – 07:09

If you wanted a “genuine” Crossley Regent V then Liverpool Corporations A101-167 (SKB 101-167) of 1955 fitted the bill, as these had Crossley bodies. All went for scrap sadly.
It was a bit odd for Crossley to show off this vehicle when they closed down a year after this bus was built.

Paul Mason

Luxicoaches – Crossley DD42 – LNU 953

Luxicoaches Crossley DD42

Luxicoaches
1948
Crossley DD42
Crossley L53R

This shot first appeared on the “Do You Know” page of this web site and thanks to the following contributions I have the following information.


“The Crossley DD42 was ex Chesterfield Corporation. It was sold to Luxicoaches of Borrowash Derby in the 1960’s. When it was with Chesterfield it had an open platform the doors were fitted later by Luxicoaches”.

Trevor Haigh


The Crossley DD42 decker in lowbridge form was quite a rarity, and Chesterfield’s buses were all of this design, L53R I think.
Only Plymouth and Luton Corporations took the lowbridge type, other than perhaps a few that were delivered new to independents, e.g. Mainwaring’s of Bignell End, whose fleet including a couple of Crossley deckers was acquired by PMT (Potteries Motor Traction) in 1953.
Many of these municipal lowbridge Crossleys did have further owners such as this Chesterfield example with Luxicoaches. Plymouth examples passed to Wesley’s Coaches, Hedingham District, and I think…. Rosslyn of Par. A Plymouth example is now fully restored and preserved in the West of England Transport Collection I believe.

Keith Jackson


Reading also had a dozen 52-seat lowbridge all-Crossley DD42/8s with HOE engine and constant-mesh gearbox. They were with the Corporation from late 1950 to 1967-68, no 95 surviving as a trainer till 1969.
No 85 went on a trip to South Eastern France after withdrawal, and is now undergoing a very thorough rebuild.

Ian Thompson


May be the reason why the ‘Gearless’ Crossley’s were chosen was to be ‘forward thinking and modern’?
As every motor Bus at that time – apart from the Wartime Daimlers – had a ‘Crash’ Gearbox which some Drivers had difficulty using. It could also have been a ploy for drivers to make the change from Trolley-Bus to Motor-Bus easier whilst the two systems ran in tandem. The Atlantean (with it’s semi-automatic gearbox and fluid flywheel transmission) finally replaced the Trolley-Buses in 1963.
If the reliability and fuel consumption figures had been better, C.P.P.T.D. may well have continued with the ‘Gearless Crossley’ up to the start of the Atlantean !!

John


I can remember Reading Corporation Transport No 85 Crossley was in residence in a yard up the Woodcote Road north of Caversham near Reading in 1971. It was looking a little faded- what I could see of it- the owner of the yard was adamant that we weren’t going to get any closer! He didn’t trust teenagers!
The Crossley buses made heavy weather of climbing St Anne’s Hill on the 21 service to Uplands Road in Cavesrsham Heights.Sometimes, I would get on and my friend’s older sister with her friends might be coming back from Westwood School which was always a pleasant surprise- what with the four seats together. Downstairs on the seats one was cautioned to mind your head and also “Children should not occupy seats while adults are standing”. I went on a visit to the Mill Lane depot in August 1968- not long before the end of the trolleybuses- there was a 1961 Sunbeam ready to go for scrap- all the numbers and coat of arms painted out- the electric motor had gone, we were told, but it was bought for preservation and survives- the others went to Teesside. Anyway, I was allowed to start a Crossley. Of course, I didn’t have a camera- today all kids have their phones and it would be filmed and shown on YouTube. I think my friends thought I was mad. However, they did post me a nice postcard of Reading- of Broad Street with Sunbeam No 181 -our favourite trolleybus bang in the middle of the shot. 181 still survives and I have the postcard on a board in my kitchen!

Nick Ratnieks


I’m glad to say that Reading Crossley-Crossley 85, which you recall seeing looking in Moodie’s Transport yard just north of Reading, has now been under cover for about 12 years in a bus museum about 15 miles from Reading and is undergoing a very meticulous restoration by Graham Green.

Ian Thompson


06/12/14 – 07:13

Crossley DD42/5 DJY 965 has returned to Plymouth for further preservation with the Plymouth City Transport Preservation Group, during November 2014. It under-took an excellent journey from Cardiff to Plymouth under its own power, and is now stored under cover with many of our other vehicles.

David Hockings


07/12/14 – 08:16

Great news to hear about DJY 965 ! I well remember how much work went into this restoration when at Winkleigh many years ago after it was rescued from a field in Northants ! Delighted its back home , and still runs so well.

Steve Milner

Portsmouth Corporation – Crossley DD42/7T – EBK 572 – 35

Portsmouth Corporation Crossley  DD42/7T

Portsmouth Corporation
1949
Crossley  DD42/7T
Crossley H28/26R

Not many Crossley buses ever found themselves too far from their natural habitat of the North-West, but a sprinkling of them worked on the South Coast. Having bought mainly Leyland TD’s during the 1930’s, and PD’s after the war, too, Portsmouth Corporation dabbled in Crossley DD42’s briefly. Four DD42/5T’s were acquired in 1948, with locally-built Reading bodies. Another two of these arrived in 1949, followed in quick succession by a further 17 DD42/7T’s, all with Crossley bodies with two stepped side windows ” very stylish!
The T suffix indicated that they were fitted with Brockhouse Turbo-converters, which performed rather like the Leyland Gearless buses in the 1930’s. I never knew why they were purchased without conventional gearboxes, because the trams were scrapped in the mid-30’s and the trolleybuses not until 1963, so the purchase was not catering to drivers without skills of gear-changing! When the buses pulled away, the engine note would rise up to the governor and stay there until the driver approached a bus stop. He would then take his foot off the throttle, the engine would then tick over and the bus would coast, freewheel-style, until the brakes were applied to stop. I never knew if these vehicles had a direct-drive ‘top’ gear which could be engaged ” maybe the bus stops were too close to each other and the terrain too flat for drivers ever to engage it ‘anyone know?’. Crossley buses always gave out a rather ‘woolly’ engine note, as if being slightly strangled in some way. When pre-war Leyland TD4’s were being withdrawn in the late 1950’s, their 20 year old engines and gearboxes were transplanted into the Crossleys, which made them sound very odd after that. It surely improved fuel-consumption, though! Seating was initially H28/26R, but most became H32/26R in 1959/60, the very time the Crossley 100bhp engines were replaced by the 93bhp Leyland engines! Good job all the routes were as flat as a pancake, bar one railway bridge! They were mainly withdrawn in 1966 and 1967, the engines being 30 years old by then!
Here is No. 35 (EBK572) in Edinburgh Road, just off the main shopping centre of Commercial Road, in 1965, by which time these buses were usually relegated to peak-time extras.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Chris Hebbron


The Turbo-Transmitter fitted to some Crossley DD42s did have a direct-drive top gear, but it was engaged automatically rather than by the driver.

Peter Williamson


Crossleys were, indeed, strangled, or at least the engines were. An innovative firm with no idea how to fully exploit this commercially, Crossley designed a very good engine for post-war production using Swiss Saurer technology. Crossley realised they needed to pay Saurer for the license to do so but were either unwilling or unable to do so. They took away the Swiss technology – to do with the “breathing” and fuel injection system – and ended up with a “dog”.
This had a domino effect. People only bought Crossleys, post-war, because they were available and people were desperate for anything in the late forties. It also led to their demise and take over by AEC. Birmingham Corporation were happy with their late Crossleys but they had had the benefit of AEC engineers modifying the engine.
Nevertheless, AEC still thought highly enough of Crossley to give them the task of developing the Bridgemaster. Not only that, the Crossley Coachworks – which outlasted the engineering by eight years – produced bodies of high quality. Latterly this was to Park Royal design and, like Roe, subcontracted from Park Royal to help when the London branch was already busy. (This included a batch of Diesel Multiple Units for British Rail which are known as the Park Royal class but were built for them by Crossley at Stockport.)
Many Crossleys, particularly in Manchester, were re-engined by Leyland power – often second hand. This extended their lives to a ripe old age.

David Oldfield


Perhaps worthwhile to mention that Crossley had another foray into the railway scene, with its 8-cylinder low-speed two-stroke engine fitted in the infamous “Metro-Vick” diesel electrics, which would have been Class 28 in BR terminology if they had lasted long enough. The locos were peculiar unbalanced machines with a six wheel bogie at one end and a four wheel at the other. I remember them working in pairs during the early 60s on St Pancras – Manchester expresses. Sadly they covered themselves in infamy, being afflicted with more problems that most, and having a tendency, as I recall, to burst into flames spontaneously! They were withdrawn after a service life of only 9 years.

Stephen Ford


Thank you for the comments regarding my Portsmouth Crossley posting.

Peter for answering the turbo-converter direct drive query.
David for your interesting information about the AEC Bridegmaster development being done by Crossley – quite unknown to me.
Stephen for your information regarding Crossleys other foray into the railway scene as you put it, to which I would like to add the following.

The loco itself was pretty sound, but, as stated above, the engines were awful (quelle surprise!). BR did consider re-engining them (it was done in other cases), but was probably not cost-effective with such a small number as 20. Surprisingly, one survives on the East Lancashire Railway, I used to see it parked in a short siding by Swindon Station in the 80’s and 90’s.

