East Kent Road Car Co Ltd 1960 Ford Thames 570E Harrington Crusader Mk1 C41F
East Kent Road Car Co Ltd. bought this smart unique vehicle into the fleet at the start of the 1960’s, this was a common sight with the coach touring fleets around the country but for East Kent, this was a one off. A Ford Thames Trader 570E #510E34629 with Harrington #2147 C41F body was new in January 1960 to supplement and update its excursion fleet (1xBedford OB; OKE 470 & 2x Bedford SB; GFN 600/1) on the Isle of Thanet, but this work began to wain and TJG 440 found itself regularly working the express runs to London. This vehicle was an elegant looking coach and stood out against the regular “boxlike” London express vehicles of the TFN & WFN batches which East Kent used at the time. This view taken in the works section at the back of Westwood depot, in pristine condition and ready for another excursion around the countryside depicted in “The Darling Buds of May”, the Garden of England. What other rare, unusual or odd looking pictures of PSV’s do you have out there, I look forward to seeing some more very special photos.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Ron Mesure
26/01/15 – 06:31
This is certainly an interesting variation, Ron, of the ‘normal’ Cavalier body. I’ve never seen one like this, with a gentle slope forward of the emergency door.
Chris Hebbron
03/09/15 – 07:09
Thanks, lovely to see another old picture of my bus!
Steve
05/09/15 – 07:08
I’ve looked back at my records and have found that I saw this coach at Walton on the Naze on August 28th 1975 while it was with Viceroy but sadly I didn’t take a photo. Please don’t tell me that was forty years ago because that would make me feel very old.
Nigel Turner
01/12/19 – 07:39
I am really pleased to find out that this fine old bus still exists! She features in several East Kent books I have. What is her current state of preservation, and will she be back on the road in the future? I’m just an East Kent bus fan, and old vehicle enthusiast.
East Kent Road Car Co. Ltd. 1954 – 1957 Dennis Lancet UF – Guy Arab IV Duple C41C – Park Royal H33/28RD
East Kent’s first foray into underfloor engined vehicles occurred in 1951 when six Leyland Royal Tigers with ornate but rather uncertainly styled Park Royal coach bodies arrived in 1951. In 1953 came two more Royal Tigers, this time with well proportioned Duple C32C Ambassador bodies. Thirty more similar Duple coach bodies, the first six being C32C, the rest C41C, arrived in the following year, but this time mounted on Dennis Lancet UF LU2 chassis, East Kent having been an enthusiastic customer for the front engined Lancet in pre and early post war years. These coaches were registered HJG3 to 32 – East Kent did not use fleet numbers, but duplication of the number element of the registrations was always avoided. This Lancet UF order was the largest Dennis ever received, and the total production figure for the model was a mere 71. Factors influencing this outcome were the low driving position, the high pressure hydraulic braking system and the idiosyncratic Dennis ‘O’ type gearbox, a four speed crash unit with a preselective overdrive fifth. That gearbox had been a feature of the vertical engined Lancet and East Kent drivers were fully familiar with it, but, in the UF model, its remote location together with the engine halfway long the chassis made clean changes by ear difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, these Lancet UF coaches were very refined, fast and reliable, achieving a service life of up to 17 years. East Kent’s pre war standard double decker was the Leyland Titan TD4 and then the TD5. During the war East Kent was effectively in the front line, and the fleet suffered extensive damage through enemy action in the air and from artillery firing across the Channel from the French coast. Utility Guy Arabs were allocated to East Kent to meet vehicle losses and the rugged dependability of the marque so impressed the company that the Arab became the standard post war double deck chassis up to 1957. The BET preferred supplier system then oversaw the transfer of subsequent orders to the AEC Regent V, though three Bridgemasters were also bought, all with Park Royal bodywork. Thenceforward the melodious murmur of Gardner engine and Guy gearbox was supplemented by the atonal scream of the AEC transmission. MFN 896 was an example of the last batch of Guys, one of 20 Arab IVs of 1957 with Park Royal H33/28RD bodywork of outstandingly classic proportions. The first AEC Regent Vs that followed in 1959 were the PFN registered ‘Puffins’ which wore a full fronted version of the traditional Park Royal design, but thereafter the Regent body deliveries witnessed a decline from the sublime to the ridiculous by carrying the hideous Bridgemaster derived highbridge design that so offended Southampton Corporation that it quickly transferred its long standing patronage from Park Royal to East Lancashire. The ugliness of the design was accentuated later when these Regents were turned out in NBC poppy red. The picture was taken in Canterbury in 1967 when East Kent was still a BET company, and shows 1954 Lancet UF HJG 6, by then reseated to C41C, alongside 1957 Arab IV MFN 896, with another Arab of the same type to its right. These Arabs originally presented a full destination blind display, but by 1967 the aperture had been reduced to a single line. On the right hand edge of the photo are two of the ugly duckling Park Royal Regent Vs of 1961 onwards that eventually totalled 121 in the fleet.