Chris Hebbron


Just to correct the quantity of Portsmouth Crossleys, there were 6 DD42/5Ts (1948-49, 11-15 and 28 with Reading bodies), and 25 DD42/7Ts (1949, 29-42, 47-57). The Reading bodied buses kept their Crossley engines and turbo transmitters until withdrawal in 1963/64 – possibly the last turbo-transmitters in service anywhere? It was the 25 DD42/7Ts which had their Crossley engines and transmissions replaced with pre-war engines and gearboxes from withdrawn TD4s. These were reputedly from the batch 131-160 (Craven bodies of 1936/37), but some may have come from the earlier (1935) EEC-bodied (115-126).
In the large “Crossley” book (Michael Heaps, A A Townsin, et al) I seem to remember that only 65 Crossley DD42s were fitted with turbo-transmitters of the whole production for the UK. Some of these were replaced within days or weeks! As 31 were supplied to Portsmouth, it seems they had the lion’s share of such vehicles, and quite possibly kept them the longest? Others might know more.

Michael Hampton


Sadly Crossley had a long and inglorious record of producing fragile diesel engines right back to the early thirties and carried out endless modifications in attempting to improve things. It is significant that at the start of WW2 Manchester Corporation actually had Gardner 5LWs on order for fitting to Mancunians then due for delivery (presumably as a result of happy experience with their Daimler COG5s). In the event delivery of some COGs was aborted because of the bombing of Daimler’s Radford Works and seventy Mancunians eventually got 5LWs, rather more than planned!

David Jones


Thanks for posting the two Portsmouth Corporation Crossley’s. My how they bring back memories. When both these Crossley’s ran, I lived on the ‘Tipner Estate’, in Tipner Green. We always seemed to get the Buses on this route (service ‘O’ & ‘P’ that later became service ’13’ & ’14’), that were near their withdrawal time. The ‘Reading’ bodied Crossley’s did indeed keep their Crossley Engines & Brockhouse Turbomotor Transmitter’s to the end. As a kid, I would spend hours at ‘Range Green’ (their ‘Tipner’  terminus) as they used to reverse into the beginning of Range Green, to face the correct way in Tipner Lane for the return journey. You would often see the Driver standing up in the cab trying to move the stuck ‘direction’ lever, which looked just like a normal Gear lever which you pushed forward to go forwards and pulled back to reverse, between these was neutral. The trick for an easy change of direction was to knock the lever into neutral just  before coming to a halt, then stop, then using the ‘Heel Pedal’ under the Drivers seat which was supposed to (but rarely did) stop the transmission from turning, snatch the direction lever quickly to the direction you want to go.

John


Thanks, John, for the interesting comment about how to change from forward to reverse with the turbo-converters – it must have been a real bind for those drivers who weren’t ‘in the know’!

Chris Hebbron


I can remember the Crossleys all parked up at the back of the Central Transport Depot in the Eastern Road awaiting their fate it would have been July 1967. I can see the sign Leyland Diesel on the bonnets I had no idea the engines were from the TD4s, three still ground along the sea front at the time. The Crossleys also made a grinding sound as they trundled along no wonder with those old engines. I suppose they could get over Fratton and Copnor bridges and that was good enough they ran mostly on the circular routes 17 & 18.

Nick Ratnieks


The replacement pre-war ‘Leyland’ 8.6 Litre Engine, which was not the most powerful engine, was however, one of the most reliable. And as a ‘quick dieing’ engine, it made for quick change on the ‘crash’ Gearbox.

Are any of these Buses preserved or restored ?

I hope so !!!!

Anonymous


A couple of the Leyland TD4’s with open-top bodies have been preserved, Anonymous, but, sadly, no Crossleys.

Chris Hebbron


26/09/12 – 18:23

The Bridgemaster was originally marketed as a Crossley and the prototype was so badged.
Crossley engines also appeared in 90 of CIE’s 94 Metrovick diesel engines, delivered in the mid 1950s. They were two stroke V8s and were so poor in performance that eventually they were replaced, from 1967 onwards, with GE units. Their failure, and the success of GE powered engines meant that, for decades, Ireland sourced all its engines from GE in the US (though many were actually Canadian built)

Phil Blinkhorn


27/09/12 – 06:58

All four of the EE-bodied open-top TD4s survive, although to the best of my knowledge, none are currently roadworthy. No 5, originally 115, is privately preserved, No 6 (117) is at the Nort West Museum of Road Transport in St Helens, No 7 (125) is currently under restoration with the City of Portsmouth Preserved Transport Depot, whilst No 8 (127), owned by Portsmouth City Museums, is in exile at Milestones Museum, Basingstoke. I can think of no other instance in which a local authority has chosen to place its heritage on display in a museum some 40 miles away. This bus belongs in its home city!!!

Philip Lamb


27/09/12 – 06:59

Chris H’s comment about Crossleys not usually venturing very far from the North West. Up here in the back of beyond as some politicians refer to the North East, South Shields and Sunderland Corporations both had a sprinkling of Crossleys, but they were the exception rather than the rule, and off hand I cant think of any others in the area.

Ronnie Hoye


28/09/12 – 07:37

I’ve been informed that the N.E.B.P.T. Ltd collection has two of Sunderland Corporation’s Crossley’s. They’re 13 and 22, registrations GR 7100 and GR 9007. I don’t know what state of repair they’re in at the moment, but if they are being restored the trust sets very high standards and it will be interesting to see the end result.

Ronnie Hoye


28/09/12 – 18:09

A PS to my PS, if you go to your web search and type in GR 9007 there are several pictures of the restored no13 in the original red livery of Sunderland Corporation.

Ronnie Hoye


29/09/12 – 07:38

Sunderland 13 is preserved in Essex by Tont Melia and John Jackson. These restorers extraordinaire are currently working on a Northampton Crossley with Roe body.

Philip Lamb


29/09/12 – 12:23

Just to clarify Chris H’s point about Crossleys being unusual outside the north west, in the late ‘forties quite a few operators throughout the country bought one batch of Crossleys, partly because Crossley offered what turned out to be very optimistic delivery times, and partly because they were impressed by the performance of the demonstrator with the original cylinder head with Saurer features, performance that was of course not replicated by the production vehicles, which is why there were no repeat orders. In the south, for instance, apart from Portsmouth, Eastbourne, Plymouth, Reading, and Luton all had one batch of Crossleys.

Michael Wadman


05/06/17 – 06:56

Although some of the 25 Crossley DD42/7T’s received Leyland engines from scrapped Corporation TD4’s, I’ve recently found out that some were taken from ex-Yorkshire Woollen District TS’s, which were driven down to Portsmouth before the engines were removed and overhauled. The engineless remains were towed to J Strudwick’s scrapyard at Bedhampton Chalk Pit, where most of Portsmouth’s trolleybuses also met their fate.

Chris Hebbron


06/06/17 – 07:01

Chris – this has answered a question that has been in my mind for over 50 years. PSV Circle PH14 details only 23 TD4/Craven vehicles whose engines were used and the remaining TD4/Leylands were still operational until after the conversion.Despite many years of interest in this operator I had no idea that withdrawn Leylands were obtained to make up the numbers. Does anyone know what Yorkshire Woollen vehicles were used?

Pat Jennings


06/06/17 – 07:01

Chris, I’m not sure about that transfer being a Corporation exercise. Wasn’t this a Southdown exercise to convert petrol-engined buses and coaches to diesel?

Michael Hampton


07/06/17 – 05:31

I have also tried to work out how many TD4/Cravens buses donated their engines to the Crossleys. I have sometimes thought that the earlier TD4/EEC buses (those 8 not converted to open-top) were also used for this purpose. I once noted a Leylandised Crossley’s radiator, and it had a number stamped on the upper part of the radiator side. This was “122”, and I thought then that this was to show that it now had the engine from TD4 No.122, which was indeed one of the EEC-bodied batch of 1935. The PH14 book records this as withdrawn in March 1956, a little early for the conversion programme, but perhaps the engine was set aside for spares initially, and then used for the Crossley. At the time, I half intended to list these numbers, but I went away to College and never got around to it. I’ve never seen any fleet history mention engines coming from outside Corporation sources, although it would be fascinating if this was the case.

Michael Hampton


Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


04/12/17 – 06:40

Further to Chris Hebbron’s comment of 05/06/17, various letters have recently appeared in ‘Broad Street Broad Sheet’ – the magazine of ‘City of Portsmouth Preserved Transport Depot’ regarding the Crossley buses receiving engines from scrapped Yorkshire Woollen District buses. It appears that this was incorrect information provided by someone at Strudwick’s scrapyard and that the the Portsmouth Crossley buses that were re engined received them from Portsmouth Leyland TD4’s

Andy Hemming

Portsmouth Corporation – Crossley DD42/5 – EBK 28 – 28


Photo reproduced with kind permission of Alan Lambert.


Copyright Reading & Co

Portsmouth Corporation

1949
Crossley DD42/5
Reading H52R

Portsmouth had four Crossley DD42/5’s (11-14) delivered in 1948 and two (15 & 28) in 1949. The first four had German Imperial Navy-type crosses on the radiators: the last two had CROSSLEY plates on them. They all had Brockhouse Turbo-transmitters and, according to Michael Hampton (who commented on a photo of a DD42/7 I submitted earlier) retained them to the the end of their service days. The locally-built Reading bodies they wore had also been fitted to 6 Leyland PD1/1A’s delivered earlier, in 1947/48. They bore some resemblance (especially at the front) to the Craven-bodied trolleybuses Portsmouth had at the time, there is a shot of one here.
As I recall, and unlike the DD42/7’s, they seemed to be very coy buses in the fleet, usually working routes needing only one bus, or peak-time reliefs or, as here, at Clarence Pier, Southsea, working the Sea Front Service on a cloudy or chilly day in May 1961, in place of the open-top TD4’s.
Incidentally, since only a few months separated the delivery of these 42/5’s from the 42/7’s, were there ever any DD42/6’s?

Photograph and Copy contributed by Chris Hebbron


Thanks for posting the two Portsmouth Corporation Crossley’s. My how they bring back memories. When both these Crossley’s ran, I lived on the ‘Tipner Estate’, in Tipner Green. We always seemed to get the Buses on this route (service ‘O’ & ‘P’ that later became service ’13’ & ’14’), that were near their withdrawal time. The ‘Reading’ bodied Crossleys did indeed keep their Crossley Engines & Brockhouse Turbomotor Transmitter’s to the end.
As a kid, I would spend hours at ‘Range Green’ (their ‘Tipner’ terminus) as they used to reverse into the beginning of Range Green, to face the correct way in Tipner Lane for the return journey. You would often see the Driver standing up in the cab trying to move the stuck ‘direction’ lever, which looked just like a normal Gear lever which you pushed forward to go forwards and pulled back to reverse, between these was neutral. The trick for an easy change of direction was to knock the lever into neutral just before coming to a halt, then stop, then using the ‘Heel Pedal’ under the Drivers seat which was supposed to (but rarely did) stop the transmission from turning, snatch the direction lever quickly to the direction you want to go.

John


The O & P route was just the sort of quiet route these vehicles trod for year in and year out. Oh, and we always called Tipner, Tipnor – strange how it had two spellings.

Chris Hebbron


As it seems empty (look upstairs), do we take it that the rear suspension is a bit, shall we say, tired, or someone has left a very heavy parcel under the stairs? Or are all the passengers standing on the platform?

Joe


I love the thought of 52+8 standing, 60 folk crammed on the platform (probably having to leave the conductor behind!) but it may be that the bus is pulling away from the bus stop and causing the apparent tilt backwards and perhaps towards the camera a little, too.

Chris Hebbron


This is true,’Tipner’ was the correct spelling for that Estate, but there was also a ‘Tipnor’ spelling for a road just off ‘Twyford Avenue’ (probably doesn’t exist after the placement of the ‘M27’ Motorway build in the 1970’s).

John


The Reading bodywork was a very ‘handsome’ affair with clean cut lines, and polished interior woodwork with  half drop ventilator windows but sadly, this body, was not the most rugged or durable in practice. This would explain the early withdrawal of the Crossley’s and the PD1/PD1A with these bodies. This may also explain why the ‘Reading’ Bodied vehicles kept their troublesome Crossley engines & Brockhouse/Salerni Turbomotor/Transmitter Converters to the end.

John


Yes, I always had a soft spot for the looks of the Reading-bodied vehicles.

Towards the end, even the Crossley bodies on the DD42/7’s suffered from body problems. I can recall sitting in the front downstairs saloon seats and noticing that fatigue cracks were appearing in a central spar which ran below the windows. Several buses had had the ‘dodgy’ part covered in varnished wood, one must hope after welding work had been done!

Chris Hebbron


The number of dodgy bodies – and coachbuilders – from the end of WW2 to 1950 is legion, for the most part due to or contributed to by the lack of quality parts and materials as a consequence of the war.

Interestingly enough, you could say that Crossley bodies were of two distinct types – both generally regarded as of high quality.

Due to immense Manchester Corporation influence, the majority of pre-war – and post-war to 1950 – bodies were on Metro-Cammell frames (then regarded as by far the best and most reliable all metal frames). This, of course, made them compatible with most of the rest of MCT’s fleet of Met-Camm bodies. After the AEC/ACV take over, most Crossley bodies were on Park Royal frames (another quality product) but made them (like similar Roe bodies) into PRV clones.

A prime example of dodgy coachwork was Windover which was luxurious “in the extreme” but fell apart rapidly with it’s “green” wood frames.

David Oldfield


I have to admit, I did not know that C.P.P.T.D. Had had trouble with the Crossley Bodies too ! I do remember, as a kid, aiming for the single seat on either side which was located in the centre of the lower saloon (only on those that hadn’t been up seated to standard layout). The rore of the transplanted 8.6 Litre Leyland Engine, and whine from the 1930’s (ex) TD4 ‘crash’ Gearbox’s. I never remember any of them breaking down even though the engine and gearbox was over twenty years older than the rest of the Bus !!

John


I don’t think the comment about Metro-Cammell frames is quite right. Pre-war yes, Manchester had vast numbers of “Crossley-MetroCammell” bodies. But both of the seminal works by Eyre and Heaps (“The Manchester Bus” and “Crossley”) state that post-war Crossley bodies used Crossley’s own framing, and speak very highly of it.
The Park Royal framed Crossley bodies should have been of high quality, but many of them weren’t, because by then Crossley was in its death-throes, morale was low and nobody was interested in quality. Preston is one operator that had to do substantial rebuilding work on these bodies.

Peter Williamson


In my copy above, I posed the question as to whether there had ever been any Crossley DD42/6’s. By chance, I’ve found out that, in 1949, Birmingham Corporation took delivery of eight DD42/6’s and one DD42/6T. This was just before their great influx of Daimlers, Guys and Crossley DD42/7’s in 1950. So if Portsmouth’s DD42/5’s were delivered in 1949 and B’ham Corp’n’s were DD42/7’s in 1950, not many DD42/6’s could have been made in the interim, but some were.

Chris Hebbron


The comments from Chris Hebron about the DD42/6 Crossley’s, reminded me of an almost identical scenario with the pre-war Leyland Titans.
There were TD1 – TD5 Chassis then a handful of TD6’s for one operator, before the arrival of the TD7 in 1942. The War stopped further production ’til the post-war PD1 with its rather ‘clattery’ E181, 7.4 Litre Engine.

John


Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


21/02/13 – 06:14

I recall reading once that Leyland’s 7.4 litre engine was originally developed for use in wartime tanks!

Chris Hebbron


21/02/13 – 07:14

Yes, Chris, and used in tandem – two at a time, like DMUs.

David Oldfield


21/02/13 – 08:43

Interesting. It may well be then, David, that all 7.4 powered buses were secretly part of the UK’s strategic military reserve!

Chris Hebbron

Rotherham Corporation – Crossley DD42/8 – HET 509 – 209


Copyright John Stringer

Rotherham Corporation
1952
Crossley DD42/8
Crossley H30/26R

Lined up at Rotherham Corporation’s rather gloomy depot in 1968 are 211, 212 and 209 – 1952 Crossley DD42/8’s with Crossley bodywork to their later four-bay design. The HET-registered batch were the very last ‘proper’ Crossleys ever built. They must have been near to withdrawal, if not already withdrawn, because very shortly afterwards 213 – the last Crossley ever delivered (though 214 was numerically the last) was presented to the British Transport Museum, but turned up in my home town, on indefinite loan to Halifax Corporation, where the GM – Geoffrey Hilditch – was assembling a fascinating assortment of old buses to present in that year’s 70th Anniversary Parade (see Roger Cox’s Gallery – 1968 Halifax Parade). It remained there for a few years, even being called upon to perform Driver Training duties on occasions in the early 1970’s. It was entered in the 1973 Trans-Pennine Rally, and I had the privilege of driving it back from Harrogate to Halifax – my only Crossley driving experience. Despite all the criticism heaped on the make over the years, and though it was a bit on the slow side with rather heavy steering, I still found it a pleasant bus to drive, with a lovely gear change, and it was one of the nicest riding buses I have ever driven. So there !

Photograph and Copy contributed by John Stringer

12/04/12 – 06:22

To be fair John, it was parsimonious management and badly designed engines that did for Crossley and there are probably a lot of people out here who would agree with you. AEC helped, but it came too late, and the bodies continued and were, for the most part, very good.

David Oldfield

12/04/12 – 06:23

Hi John,
Splendid line up of Crossleys’.
This body design already seems to have some Park Royal influence even by 1952, as did some Roe bodies of the same period.

Eric Bawden

12/04/12 – 17:58

As well as the Rotherham Crossley Halifax had an ex JMT TD1 and an ex-Red Line AEC Regal. When Geoff Hilditch went to Leicester the trio were used on a round the park service on the occasion of the depot open day to mark the end of open platform buses in October 1982. Also there was a one and a half deck trolleybus that came from Leicesters twin town Aachen. The Crossley is in the Science Museum Reserve collection the fate of the others is unknown.

Chris Hough

13/04/12 – 06:08

Is the Aachen Trolley the one at Sandtoft which looks like the result of a nasty accident?

Joe

13/04/12 – 06:08

My previous post wrongly ascribed the one and half deck trolley to Aachen rather than Krefeld. Apologies to all in Leicester.

Chris Hough

13/04/12 – 06:09

I travelled on these Crossleys on many occasions on service 69 from Sheffield to Rotherham when I spent 5 months at a basic training workshop at Parkgate, just up the road from the Rotherham Depot. I always felt that Rotherham buses were somewhat inferior to those of my native Sheffield. I can only ever remember Rotherham’s Crossleys turning up on the 69 although doubtless other makes must have been used on occasions. The final leg of my journey to Parkgate was by Mexborough and Swinton, usually on a lowbridge Atlantean – I still recall that Mexborough and Swinton seemed to have 100% conductresses on their buses. They also acquired several batches of Leylands of varying types from Southdown which gave added interest.

Ian Wild

13/04/12 – 06:09

Hilditch’s vintage collection also included an ex-JMT Leyland Lion PLSC (repainted into Edinburgh livery for an appearance in the film ‘The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie’), and an ex-Swindon Guy Arab II with wonderfully original Weymann utility body. The Regal was actually ex-Red Bus, Mansfield. It was petrol engined, and a fine bus indeed. There was also a mightily impressive bonneted Leyland Lioness all weather coach.