I’m so pleased to see someone saying what I’ve long thought about the the later Regent Vs. I was a schoolboy in Folkestone in the early ’60s, and whereas the MFN Guys were my favourites and I quite liked the PFN Regents, I thought the later Regents were freaky and designed by somebody who would probably have done well in some other occupation. On the other hand I was pleased to see the back of the lowbridge PD1As; travelling upstairs on one of those could be a depressing experience.
Don
22/01/21 – 07:38
If it wasn’t for the Duple single decker I was all ready to say “Edinburgh Corporation”. What a similarity of livery colours, livery application, double decker bodywork, etc.
Bill
01/02/21 – 06:34
Just to say that this photo is taken at ‘The Garth’ in St Stephens Rd Canterbury.
East Kent Road Car Co Ltd 1954 Dennis Lancet UF Duple C41C
This picture of East Kent HJG 18, a Dennis Lancet UF with Duple C41C body, was taken in Rye in 1967. East Kent, like fellow BET operator Aldershot & District, was a great fan of the pre war and post war vertical engined Dennis Lancet, and, in 1954, took delivery of 30 of the underfloor engined Lancet UF. This was the largest single order for this model, of which only 71 examples were built between 1953 and 1961. Aldershot and District tried out the Strachan bodied Lancet UF demonstrator, but bought none, though it continued to run the unique Dennis Dominant for fifteen years. One can now only speculate as to the reasons for the commercial non acceptance of the Lancet UF. Certainly reliability could not have been a problem. East Kent kept their UFs for 14 to 17 years. The low driving position was received with suspicion in certain quarters back in 1953, yet now it is a standard feature on touring coaches. The power plant was a horizontal version of the advanced, smooth running 24 valve 7.58 litre O6 engine fitted in the Lancet III, though the maximum engine speed was raised to 2000 rpm to give 110 bhp. Some later examples for Glenton Tours had the 120 bhp 8 litre version of this engine. The gearbox was the standard Dennis five speed constant mesh unit with preselective overdrive, but revised to operate in the conventional sequence with lowest gears to the left and highest to the right – the vertical engined Lancet gearbox worked the “wrong way round” from right to left. Possibly a major factor in the low uptake of the Lancet UF was the employment of a fully hydraulic braking system, which has never been popular with engineers outside of London Transport and Midland Red. Hydraulic fluid is costly, whereas air for air pressure or vacuum brakes is free. It is noteworthy that the initial version of the AEC Reliance that came to reign supreme with both East Kent and Aldershot & District had a straightforward, direct top (not overdrive) five speed synchromesh gearbox and vacuum brakes, though their wet liner engines were certainly not trouble free.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox
03/07/11 – 19:59
I’m ambivalent about Dennis. I don’t have much time for modern Dennis Dust-carts – although there are some great might have beens that never followed through their promise with reliable service (especially the Falcon V and R Series). The R Series is actually one of the best coaches I’ve ever driven – including Setras, ZF Reliances and REs. Having said that, the Loline (albeit a Lodekka clone) was a superb bus. East Kent and A & D weren’t the only operators to take to Dennis Lancets in a big way – so did Tracky – and Glenton gave theirs a full service life. None of these would have willingly run rubbish. Dennis always seem, even with their current dominance, to fall short of the quality of the late lamented AEC, Bristol and Leyland.
David Oldfield
06/07/11 – 07:24
The Dennis UF was tried on A&D as you say and it was used on a number of routes however it was not “hitting the spot” with A&D who were already looking at AEC Reliance and being lighter and more cost effective. The UF was a much heavier vehicle. As we see from history, they went the AEC route in the end. There was also a problem with the UF overheating on hilly routes. Hope this adds a bit of an update for you.
Doug Sneddon
06/07/11 – 13:50
The Lancet UF was a bit heavier than the early vacuum braked AEC Reliance, but not by much. The chassis weight of the Dennis was 3ton 17cwt, against 3ton 14cwt for the AEC. I hadn’t before heard of overheating problems with the Lancet, but the type was pretty rare and information about its performance in service is similarly scarce. I suspect, also, that operators were suspicious of the low driving position, especially for bus work, and also put off by the full hydraulic braking system and the double reduction rear axle. The AEC, with its single reduction rear axle, vacuum brakes and direct top synchromesh gearbox would have suggested a simpler vehicle to maintain, as well as being easier to drive. I am not a great AEC fan (the Regent V with conventional transmission was a somewhat primitive and noisy vehicle to drive, and not a patch on the Regent III), but the AEC five speed gearbox in the Reliance was a delight to use. The AEC wet liner engines were certainly not trouble free, though.
Roger Cox
08/07/11 – 06:16
I have to amend my comment under the picture at the top of this entry. The Dennis five speed gearbox, as Ian Thompson has correctly pointed out elsewhere, was a sliding pinion (i.e.”crash”) gearbox, not a constant mesh unit. With the engine and gearbox remote from the driver, smooth gear changing would not have been easy to accomplish, and the Reliance would have scored over the Dennis on this point also.
Roger Cox
09/07/11 – 07:07
With East Kent they were always referred to as ‘Spaceships’ for fairly obvious reasons. I must be one of the few who has conducted on one – an urgent relief to a Dover-Ramsgate journey with nothing else available (1966, I think). It caused a bit of confusion but was welcomed by passengers left behind by the service car, especially as it had started raining.
Lew Finnis
10/07/11 – 07:39
I cannot claim a great pedigree of Lancet UF driving (but so rare; who can?) However the one I have driven was a “Chinese” gearbox with low gears on the right hand side of the gate. I wonder if the reference to a normalised change is confused with the optional Meadows gearbox, particularly found in some of the later Glenton fleet. To continue and hopefully elaborate on the gearbox. It is very true to say the large and heavy box was very old fashioned compared with the AEC 5 speed. Yes, the lower gears were sliding mesh (4th of course being direct so strictly speaking no gears involved). But 5th was constant mesh engaged by preselected dog clutches – but here’s the thing, even though constant mesh, the gears were straight cut and therefore tended to be noisy (or according to taste, musical) even at cruising speed.
Nick Webster
10/07/11 – 07:41
An interesting experience, Lew, especially when trying to get the fares from the passengers sitting in the front nearside seats low down beside the driver. What was the opinion among the East Kent driving staff of these Lancet UF “Spaceships”? The East Kent fleet of 30 was the largest order ever placed for the type.