John Stringer

14/04/12 – 07:05

The Krefeld trolleybus is part of the Aberdeen and District Preservation Trust and is kept at the Grampian Transport Museum at Alford in Aberdeenshire.

Stephen Bloomfield

14/04/12 – 08:14


Copyright Bob Gell

This is the Leyland Lioness referred to by John Stringer, which I photographed at Cobham in April 2002. Quite a magnificent vehicle!
A few years ago (2005), the Red Bus Regal and the Swindon utility Guy were in the Science Museum Reserve Collection at Wroughton, Wiltshire. They seem to have occasional Open Days and it is well worth a visit.

Bob Gell

25/11/12 – 08:25

Having once had the pleasure of driving Oldham 368, I can totally agree with John Stringer’s view of the Crossley driving experience. However, unlike most people I am not convinced that it was the Crossley engine that did for the company. By all accounts AEC’s modifications solved the problems well enough, and if the market had remained buoyant I see no reason why Crossley’s fortunes should not have revived. But in fact the bottom dropped out of the bus market in 1950, at which point wartime shortages had all been alleviated and most tramway conversion projects completed. This left the bus manufacturing industry as a whole with too much production capacity, and what nobody ever mentions is that Crossley was in the uniquely vulnerable position of being totally reliant on bus production for its survival (the Crossley Brothers engine builder being a separate concern). Everyone else had other activities to dilute the effect of the reduction in bus orders – cars in the case of Daimler, and goods vehicles in all other cases – but Crossley simply had nothing else to do.

Peter Williamson

25/11/12 – 11:14

There’s a good deal of truth in Peter’s observations but Crossley’s was also a cast iron case of “give a dog a bad name”, coupled to the fact – borne out in time – that the ACV group would not support the marque as a separate entity.
The badging of the prototype Bridgemaster as a Crossley, an odd thing to do with a vehicle aimed primarily at BET, may have raised hopes in Heaton Chapel but was very much a false dawn, as was the badge engineering of Regent chassis as Crossleys and BUT trolleybuses and the use of Park Royal’s body designs by the body building side of the business.
Many publications and “those in the know” point to the move across the boundary to Stockport as a factor in Manchester’s rejection of the marque – some say THE major factor in the demise of the business – but, whilst politics and the local economy certainly played a major part in Crossley obtaining and retaining Manchester’s business up to the engine problems, and then Stockport’s after the move – hardly a like for like swap(!), I’ve not seen any evidence of the rejection being other than based on sound technical and business grounds.
Manchester, unlike Birmingham, another major Crossley user, certainly continued to order vehicles in quantity on an annual basis throughout the 1950s. The two chassis type policy (Leyland and Daimler) adopted by Manchester was at the behest of A F Neal, not the politicians, at a time when Manchester was very much involved in getting the best out of its Crossleys and, given a large proportion of the workforce were Manchester ratepayers, had there been any belief in the long term future for the type within the excellence of the ACV group, there would have been no good reason for Manchester to abandon the breed.

Phil Blinkhorn

27/11/12 – 07:27

Again, I’m not convinced that further patronage from MCTD would have made a great deal of difference to Crossley, given the sudden drastic reduction in the operator’s annual requirements. If “The Manchester Bus” is to be believed, all buses delivered up to and including 1951 had been ordered (in principle if not in detail) back in 1945/6, so that the decision not to buy any further Crossleys had no effect until at least the 1953 deliveries, by which time AEC had pulled the plug. And even if they hadn’t, what then? Triple sourcing for only 100 vehicles per year would not have done Crossley a great deal of good. And MCTD was hardly likely to abandon Daimler after discovering the delights of Gardner engines and fluid flywheels. I just don’t see it.

Peter Williamson

27/11/12 – 13:11

Historically, Manchester was Crossley’s biggest customer for both bus chassis and bodies. In the 1930s,for political reasons, the Transport Committee insisted that the bulk of orders go to Crossley. From the beginning of 1930 to the end of 1940 no less than 772 chassis were delivered and Crossley either built, finished or provided frames for around 800 bodies, both figures include trolleybuses.
From 1945 to 1950 (1951 in the case of trolleybuses) 355 all Crossley buses and trolleybuses were delivered plus a further 50 bodies on the CVG5s, out of a total of 598 deliveries of all makes received by MCTD, a further 100 all Leyland/Leyland MCW vehicles from the immediate post war orders being delivered in 1951.
The Phoenix bodied Daimler CVG6s, delivered in 1950/1 were not ordered until 1948 but I can’t state with certainty if this was before of after AEC’s purchase of Crossley, I suspect the latter.
It is obvious from the work that went on between MCTD and Crossley during WW2 on both chassis and, particularly, body development that Manchester was still very much linked to Crossley as its major supplier.
Back in the 1930s Stuart Pilcher had persuaded the Transport Committee to accept Leyland tenders as a second string supplier so all his eggs wouldn’t be in the basket of a company that wasn’t always consistent in its product development and production.
The Daimler orders in the run up to war were only placed because Crossley were directed by government to concentrate on military production and Pilcher wasn’t going to be left bereft of vehicles in his drive to rid Manchester of trams.
Had Crossley heeded Manchester’s interest in the Gardner/Wilson combination instead of its own power/drivetrain ideas it probably would have survived the down turn.
Albert Neal was frustrated by Crossley’s intransigence over the HOE7 debacle. We don’t have records of the many meetings and phone calls to back up the letters that exist between the two concerns but it is a safe bet that long before the AEC takeover a decision had been forming to reduce the dependence on Crossley and the takeover changed the thinking from a reduction of dependence to total divorce.
The Phoenix bodied CVG6 order was the first indication to the outside world of the way the wind was blowing and in 1949 the Transport Committee formally confirmed that the Department’s policy would, in future, be split 50/50 Leyland and Daimler with MCW as the preferred body builder.
So how does my contention that Manchester’s continued patronage of Crossley would have saved the company stand up?
It is true that the general bus market declined after the rash of orders immediately following the cessation of hostilities. The figures, however, speak for themselves. Manchester took delivery of no fewer than 601 vehicles between the last of the post war orders which for the sake of my argument has Leyland 3299 being the last, and the end of December 1958 – the 601 thus includes the Phoenix bodied Daimlers.
Based on previous ordering patterns, had Crossley listened to Manchester’s needs, they would certainly have picked up the orders that went to Coventry (270 chassis)and there is every reason to believe that a good proportion of the orders that went to Leyland would have gone to Errwood Park. As there was great satisfaction with the bodies Crossley had produced or finished, again it is almost certain a good proportion of the bodies required would have emerged from Errwood Rd, especially given Neal’s dislike of the early MCW Orion offerings.
As it turned out Errwood Park did get a final order from Manchester for 62 BUT trolleybuses (basically Regent chassis with locally produced Metrovick control gear) but Burlingham got the body contract, Piccadilly wanting nothing with a Crossley badge and justified the vehicles under its two chassis policy as BUT was a 50/50 AEC/Leyland company.
So, with Crossley under the AEC banner but still active at Errwood Rd, why didn’t the Department buy locally produced motor buses especially as AEC eventually solved the engine problem and, given their willingness to have Gardner engines mounted on Regent chassis, would presumably have been more than happy to work with MCTD to produce a Gardner/Crossley combination which would have resulted in a reasonable flow of orders?
The answer is down to politics, but nothing to do with the move to Stockport. In the early 1930s Stuart Pilcher pressed hard to have orders for AECs approved, on sound technical grounds. The transport committee, given the Great Depression, insisted on orders going to Crossley and it might be said that the bus side of the business both survived and benefitted technically from the largesse of the Committee.
Albert Neal’s frustration with Crossley led to the two chassis supplier policy which was both technically and economically sound but why Leyland and Daimler to the exclusion of AEC/Crossley?
Firstly there was a great deal of “the dog having a bad name” thinking in the industry and in Piccadilly and Manchester Town Hall in particular and, for the time being, the ACV group were keeping the Crossley name.
Even more importantly, Leylands were made in Lancashire and were considered as “local” in terms of where the Committee’s money would end up. Daimler may have been in Coventry but Gardner engines were made in Patricroft.
AEC, on the other hand, made it plain from day one that all monies spent at Errwood Rd would be directed to the newly formed ACV and it was based in London!!
There have been statements in various publications that Crossley was too small to survive as a bus manufacturer but post war it managed to build 1114 DD42s chassis between 1945 and 1951 plus the trolleybuses for Manchester, Ashton and Cleethorpes and 1680 SD42/43 single deck chassis, 1175 of which were for a one off export order to Holland.
Those figures are hardly small and, in addition, they were also building bodies.
So, I return to my contention that had Manchester not pulled the plug Crossley would have survived, but having persisted with an engine that frankly didn’t work as advertised, they committed commercial suicide by not listening and working with their most loyal, consistent and largest regular customer.

Phil Blinkhorn

27/11/12 – 14:10

…..and of course Leyland learned from Crossley’s mistakes…..?

David Oldfield

27/11/12 – 16:22

David, you and I are old enough to realise that governments, economists and companies are too bound up with their own brilliance to take the time look around to see the mistakes of others and far too busy take the time to look back in history.

Phil Blinkhorn

27/11/12 – 17:37

Or, to quote (approximately) two often mentioned statements:
1. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
2. History teaches us that history teaches us nothing.