Roger Cox
11/07/11 – 07:41
Thanks for your comments, Nick, which give us a valuable insight into the characteristics of the Lancet UF. The vertical engined Lancet and the Lance double deckers certainly had “right to left” upward selection of the gears – why on earth did Dennis persevere with this arrangement so long after the rest of the industry, including Guy (GS type excepted), had standardised on “left to right”? – but my understanding that the Lancet UF gearbox worked in the logical pattern comes from the “Modern Transport” magazine road test of the type in March 1954, which refers to the selection of overdrive being accomplished “by moving the main gear lever from the direct drive position to the right against a spring and then forward”. I certainly wasn’t aware that the later Glenton coaches, presumably the 8 litre version, had Meadows gearboxes. I recall from somewhere that the Meadows gearbox had a “Chinese” gear selection layout as well. Whilst on that subject, David Brown gearboxes also had strange selector layouts, as anyone who has driven a Bristol SC4LK will know.The Clark/Turner gearbox in the Bedford VAL was another strange creature. No doubt there were others. Dennis appeared to lose its way somewhat in the immediate post war period. The Lancet III was a quite successful type, and the lighter goods vehicles also sold well until undercut and overtaken by the cheaper lightweights from Bedford and Ford. In part, the firm suffered from the sudden loss of both of the Dennis brothers within three months in 1938 – Raymond Dennis was only 59 years of age, and John was 67 – and the post war heavy lorry business was dominated by British Road Services which placed the bulk of its orders with Leyland, AEC and Bristol. The advanced O6 engine soon proved to be too small at 7.58 litres, and later 8 litres, for the heavier demands of the late 1940s onwards. Had the firm upgraded the earlier O4 from four to six cylinders it would have had a 9.8 litre engine of some 125 bhp to take on AEC and Leyland. Instead, Dennis developed six cylinder engines of 5.0 and 5.5 litre sizes, that must have barely recovered their development costs as the mass producers increasingly captured the lighter end of the market. The survival and success of Dennis today, albeit in a decidedly different guise, is one of the surprises of our time.
Roger Cox
11/07/11 – 10:35
Although various Gardner, Leyland and Rolls Royce power plants were used, British Road Services was BTC and therefore was a (new) BRISTOL operator. [The only period when Bristol was a serious HGV manufacturer.] It is true that they operated other makes, including AEC, but for the most part these were vehicles taken over from the small independents who were nationalised. Those of you who have read the excellent Barber/Davies Wallace Arnold books will know that the associated Barr Haulage business was nationalised and became part of BRS.
David Oldfield
12/07/11 – 05:44
Strange gearboxes I have known. I once had a ride on one of Brown’s (Donington Wood) Sentinels. The driver said it had a Meadows box. The arrangement was not only switched right-to-left but also top to bottom. This probably meant that the gearbox was of standard layout internally but there was an extra fulcrum in the linkage. This was after all one of the very first underfloor-engined vehicles. F & H Dean of Newton Heath was a subsidiary of Maynes (Manchester) and ran a fleet of Bedford coaches. As a teenager I travelled on two of the SBs, one with a Bedford 4-speed box and one with the weird Clark/Turner 5-speed unit mentioned by Roger. But both were switched round right-to-left, with the low gears on the right and the high on the left. Finally I was involved in the failed attempt to preserve a Foden PVD6 of Garelochhead Coaches. When we went to collect it we found it had an unmistakeable Foden gearbox – i.e. with super-low and super-reverse – but again switched around right to left. We wrote to Foden, who said they had never built a gearbox like that and it must have been rebuilt by the operator. We wrote to the operator, who said it had been like that from new. All sorts of stuff goes on that nobody knows about!
Peter Williamson
13/07/11 – 07:24
Early utility Guys delivered to London Transport (and no doubt other operators), had the left and right gates reversed. Guy later changed the gate to the conventional one. To avoid driver confusion, LPTB cut a couple of inches off the top of the (I think) non-conventional gear levers. It seemed to work, although you’d soon learn that pulling away in third was silly!
Off-topic I know, but it’s good that mention’s been made that Bristol built HGV’s for British Road Services. Here is an excellent example of their product: at this link
Chris Hebbron
18/07/11 – 11:42
Most interesting to read Nick Webster and Roger Cox’s comments on Dennis Lancet UF gearbox variants. I certainly had no idea of the option of a Meadows box, which was perhaps chosen as being more manageable for new drivers than Dennis’s own excellent but unusual product. I’ve got a “Driver’s Handbook for Lancet U/F Diesel” publication 320c (surely they never offered a petrol version?!) which illustrates the gate with Reverse to the right and back and with Overdrive to the left and forward—exactly as on the halfcab Lancets. But the table of ratios shows 3rd as 1.55:1, whereas in the postwar Lance and most?/all? postwar Lancet half cabs 3rd was 1.66:1. I’ve also got a note, copied from a prewar magazine, that the 1936 O4-engined Lancet could be had with either of the following ratios: 0.69:1, 1.00:1, 1.55:1, 2.74:1, 4.54:1 and R 5.84:1. 0.69:1, 1.00:1, 1.55:1, 2.94:1, 5.18:1 and R 6.66:1. That second option gives a good wide spread, but the ratio gap between 3rd and 2nd looks a bit daunting! All this choice seems to fall in line with Dennis’s willingness to give customers what they wanted—not that such generosity always did the company all the good it should have done! Was the choice of a double-reduction rear axle for the U/F partly aimed at providing as low and uncluttered a floor as possible? The bevel crown-wheel/pinion ratio is less than 1.5:1, with a further reduction of over 4:1 in the hub. This way the diff housing is much smaller than with the usual CW/P ratio of about 5:1. The drawing does not show the housing as being offset to one side. Again, a bewildering variety of alternative overall ratios is given. Stuck onto page FRA1 of the “Lancet U/F Instruction Book” publication 373c is a note saying: “The axle described in this section is the F.101-2 fire engine type used with the all indirect drive gearbox. If a conventional gearbox is fitted to a chassis such as the Lancet U.F. then the spiral bevel wheel is mounted on the other side of the differential unit case so that the difference in input shaft rotation is accommodated. In other respects the axles are the same.” Visions of a bus with 5 reverse gears and only a crawler for forward motion…
Ian Thompson
18/07/11 – 22:59
Ian, that second gearbox option on the O4 Lancet would have given it Alpine hill climbing ability, albeit in reverse. I have to admit a soft spot for Dennis (had anyone noticed?). It was always a relatively small firm, but its engineering was of a very high order. The Lancet III with its advanced 24 valve engine proved to be an outstandingly reliable power plant, and numerous small, and some not so small, coach companies held this model in high esteem. According to the book “Dennis-100 Years of Innovation” by Stewart J. Brown, Dennis’s best year for sales before the Hestair takeover was in 1949 when it sold 1096 buses and lorries, and it is probable that the Lancet III formed a major part of that total. It was sad that the UF version didn’t win the same level of support, and the company could surely have amended the specification to accord with the clearly emerging engineering preferences of the bus industry. The pointer was the outstanding success of the AEC Reliance, and one can only wonder why Dennis did not try to emulate as many features as possible of that top selling model. By 1958, Dennis had a new five speed constant mesh gearbox in the Loline, which also had air brakes. Why wasn’t the Lancet UF re-engineered to accept these features? Similarly. a single reduction rear axle option and a revised chassis front end without the “drop” could surely have been offered at modest cost. Instead, Dennis pursued several lines of development that ultimately led nowhere, the Jaguar engined low floor front wheel drive ambulance being the extreme example. One should be grateful that the company is still with us, though it is now a very different creature from the Dennis of fond memory.
Roger Cox
19/07/11 – 06:56
After about 1950 the market for new buses and coaches contracted suddenly, making it impossible for all of the manufacturers who had been successful during the shortages of the early postwar years to continue to thrive in the same way. There just wasn’t room for them all in the marketplace. The major market for the Lancet UF would have been the BET operators, who would have been instructed not to buy it. Little point in investing in further development of a product which could only be sold to independents. Therefore I don’t believe the apparent decline of Dennis in the PSV market in the 1950s should be seen as a failure. Dennis were doing what they wanted to do, and what they did best, which was niche marketing. For years they didn’t waste any effort on the PSV market unless there was a niche to fill. Even the Dart would have been seen as a niche product when it was launched, but changes in the marketplace turned it, and Dennis, into something else.
Peter Williamson
23/07/11 – 08:38
Dennis had several BET company customers for the J3/J10 Lancet in the early post war period, and East Kent did initially buy the UF version. Aldershot and District, North Western and City of Oxford all bought the Loline, so that, whilst it is true that the BET group were AEC/Leyland orientated, there is no evidence that Dennis could not have sold a re-engineered Lancet UF to companies that wanted it. Before the advent of the Fleetline, Daimler was almost exclusively a supplier to municipal fleets, but the Fleetline soon found a place in the BET order books. Dennis’s emergence in niche marketing didn’t really happen until the Hestair takeover and the abandonment by the company of hgv production (dustcarts excepted). Much of this was a means of testing the psv market to find a new place for the company in a market then dominated almost exclusively by Leyland, whose arrogant “take or leave it” attitude under Donald Stokes generated a groundswell of resentment in the bus operating industry (including NBC!). With the development of the Javelin and the Dart, Dennis found mass markets, and the small production runs of almost bespoke models ceased.