Stephen Ford

28/11/12 – 07:30

There’s an interpretation here that Crossley was an arrogant engineer led company devoid of commercial nouse that always thought they knew best and certainly there is some evidence to that effect. When they weren’t playing the ‘local jobs’ card with Manchester they played it with Stockport (though it’s probable that most of their employees lived in M/cr even after the move to Errwood Park as they had only to take a hop on a #19 to get from Gorton). Their bids for work were rarely the cheapest and when they were so there is a pattern of requests for subsequent price uplifts post contract. Failure to win a bid sometimes led to a request to retender on somewhat specious grounds.
I don’t think the move to Stockport had any part in the downfall of Crossley. Manchester would have continued to take Crossley product if it had been better served by Crossley. Crossley were the engineers of their own downfall, something that I guess ACV realised after the acquisition.
Smaller bus builders than Crossley with a much smaller customer base did survive, Dennis to name but one and which, in a very different form, is still around today.

Orla Nutting

28/11/12 – 15:50

I would suggest one of the main reasons for the demise of Crossley Motors was the fateful decision by the Managing Director, Arthur Hubble in late 1944 not to use the “Saurer Head” HOE7 engine, which had performed very well in the prototype Crossley DD42/1 (GNE 247). The engineers were instructed to redesign the engine to avoid Saurer patents infringements. This was a hurried operation, untested and the outcome was a mess. Sadly this redesigned engine was fitted to the production run of SD42 and DD42 buses from 1945 onwards up to 1949 and caused a lot of trouble. AEC engineers then came to the rescue to redesign the engine and produce the HOE7/5 downdraft version which was a big improvement but too late as the damage had been done. Was this a case of money taking precedence over engineering?

Richard Fieldhouse

28/11/12 – 15:51

Dennis, however, Orla, did not rely solely on building buses (which they dipped in and out of over the years), but also on municipal vehicles like dustcarts and fire engines and all-purpose lorries. It was the companies with all their eggs in one (bus) basket which often failed, as in other business dealings. I leave out arrogance, well covered above!

Chris Hebbron

28/11/12 – 17:15

In fairness to Peter’s point in regard to Crossley having nothing else to do when the orders slowed, every other chassis manufacturer did have other lines of production and a look at what those alternatives were highlights just how Manchester dependant Crossley had become:
Leyland, AEC, and Guy, all produced trucks with a broad customer base. Foden and Sentinel tinkering on the edge of the market had truck businesses.
Also Leyland and AEC bus divisions had good relationships with BET and a range of export customers
Dennis was in the middle of a fire engine replacement boom.
The two long established bus manufacturing companies most exposed were Daimler and Crossley.
Daimler, as Peter says, had car production but in 1953 when Geoffrey Hilditch joined the company for a very short time, he was aware of redundancies in the bus division and that the car division had been badly affected by increases in purchase tax and the concentration on high end vehicles which, whilst individually profitable, were sold in far smaller numbers, up to five times fewer, than the competing Jaguars which were also cheaper, Jaguar of course eventually buying out Daimler.
Two things saved Daimler bus production. Of immediate influence was the production of a quality product designed to the needs of a loyal and widespread customer base which, whilst rarely offering large orders, kept the lines working.
The company was really kept afloat by the very profitable Ferret armoured car which was ordered by the British army and over 20 export customers.
As Peter says, Crossley had nothing else. Car production had long ceased, only two prototype trucks were built post war and the British military that had been a major customer almost continuously since the WW1 abandoned the company – I wonder why? Did the same attitude that lost them Manchester’s business cause annoyance at the War Ministry and among the heads of the armed forces?
Due to production priorities at the Alvis factory, Crossley did produce just six Saracen armoured car pre-production models in 1956, well after the AEC takeover.
With regard to the Saurer head, there is an inference that Hubble hoped to get away with copying it without paying for a licence and the redesign was done hurriedly and badly under pressure of his irritation.
It’s ironic that the money it cost from an accounting point of view to redesign the head badly, taking in hours worked, overtime and tooling, wasn’t much less than he could have negotiated for a licence.
The real cost was, of course much, much more.

Phil Blinkhorn

28/11/12 – 17:22

Bradford had 6 Crossley DD42/7 buses which were fitted with the HOE7/5 engine to which Richard refers. As young enthusiasts in the early post war years, we were very aware that the BCPT Maintenance staff had a very low regard indeed for these buses, Nos.518 – 523. They were virtually restricted to one route, West Bowling, and were suitably disposed of at a very early date for post-war 8ft. wide vehicles. Neither did they find a purchaser!
This is not a personal dislike, as their official unpopularity tended to heighten our fondness for them, but for “Them that knew”, they were hated with some vehemence!

John Whitaker

29/11/12 – 07:22

I do incline to Orla’s interpretation of the Crossley chronicles. The company did play politics to secure orders. The arrogance attributed to the Crossley company really lay with the Managing Director, Arthur Hubble. Although we do not now know what terms Saurer demanded for the use of its combustion chamber design (and the comprehensively researched book by Eyre, Heaps and Townsin has not been able to establish any figures about this matter), it does seem that the payment of a licence fee was the fundamental factor. Other manufacturers used Saurer technology very successfully – the Morris Commercial diesel engines of Saurer design continued in production into the Leyland era. The last minute revamp of the original Saurer HOE7 cylinder head demanded by Hubble was not received gladly by the Crossley design team, and the resulting motor was a dud in terms of reliability, economy and performance. Hubble’s innate obstinacy was revealed in other ways, also. Crossley steering was always heavy, a problem that could have been easily rectified by redesigning the steering geometry, but the company would not budge. Instead it replaced the races with thrust buttons that made a bad situation very much worse. When AEC took over Crossley, it insisted that the troublesome HOE7 had to be sorted out quickly, but Hubble resisted this strategy, and a frustrated AEC gave the job to its own engineers. The resulting “downdraught” engine was a major improvement, though it still inherited the crankcase weaknesses of the original Crossley design. Yet, despite the availability at last of a fully competitive engine by courtesy of AEC, Crossley continued to make and fit the old HOE7 to many new orders, even in some instances where the customer was expecting the downdraught version. After the success of the Birmingham order for 260 DD42/6 buses, AEC instructed Hubble to approach Gardner for an agreement for the supply of LW engines, Birmingham’s preferred power plant, thereby keeping Birmingham interested in future Crossley orders. The meeting between the intransigent Hubble and the autocratic Gardner family had an inevitable outcome, and Hubble reported back to AEC in obvious glee that Gardner would not supply Crossley with engines. Yet, in a very many aspects, Crossley got a great deal right, presumably in those areas where Hubble didn’t interfere with his engineers.The DD42 was a fundamentally sound chassis design, and Crossley constant mesh and synchromesh gearboxes were excellent. Whether, with a more sensitive hand than Hubble’s on the company’s tiller, Crossley would have remained in business for a longer period is imponderable now, but the certainty is that its reputation would have been significantly higher, a major factor in commercial success.

John, weren’t the Bradford Crossleys of the DD42/4 type, and delivered in 1948? At that date they would have been fitted with the standard HOE7 engine. Were they converted later to the downdraught HOE7/5 specification?

Roger Cox

29/11/12 – 07:24

Phil, the reason I said that all Manchester deliveries up to 1951 had been ordered (in principle) back in 1945/6 is that “The Manchester Bus” includes the Daimler/Phoenix orders in the 1946 order figures – originally just 50, but quickly increased to 90. That could, of course, be wrong. I didn’t know about the reason for Manchester going to Daimler in the first place.
On the subject of Crossley’s “attitude” problem, I have commented before (maybe not here) about how it seemed to be confined to chassis matters. The body division seemed willing to bend over backwards to do whatever the customer wanted. Strange that.

Peter Williamson

29/11/12 – 09:50

I am not sure Roger; I just know they were not liked by BCPT! We had a friend and neighbour who held a high position at Thornbury, and his comments were far from complimentary. I remember one school special when the Crossley was virtually unable to ascend Oak Lane, and drivers too hated them for their “slow gear change” They were banished to the short and fairly flat West Bowling route. Ordered in 1947, but not delivered until mid 1948, I have often wondered how other “hilly” systems coped with their DD42 Crossleys.
Lancaster is quite hilly, and they had DD42s, although I am not sure of just how exact such comparisons are. I am as certain as I can be that no alterations of a mechanical nature were made to our 6 Crossleys, but I am unable to confirm this as I would not now know who to ask!

20 minutes later

I have just “dug out” my BCPT stock book of the 1950s, and see that I have recorded 518-523 as type DD42/3, and they entered service in September 1948.
Another character defamation aimed at them was their weight, but I have to say that they did seem to demonstrate quality of build, and had a more luxurious air about them, as, indeed, did the 1952 Crossley trolleybus rebodies, which entered service early 1952.

John Whitaker

29/11/12 – 10:13

All really interesting stuff, folks. Do we have a date from which the HOE engine was dumbed down? Oh, those lucky early post-war orderers, whoever they were!

Chris Hebbron

29/11/12 – 10:57

Well, I’ve already said that they were distress purchases – when anything was better than nothing – and that the bodies were palpably a much better product than the chassis. I cannot say it better than any of the other correspondents. You cannot turn round in Sheffield without bumping into a hill but the Crossleys were put on the least hilly routes (ie with fewest hills per mile/route). The SD42s did venture out into Derbyshire – but presumably the lesser weight helped to make this possible. [Anyone have experience of SD42 coaches. How did they fare?]