Roger Cox
25/07/11 – 08:57
Sorry, what I meant by niche marketing (which may not be quite the right term) was not small-volume as opposed to large, but addressing a gap in the market as opposed to competing head-on with similar products.
Peter Williamson
26/07/11 – 07:33
Regarding the BET Group, something I’ve just remembered, and which I’m sure Dennis would have been well aware of, is that Atkinson developed the Alpha single-decker at the specific request of North Western, who were then ordered to buy Leylands instead. The NWRC Chief Engineer, who had overseen the development, resigned as a result. I don’t think this BET policy was due to engineering preference so much as the availability of bulk discounts for group purchases.
Peter Williamson
04/08/11 – 21:35
As far as I can recall, the drivers had no great gripes about them, other than the low driving position. From what I remember, they had a good turn of speed. They certainly soldiered on for a long time on the Port shuttles for Sealink and Seaspeed foot passengers after they had been taken out of front-line service.
Lew Finnis
28/10/11 – 14:12
My uncle worked as a driver at East Kent’s Herne Bay garage in the 1940’s – 1950’s, driving Leyland Tigers (TS8) and he said that he was not fond of the Lancet UF’s due mostly to the gearbox, and it’s remote location. He reckoned there was only one driver at Herne Bay that could actually drive them properly on tours work. He was also quite scathing about the Morris Commercial Imperial deckers based at Herne Bay – but that’s another story.
Mike
17/12/11 – 16:33
I was looking at your web site re bus tickets and buses as I am writing a small piece for our village news round. As a boy I remember a coach similar to to the one described above. It had a double seat adjacent to the driver at the front and the door was situated along the side in the middle. I remember the reg as being HAY 111 and was owned I believe by Birchers or Ridgeway and Windridge and operated under the name of Victory Coaches in Ibstock Leicestershire approx late 50s any use or can you confirm anything. I do remember other firms in the area described in the web site Brown Blue and Gibsons, others in our area were Rudins, Blockleys
Peter Stirland
18/12/11 – 07:33
HAY 111 was an AEC Regal IV which had Gurney Nutting C41C bodywork. It was new in 1951 to Windridge, Sons & Riley t/a Victory of Ibstock. When they sold out to Browns Blue in 1958, this vehicle was included in the sale and served with BB until the end of their operations in 1963. As Midland Red didn’t keep any of the vehicles, it passed to Yuille of West Hartlepool but I’m afraid I know nothing of Yuille.
Chris Barker
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
10/09/12 – 07:15
Mention has been made about the turn of speed attributed to the East Kent Dennis Lancet UF. Based on examination of what is believed to be the last remaining example (just about!) I can reveal that this one at least is fitted with a higher ratio back axle than standard and the later and larger 8 litre engine. The axle appears original and the engine has tags indicating that it was fitted by East Kent, rather than some subsequent owner.
Nick Webster
11/09/12 – 07:27
Here is another of these fine East Kent Lancet UFs. HJG 29 is seen pictured in Canterbury Bus Station in 1961. Another vehicle of this class is parked behind it. This handsome 1954 style of Duple body compares very favourably with the bulbous abomination fitted to 1961 Black and White Reliance 8222 AD. It was somewhere about 1960 that Duple began to lose its way in my opinion.
East Kent Road Car Co Ltd 1954 Dennis Lancet UF Duple C41C
This photo taken on Margate seafront in about 1966 shows HJG 3 numerically the first of a batch of 30 Dennis Lancet UF’s fitted with Duple Ambassador C41C bodies delivered to East Kent in 1954 these made up the largest fleet of Lancet UF’s in the country. Looking at this photo again recently I thought how the elegant simplicity of both the coachwork and the superb East Kent livery set one another off beautifully, on the Lancet the windscreens were set lower than on the contemporary Royal Tiger’s and Regal IV’s due to the Lancet’s lower driving position which also made the skylights above the screens more upright also the cab windows and the pillar behind the cab was a different shape. I feel that the Lancet UF deserved more success than it achieved but obviously it did not appeal to those then all powerful figures the Fleet Engineers who didn’t like some aspects of the specification.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Diesel Dave
31/10/13 – 07:31
Rather like Leyland in the dark, dark days of British Leyland you feel in your guts that you ought to, that you want to like/support Dennis. Many the reputable operator ran Lances, Lancet(tte)s and, of course, Lolines. Glenton ran the last “batch” of Lancet UFs with Plaxton Panorama bodywork – another class act. Often, specifications were good – just quirky and unproven (not necessarily bad and unreliable). Fodens had this problem. I’m no great lover of the Javelin – I prefer heavyweights – but it was a solid workhorse in the style of Bedford and Ford. I did, however, take a Dennis R420 to the South of France one summer. With its ZF AStronic gearbox (and a bit of imagination!) you could call it a cheap GB Setra. Being very much a Setra man, I can say that the R420 was one of the best/nicest coaches I have ever driven. It never took off because it didn’t have Volvo Assist to back it up if it broke down. [My experience of Volvo Assist is that it wasn’t missing much.] So I can support Roger to the hilt. The R series should have been a success, it wasn’t Dennis’s fault it wasn’t – and I’m sure the same was true of the Lancet UF.
David Oldfield
31/10/13 – 15:52
Newport Corporation ran some Lancet UFs but most were bodied as coaches, weren’t they?
Geoff Kerr
01/11/13 – 08:18
Newport Corporation took 12 Lancet UF in two batches. In his book “Dennis Buses in Camera” Robin Hannay says that the first 4 had bus bodies but makes no comment about the second batch although in the picture it appears that they have bus seating. All bodies were built by D J Davies a local coach operator and Dennis agent.
Paragon
01/11/13 – 08:20
I have always admired these East Kent Lancet UF coaches. East Kent took a total of thirty of these machines, the biggest single order that Dennis received for the Lancet UF. Registered HGF 2 to 32, they all had the stylish Duple Ambassador IV bodywork, the first six being C32C and the remainder C41C. The low driving position of the Lancet UF was incorporated very successfully into the design, and the result was a classic to my eye. East Kent were dedicated Dennis users in the pre and early post WW2 period, and my very first experience as a small boy of the Guildford marque came about in 1947-49 with rides on the Lancet II buses, with their distinctive O4 engines, between Faversham and Herne Bay. Until the advent of the Dart and its derivatives, the vertical engined Lancet was Dennis’s most successful passenger type, and the firm must have hoped that the underfloor engined model would have captured at least some of the market. In fact, the total production of the Lancet UF came to 71, the last being delivered to Glenton Tours in 1961. Several reasons may be offered for this, but reliability was certainly not a factor. East Kent, for example, kept their Lancet UFs for around 17 years. Some of the problems lay with the Dennis design which included features that some bus company engineers viewed with caution. These included the low driving position (the ultimate industry acceptance of which Dennis anticipated by about twenty years) and the high pressure hydraulic braking system that, London Transport’s Routemaster excepted, never became popular. The Dennis ‘O’ type gearbox was an idiosyncratic affair that had sliding mesh (i.e true crash rather than constant mesh) engagement of the four lower gears, fourth being direct drive. To add to the fun, the gearstick operated the “wrong way round”, upwards from right to left. Fifth gear was an overdrive with preselective engagement/disengagement using Maybach design principles. To engage fifth, the gear lever was pushed at any time from fourth position to the left and forward, but nothing happened until the accelerator and clutch were released to allow the revs to die. Then, releasing the clutch and applying the throttle would find the overdrive engaged. To disengage fifth, the stick would be moved back into fourth position at any time, and to actuate the system, the clutch had to be dipped and the engine blipped to raise the revs. Releasing the clutch pedal again would find fourth gear engaged. In the front engined Lancet, the proximity of the engine and gearbox to the driver allowed clean gear changes to be made by ear. In the UF, the remote location of the gearbox halfway down the chassis made this rather more difficult. Later models of the Lancet UF had the 8 litre rather than the 7.58 litre version of the O6 engine and a Meadows gearbox. When UF production finally finished, so did the manufacture of the O6, the last engine in the Dennis range to be offered. Thereafter, the firm used proprietary units. In the mid 1950s the BET group concentrated its purchasing upon AEC and Leyland products, and most other manufacturers of entirely acceptable machinery, including Dennis, were excluded from the ‘approved list’. Dennis tried again to enter the underfloor bus/coach market with the Pelican in 1956, which had the Dennis 92 bhp 5.5 litre engine and a conventional Meadows five speed constant mesh gearbox. The prototype made many demonstration tours, but the supremacy of AEC and Leyland in declining market conditions deterred the Guildford company from putting the Pelican into production. Yet again, however, the reliability of this unique machine was unquestionable. It ran for many years, first with Yellow Bus of Guildford, and finally with Chiltern Queens of Woodcote. More about the characteristics of the Lancet UF may be found on this site:- www.dennissociety.org.uk/nl/lancetuf.html
Roger Cox
01/11/13 – 14:02
Paragon – thanks, I meant to say “most others”, i.e. other than Newport’s. I know there’s a preserved Brutonian vehicle and Aldershot & District had at least one with a bus body.