David Oldfield

29/11/12 – 10:57

So much has been said about the miserable performance of postwar Crossleys – both on this site and for quite a long period in Classic Bus magazine (to the point where the editor had to end further correspondence if I recall). However, there are two points that never really seem to be raised.
The first is that we only here about the double deckers, but how did operators find the single deck version ? The SD42 was very common amongst independent coach operators – probably not through choice initially, more because in the postwar coaching boom they had to take anything they could get, but how did they perform ?
Secondly, if the main problem lay with the troublesome breathless engines and the rest of the design was pretty good, and their bodies excellent, what about the operators who subsequently re-engined theirs with Gardner/Leyland/AEC units ? Surely then they ought to have been good buses – problem solved ?
Does anyone know how these vehicles performed ?

John Stringer

29/11/12 – 10:58

It’s just occurred to me that this trio bear bodies of the same style as the Portsmouth Daimler CWA6’s that Crossley re-bodied in 1955. SEE: www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/

Chris Hebbron

29/11/12 – 14:44

Roger, I think I misquoted the HOE designation on an earlier post, and am now more confused than ever. I believe Bradford’s Crossleys, being 8ft. wide, should be classed as DD42/4, whereas I have always thought of them as DD42/3, even though I misquoted them as DD42/7 before! I will leave you technical experts to sort it out, and apologise for my “clouded enthusiasm”, compounded by ever increasing senior moments!

John Whitaker

29/11/12 – 14:44

My good friend John W mentions in his Bradford stock book that 518 -523 were Crossley DD42/3 which I believe relates to the 7′ 6″ width chassis whereas the Bradford Crossleys were 8′ wide. This means they should be coded DD42/4 as they were part of the 94 sanction. Could they have been ordered as 7 ‘6″ but changed to 8′ width as there was a long period from ordering to delivery in September 1948 when 8’ width was legal?

Richard Fieldhouse

29/11/12 – 14:48

Peter, I just wonder if the difference in attitude between the chassis and body side of the business was because Hubble regarded the former as real engineering and a science and liked to interfere and the latter as far less worthy of his input.
It has always seemed to me that the excellence their bodies attained throughout their history matched the aspirations for their chassis and engines which were, certainly post war, rarely attained. If only the latter could have matched the former.
With regard to the chassis order eventually bodied by MCW with the Phoenix body, I understood that the sanction for a call for tenders was given for a bulk total of vehicles required up to 1951 by the Transport Committee in 1945. My reading of archive material, albeit 30 years or so ago, was that this did not include the CVG6s and probably did not include the Leyland bodied PD2s of the 32xx batch though Heaps and Eyre contend they were included in the total.
Heaps and Eyre state a total order of 763 vehicles was made between 1945 and 1946.
“The 1945 order was for 100 each from Leyland and Daimler and 109 from Crossley…..the 1946 order was for 100 Leylands, 50 Crossleys and 54 Crossley trolleybuses, followed by 100 more Leylands, 60 Crossleys and 50 Daimlers – the Daimler order was quickly increased to 90”.
The catch is in the indefinite wording. The “100 more Leylands” were PD2s and the type was only available to order from 1947, though a demonstrator had been shown to some operators, not including Manchester, in the last months of 1946.
I believe those Leylands and the CVG6s were ordered in 1948. To back this up, Southport bought the first 8ft wide PD2s when announced in the autumn of 1947 and had received them all by the end of the year. A host of operators took PD2s of both widths in the period 1947-1950 yet Manchester, which needed vehicles for both tramway and obsolete vehicle replacement didn’t receive its PD2s until May 1951 deliveries stretching until February 1952. London had placed its order for RTL and RTW PD2s in early 1948 and Manchester’s order followed this, the London vehicles being delivered from 1950.
Similarly operators large and small were receiving Daimlers throughout the period 1946-1950 (indeed Manchester’s 1945 ordered CVG5s arrived and, to Manchester’s great exasperation, half the chassis had to be stored awaiting Crossley bodies, whilst the Brush bodied examples were delivered as intended in 1947/8).
I can see no reason to suppose Manchester delayed a total of 200 urgently needed vehicles when everyone else were receiving vehicles in sequence of order.
The CVG6s were, I believe, ordered as a hedge against the problems at Crossley and the second batch were added by Albert Neal when he ran out of patience.
Regarding Manchester’s move to Daimler pre war and to expand on my simplistic previous statement, on February 8 1939 the City Council approved a 3 year purchase plan to allow Pilcher’s tramway conversion. This did not include Daimlers but included 165 Crossleys (diesels and trolleys) out of 325 vehicles but it was soon obvious Crossley wouldn’t be able to cope, given the demands of the military.
The Council changed its mind and approved, after some heavy lobbying by Daimler, an order for 327 buses and trolleybuses 124 of which were Crossleys and 83 Daimlers. The reasoning was the promised delivery dates by Leyland and Daimler would reduce the time for tramway conversion by half and would guarantee delivery if war was declared – ironic given many of the Daimler chassis ordered were destroyed by enemy action.
The next order in July 1939 was changed from the planned 50 Leyland and 50 Crossley diesels to 33 Daimler, 33 Leyland and 34 Crossley.
The Council got it right. Crossley had delivered only a third of their allocation when they had to cease bus production, Leyland delivered everything on time and the Daimlers were delivered as required up until the time the factory was bombed.
Crossley suffered both financially and in terms of talent as some design staff left to join Leyland.

Phil Blinkhorn

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

30/11/12 – 07:39

Re David O’s comments about Sheffield Crossleys – the initial batch of DD42/3s spent virtually all their working life on the Inner Circle Services 8/9 which had some fearsome gradients – Newbould Lane, Crookesmoor Road, Rutland Road come to mind. The Sheffield Crossleys were a small proportion of the fleet – but all the 1948 batch of DD42/5s ended up as driver trainers – maybe if you could drive a Crossley you could drive anything!!

Ian Wild

30/11/12 – 07:40

Chris, on the subject of the resemblance between the Rotherham Crossleys and the Portsmouth rebodied CWA6s, this has been discussed on the Portsmouth thread – see Chris Hough’s comment and my reply a couple of messages further down.
It’s not as straightforward as it may appear.

David and John: I have no personal experience of the SD42, but I have never heard anything bad about it, and quite a lot of good in fact. It seems that the engine could cope a lot better with the lower weight, and the refinement of the Crossley chassis was really appreciated by coach operators.

Peter Williamson

J Wood & Sons – Crossley DD42 – EVD 406 – 20


Copyright Pete Davies

J Wood & Sons (Mirfield) 
1949
Crossley DD42/7
Roe H56R

Here is a view of J Wood & Sons of Mirfield preserved Crossley DD42/7 bought in 1953 from Baxter’s of Airdrie where it was delivered new in 1949. She sports a Roe H56R body from either 1954 or 55 there seems to be conflicting information on the actual date, can anyone confirm? New 1949 rebodied 1954/5, five or six years does not seem all that long, is there a story behind that, and does anyone know what the original body was? She is seen outside Winchester Guildhall on 1 January 2010, visiting the King Alfred Running Day.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies


21/12/12 – 07:33

Just for information. The 2013 King Alfred Running Day will, as usual, be on New Year’s Day. Sometimes, the event is moved, but no disruption for this coming one. The restored Leyland Olympic should be back in service and one of the members is hoping to have his 1930’s Paris Renault on duty.

Pete Davies


21/12/12 – 07:34

I have some information about the Crossley of Joseph Wood. The original body was built by Scottish Aviation. Two elderly coaches were traded in to Comberhill Motors of Wakefield to purchase the bus. This was the first double decker for the firm. Mr Colin Wood (Joseph’s son) related the facts to me. He was serving in the army in Korea when he received an angry letter from his father to tell him that on its first test it had failed due to bodywork defects. Colin suggested that they had the bus rebodied. At the time Yorkshire Woollen were having their wartime Guy Arabs rebodied so it was arranged that the Crossley would have similar bodywork. In 1954 the company scrapped the body and the head driver Mr Sam Land drove the chassis from Mirfield to Crossgates. On its return it entered service and was used on the joint service from Mirfield to Dewsbury alongside J J Longstaff and Yorkshire Woollen. For the next twenty years or so it went through two engines on the service its only escape was when Huddersfield Town Football club was playing at home when it was used on the excursion to the ground. Eventually the day came when the Crossley was due for withdrawal and so the ex Leyland Atlantean demonstrator KTD 551C was purchased. The Crossley was parked up against the garage and eventually became a tyre store. Colin had always wanted to preserve the bus and for the next few years he worked on the bus and had it reupholstered. On completion the bus looked splendid and one Sunday he invited friends and former employees and the bus made two commemorative journeys. Then the bus was kept at Keighley Bus Museum and was rallied frequently. Eventually it was decided to sell the bus and it was sold to Quantock Motor Services and I read in Preserved Bus that the vehicle was for sale. If I win the Euro Millions Lottery it will be the first thing on my shopping list!!!

Philip Carlton


21/12/12 – 07:35

This bus is currently up for sale at Quantock Motor Services and they have it being re-bodied in 1952

Andrew


21/12/12 – 07:36

Beautiful – and beautifully preserved – bus. As a Roe man, my gut instinct says 1954 rather 1955. The upper deck would have been slightly different, but the archaic five bay lay-out muddies the waters. [I don’t have documentary proof, just instinct.]

David Oldfield


21/12/12 – 07:38

Pete, you have raised an interesting question about the original body on this bus, and, surprisingly, the comprehensive ‘Crossley’ book by Eyre, Heaps and Townsin does not give a specific answer as far as I can find. The authors do make reference to five single deck SD42s bought by Joseph Wood, and then go on to state that Wood “acquired a second hand DD42 which it had fitted with a new Roe body”, but neither the previous owner nor the original body are identified. The Scottish agent for Crossley was the Scottish Commercial Motor Co. of Glasgow, and it made the bodies itself on a number of its sales, but some were fitted with other makes of bodywork, including lowbridge examples by Roe. However, the following site www.sct61.org.uk/ confirms that the original body was, indeed, a Scottish Commercial product that was superseded by the current excellent Roe body in 1954. Clearly, some, at least, of the Scottish Commercial bodies must have been decidedly suspect to have given a life of only five years. Most of the wartime utilities managed rather better than that.

Roger Cox


21/12/12 – 10:33

Thank you, gents, for your comments on the origin of this bodywork. A fascinating read!

Pete Davies


21/12/12 – 12:48

I would say that the earliest the body dates from is 1954. I am basing this on deliveries to Leeds in that period all of which had deeper windows on both decks. By the arrival of the 1954 AEC Regents these were much shallower as seen here. However the bus is still an absolute gem and ideally should be repatriated north.

Chris Hough


21/12/12 – 12:49

I’m in complete agreement with David O, that it would have looked so much better with the Roe four and a quarter bay body, but I’m not sure if that style was available in 7ft 6in width, which this vehicle was. Around the same time, J W Moseley of Barugh Green, Barnsley had an ex-Sheffield utility Daimler rebodied with exactly the same style of Roe body.

Chris Barker


21/12/12 – 13:47

EVD 406_lr_2

You may want to add this picture to the current discussion as it shows the vehicle from the front, and no reflections in the windows. Taken by myself at Taunton Railway Station on 1/5/10 during Quantock Motors running day,

Ken Jones


21/12/12 – 13:48

Chris The 4 and a quarter bay body was widely available so to speak from Roe Leeds standardised on 4 bays the half bay was (blanked off) from 1948 onwards and I think this was the Roe standard. One thing Roe often did for smaller operators was to tack their buses onto the end of a larger order which meant they got the same style of body but with a bit off the cost.

Chris Hough


23/12/12 – 07:19

It has to be said – a great looking vehicle even if it’s an ACV Crossley. Given the location of its owner, given the weather and, prior to smokeless zones, the output from household fires and woollen mill chimneys, the choice of colour scheme must have kept the bus washers busy.

Phil Blinkhorn


31/12/12 – 07:02

The Roe body dates from 1955 being completed on the 6th April that year.

Andrew Beever


01/01/13 – 11:33

The first photograph on this link shows EVD 406 prior to the 1955 Roe body being fitted www.jsh1949.co.uk/

Andrew Beever


18/02/13 – 08:29

Stephen Morris was driving this vehicle in service today [17/2/13] at the Hanley event. He expects to be driving it in service at the Kirkby Stephens event over Easter

Ken Jones


02/03/13 – 07:05

Was delighted to see this bus at Hanley but the engine was running flat no guts at all. Not sure what has happened to it recently but the last time I rode on it in 1999 at Keighley it had plenty of power then. Unfortunately the Hanley performance caused the running out in conversation all the usual Crossley negative traits. Shame after the effort myself with DBN 978 and the Birmingham 2489 Group have made to dispel this image!

Ralph Oakes-Garnett


14/03/13 – 16:06

A quick question if I may, when did Woods actually finish??

Peter Abel


15/03/13 – 08:33

The question of when Woods finished is around 1985 I forget the actual date. What happened is that they sold out to Abbeyways of Halifax who consolidated the Mirfield operation as Go Big Ltd and operations continued sometimes using buses from the Hyndburn hire fleet both double and single deckers but a bizarre purchase was a Leyland Leopard with an Alexander body that had once been a Leyland demonstrator abroad that operated on a Q plate. I remember that it had the destination for the Mirfield to Dewsbury service painted on the destination glass. Later on selling this bus the new owner had it rebodied by Plaxton.Eventually Abbeyways wound up the Mirfield operations and the depot at Lee Green Mirfield was sold to Ron Lyles who moved there from Batley. Later he moved his operations back to Batley and the depot was pulled down and Old Peoples flats were built on the site.

Philip Carlton


15/03/13 – 11:11

Thanks very much for info Philip. I will see if there’s anything in ‘Buses’ for that year.

Peter Abel


Vehicle reminder shot for this posting


18/06/15 – 10:48

I believe this bus is now in the care of the Dewsbury Bus Museum. It turned up as a ‘special guest’ at their March open day, still in pristine condition. Unfortunately it was parked in a corner and my photo did not do it justice.

Tim Jackson

Sheffield Corporation – Crossley – JWJ 737 – 237 & KWA 776 – 576

Sheffield Corporation - Crossley - JWJ 737 - 237 & KWA 776 - 576
Sheffield Corporation - Crossley - JWJ 737 - 237 & KWA 776 - 576

Sheffield Corporation
1947
Crossley SD42 & DD42
Crossley B32R & H56R

Following the end of the war, Sheffield Corporation A fleet took a small number of Crossleys (28 in all) over three years. First to arrive were six single-deckers 237-242 (JWJ 737 – 742) in 1947. In the same year eight double-deck vehicles were added, they were 573 – 580 (KWA 773 – 780). They were followed in 1948 by another ten and in 1949 by four more. The two pictures show examples of the earliest deliveries, but look at the different styling around the front ends. The doubledeck version is probably more typically Crossley with the window line dipping to meet the line of the windscreen. The singledeck version has a straight window line at the front but still meeting the line of the windscreen. Most Sheffield doubledeckers would have two route blinds, these one-liners were in a minority but taken at a time when getting new buses was a higher priority than “calling the shots”.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Les Dickinson


20/06/13 – 16:44

I think all Crossleys were distress purchases, in time of great need, and that they were diverted orders. That explains the non-standard features. Certainly the four 1949 Crossleys were diverted from a Liverpool order, albeit they seemed to have Sheffield specification – down to destination blinds.

David Oldfield

PS: The 1948 ten were interesting in that they had NCB bodywork. Were they unique?


21/06/13 – 08:10

I believe the single deckers were a diverted order from Chesterfield Corporation and the batch of eight double deckers 573-580 diverted from a Lancaster order.
Numbers 573-580 seemed to spend most of their lives on the Inner Circle routes 8 and 9.

John Darwent


21/06/13 – 08:11

A picture of a former Lancaster City Transport SD42 showing the straight windscreen is on this site at the People’s League for the Defence of Freedom page.The straight lower line of the windscreen was standard on the single deck Crossley bus body (the Dutch Crossleys are a completely different species). This feature was maintained right up to the very last single deck SD42/7 Crossley bodies, two of which were delivered to Southport Corporation in 1951, though these lacked the stepped waistrail. Southport had earlier also specified the straight windscreen line on its pair of DD42/7s with downdraught engines supplied in 1950.

Roger Cox


21/06/13 – 08:11

Here’s one of the DD42/3’s with NCB bodywork you mentioned, David O. Certainly nothing I’ve ever seen before. www.sct61.org.uk/sh595

Chris Hebbron


21/06/13 – 16:45

crossley_ad

Above is an advertisement put out by Crossley that is quite appropriate.

I was always intrigued how neighbouring Rotherham more or less kept their Crossleys hard at work on the flat terrain as much as possible, mainly on the joint service 69 to Sheffield, whereas STD seemed to deliberately seek out some of the fiercest hills, such as several encountered on the Inner Circle, on which to run theirs!
Division Street obviously had more faith in the Crossley’s climbing abilities than Frederick Street!

Dave Careless


22/06/13 – 07:55

The mention of the double deckers being diverted from a Lancaster order goes a long way to explaining the style of indicator display.

Pete Davies


22/06/13 – 07:56

I don’t think it is true to say that all Crossleys were distress purchases. AFAIK there were only two problems, the engine and the steering, neither of which were known about when the first ones were ordered. The engine problem only became serious under stress: I have never heard any complaints about it in single deckers, even in double deckers it was worse in hilly terrain than on the flat, and it was eventually fixed by AEC engineers. As for the steering, it too could be fixed (I don’t know if Manchester were alone in doing this) and although it sounds brutal, it was something that only affected drivers and not the balance sheet. So unless an operator actually cared about its staff, or had a strong trade union presence, the problem could be ignored.
Those two things apart, I seem to remember Geoffrey Hilditch being quite complimentary about Crossleys.

Peter Williamson


22/06/13 – 09:43

Depends what you mean by distress, Peter. Given a clear field, untrammelled by Government intervention, Sheffield would have continued to buy only Leyland and AEC – presumably continuing the pre-war body orders to Leyland, Weymann, Craven and Roberts. Like everyone else, they couldn’t get enough from their preferred suppliers and in times of “distress” went where they could to find sufficient vehicles. This included the said diverted orders of Crossleys but also included deliveries of Daimler CVD6s as well as going to unusual suppliers of bodywork – NCB; Cawood; Wilks and Meade. When things settled down in the ’50s, a simple dual sourcing policy returned – Leyland/AEC and Weymann/Roe.

David Oldfield


23/06/13 – 08:16

A further point of interest is that on receipt, the six SD42’s diverted to Sheffield had only a single destination aperture at the front (as found on similar Chesterfield vehicles) and this was not wide enough to incorporate a route number as well as a place name. Sheffield therefore effected their own modification and cut out a separate aperture alongside for the route number but presumably the restricted space for this exercise was only sufficient for a two digit display. I doubt this would have been a problem since, as far as I can remember, they spent the majority of their lives on such routes as 37 and 40 to Bakewell via Baslow and via Carver Sough.

John Darwent


23/06/13 – 08:17

Leeds had dual sourced AEC & Leyland pre war and were allocated utility Daimlers during hostilities. Such an impression did these make that Daimler continued to supply chassis for the next thirty years. They bought one Crossley which impressed enough to be followed by 20 odd others all of which lasted until the early sixties. Indeed they outlasted some of the postwar Daimlers which were far more standard than they were. Perhaps as Leeds was a major AEC customer they got help with the Crossleys from that quarter.

Chris Hough


23/06/13 – 08:17

As a small boy in Sheffield I remember being taken by my uncle on more than one occasion for a ride all the way round on the “Outer Circular” service. From memory and it is a long time ago, the bus was invariably a Crossley. Again, from memory, it was never very full so maybe “Division Street” did keep these buses to the lighter used routes?

Stan Zapiec


23/06/13 – 17:23

Like Stan, I also used Crossleys on the 2 / 3 Outer Circle. My trips were shorter, being from Gleadless Town End to Graves Park, or Abbeydale Road where we would get the tram to Millhouses Park. The Crossleys never seemed very happy on this run, especially on the uphill return journey, to my young mind.

Les Dickinson


25/06/13 – 17:04

I used the 8/9 regularly from Broadfield Road to Newbould Lane to get to school from 1964 – 1971. The Crossleys had gone by then. I only had cause to use the Outer Circle after some nit had changed it (and the route) to 2/59! [They were PDR2/1 Atlanteans. Actually quite good, but outside our purview.]

David Oldfield


03/07/13 – 15:13

The double-decker`s were used on the 8&9 routes, along with the 69 Rotherham. They would only have needed single destination blinds for these routes. Later PD2s on the 69 route also had 1 destination blind that had the route & number in one box, as you lads have explained to me before.

Andy Fisher

Rotherham Corporation – Crossley DD42/7 – EET 891 – 191

Rotherham Corporation - Crossley DD42/7 - EET 891 - 191

Rotherham Corporation
1949
Crossley DD42/7
Crossley H30/26R

A dull overcast day in Rotherham in summer 1962, and the crew of corporation Crossley 191 appear to be abandoning their charge outside the Angel Hotel in Bridgegate and heading for the busman’s canteen at the back of the Municipal Offices in search of some hot tea. This initial batch of twelve Crossley-bodied Crossleys, 185-196, dating from 1949, were a staple on the short service 70 to the blast furnaces and rolling mills at Templeborough, or on the longer and even busier 69 service through to Sheffield, joint with Sheffield Corporation.
Behind is Park Royal-bodied AEC Bridgemaster 139 (VET 139), just a year old when this picture was taken. In an article in “Buses Illustrated” in June of the previous year on the conversion of the Mexborough and Swinton trolleybuses to diesel buses, and which were operated in conjunction with Rotherham Corporation, the writer Terry Shaw commented that he had always considered that Mexboro’s Brush-bodied Sunbeam single-deckers were ugly until he caught sight of one of these Rotherham Bridgemasters, five of which made up Rotherham’s contribution to the trolleybus conversion scheme. It’s not hard to see what he meant, as they literally were a “box on wheels” Mexboro’ chose Leyland Atlanteans, almost equally as boxy but still one up on these “biscuit tin” Bridgemasters.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Dave Careless


08/07/17 – 06:06

I agree the Park Royal Bridgemasters were truly appalling in appearance. The Rotherham livery application with a black mudguard on the nearside and a cream panel on the offside accentuates the asymmetrical front end. But then any livery application would have struggled to disguise this dog’s breakfast of a design. It makes the Crossley tin front look sheer class!

Philip Halstead


09/07/17 – 06:32

Was Park Royal the only bodybuilder for the Bridgemaster? I@ve never come across any other body for them. And was it an integral vehicle, or did it have a chassis?

Chris Hebbron


09/07/17 – 06:33

Glad you agree, Philip. Even from the back the Park Royal body looked ugly and overly heavy, whereas the Crossley, with that outstanding emergency window, appeared very classy and well thought out.
A friend on Merseyside used to joke that Park Royal built the Bridgemaster bodies in one continuous line, and a set of shears simply came down every 30′-0″ and chopped one off! Not all that hard to envision, really!

Dave Careless


10/07/17 – 07:36

The first few pre-production Bridgemasters were built at the Erwood Crossley factory and looked a good deal better. Nothing outlandish just the tidy rounded body typical of Crossley bodies of the late 50s, although by this time much influenced by Park Royal. Park Royal were very capable box makers in the late 50s and 60s! See the Crossley Story by Eyre, Heaps & Townsin. The Bridgemaster was integral, unlike the later Renown.

Andrew Gosling


10/07/17 – 07:36

The Bridgemaster was an integral vehicle, using (I understand) some of the same construction techniques as the Routemaster. So no other body make was available, which was part of its undoing.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about Bridgemaster bodies, along the lines that Crossley did it properly, whereas Park Royal made a mess of it. In fact the change of styling when production moved to Park Royal was coincidental. Crossley had developed the original body using the Park Royal styling features which were current at the time, but Park Royal’s double deck bodywork as a whole then took a nasty turn at the behest of BET management (who in the end didn’t place the orders to justify it).
It’s also true that the rear-entrance Park Royal Bridgemasters were not nearly as ugly as the front-entrance ones, and I don’t think this was just because of the entrance position. I’m almost convinced that they were completely different bodies.

Peter Williamson


10/07/17 – 07:37

To answer Chris the Bridgemaster was of integral construction using only the Park Royal body largely because AEC and Park Royal were in the same group of companies. The later Renown had a separate chassis and was bodied by other companies who generally made a much better job than Park Royal. The East Lancs bodies on Renowns for Leigh and West Bridgford showed what could be done to make a very attractive bus.

Philip Halstead


14/07/17 – 07:28

Thx Peter/Philip. I guessed that the Bridgemaster might have been integral, since only the Park Royal body ever appeared on them. And I agree that the rear entrance ones were the less unattractive of the two types and the Leigh/West Bridgford Renowns were a great improvement.
Both types passed me by, because my travels never took me to an area where they ran.

Chris Hebbron


14/07/17 – 16:18

If it hadn’t been invented by AEC/Park Royal, you might have thought the Bridgemaster was a deliberate attempt to wean us enthusiasts away from liking half-cabs.

Stephen Ford


15/07/17 – 06:48

The BET has a lot to answer for with the Bridgemaster design. The influence was felt on conventional half-cabs. Park Royal produced a very respectable half-cab e.g. Nottingham Regents and those built under the Crossley name were equally attractive, e.g. Stockport Titans (although several of these were actually finished by the Corporation). The production Bridgemaster was a worthy forerunner of the worst buses ever manufactured, Southampton’s PD2s (reach for hard hat)

Andrew Gosling


16/07/17 – 07:49

In 1948 Liverpool Corporation ordered 50 DD42/7 double deckers with Crossley bodywork to a revised design, being of four bay construction with a completely flat front (in plan view). Beauty is in the eye etc, but the result was very attractive in my opinion, and Rotherham Corporation must have felt the same, because all its Crossleys, the twelve in the 1949 batch, the further six bought in 1951 and the final six of 1952/3, had the Liverpool style of body (the very last true Crossley ever built was No.213, HET 513 of the final batch). Incidentally, the final batch of Crossleys is missing from Peter Gould’s Rotherham listing.
Turning to the Bridgemaster, the construction principle certainly owed much to the Routemaster insofar as it consisted of an integral body supported on front and rear subframes carrying the engine, gearbox and axle units, but the actual subframes differed significantly between the two models. Alan Townsin has remarked that it is surprising that little effort seems to have been made to achieve a degree of commonality between the components of the Routemaster and the Bridgemaster, even allowing for the fact that the latter was low floor design with a synchromesh gearbox option. The earliest Bridgemasters had RM style coil sprung rear suspension, but from 1958 air suspension became standard. The good looking body style by Crossley on the first five Bridgemasters had framing and other components in aluminium, as did the Routemaster, but, again, no attempt seems to have been made to use RM body components. Having taken the decision to close the Crossley works, AEC transferred body construction to Park Royal, where, at the behest of the BET, steel framing replaced aluminium, making the complete vehicle heavier than its market competitors. Park Royal came up with a stark body design that somehow exaggerated the flat panel beneath the driver’s windscreen that completely obscured the offside wing. The nearside wing remained exposed in the conventional manner which gave the already ugly duckling a curiously Nelsonian appearance when viewed from the front. Considerable subframe redesign was necessary to allow a front entrance to be accommodated, and the Park Royal body then became even more gaunt than before. Aesthetics was clearly not a strong point with Park Royal at that time, because the ungainly aspects of the Bridgemaster body were reflected in the firm’s products on other chassis, and faithful customers of long standing quickly took their business elsewhere.

Roger Cox


16/07/17 – 10:28


No.696 (of 1960) taken on 11 May 1967


No 708 of 1961 also taken on 11 May 1967


No.752 of 1963 taken on 30 July 1963.

After all the comments about Bridgemasters following the Rotherham Crossley article these pictures show that not all Bridgemasters were identical as shown by East Yorkshire’s first three batches of Bridgemasters. Note the doors on the rear entrance versions and the upper deck modified outline for Beverley Bar operations.

Malcolm J Wells


16/07/17 – 16:45

Yes, Malcolm. As I state above, the original Park Royal rear entrance bodies were built on an earlier form of the front subframe, which had to be redesigned to permit a front entrance body to be fitted. The frontal profile of the ensuing front entrance Park Royal body was even more ‘frowning’ than the earlier type.

Roger Cox