Geoff Kerr
01/11/13 – 17:57
As has been stated elsewhere on this site, Dennis Lancet UF KOT 600 was never owned by Aldershot and District. The confusion arises because the vehicle was painted in A&D livery and given the fleet number 187, but it remained the property of the manufacturer. It was operated on hire from Dennis from 1st February to 30 November 1953, after which it was returned to the Guildford factory. It subsequently went to Simmonds of Great Gonerby, near Grantham, and then to Cullings of Norwich who eventually passed it on to Blue Bus of Slough. At some stage in its life its Strachans B41R body was rebuilt with a front entrance. Aldershot and District went over to the AEC Reliance for its single deck requirements.
Roger Cox
03/11/13 – 09:02
“Somerset’s Buses” by Laurie James (Tempus 2004) is the source of much useful information concerning the Lancet UFs belonging to Hutchings and Cornelius of which the Brutonian example mentioned above is one. H&C were Dennis users for many years and in 1957 took 3 UFs YYB 117/8/9.117 was DP40F and the other 2 were B42F. All had full service lives. 118 ended up with Brutonian but the interesting thing is that 119 is shown as passing to a Preservation Group in Guildford in September 1973. Where is it now?
Paragon
10/11/13 – 17:17
I had a close relationship with the East Kent UFs when they were used on contract services at Dover Eastern Docks providing a road link from ships and hovercraft to Dover Priory railway station in the 1969 -1971 period. I can vouch for what Roger Cox says about the potential difficulties posed by the remote gearbox, the long linkages and the unconventional gate. I can remember even experienced drivers stirring the long gear lever to find what they were looking for. In spite of being in their late teens at the end at the time they presented a modern image alongside the new hovercraft, and dare I say it they were more reliable than an SRN4! Just worth noting that the East Kent fleet was HJG 3 – HJG 32, slightly different from the numbers in Roger’s comment.
Mike Harvey
11/11/13 – 15:14
Roger – When I was young, about four times a year, I’d get an A&D Lance from Woking to St. Peter’s Hospital, near Chertsey and would try and sit in the nearside/offside downstairs front seat and observe the driver. It was quite some time before I worked out how that Dennis ‘O’ gearbox worked and the strange ‘U’ movement by the driver, with no change in engine note at that moment. I was quite used to preselective methods with the LTE Daimlers around Morden, but a crash gearbox with pre-selective overdrive; egad; that was quite another thing! That whole area was also interesting in that you would have London Country and A&D buses popping in and out of turnings all over. Interesting times.
Chris Hebbron
14/11/13 – 06:00
Paragon enquires what became of YYB 119 once listed as preserved? A previous owner of now preserved YYB 118 told me that circa 1984 he had located 119 laid up behind a pub in the Guildford area. Photographs show that it was in fairly poor order, blocked up with a missing front wheel and a large pile of scaffolding stacked against one side. Despite enquiries no one could be found who knew anything about it and when he returned at a later date it had gone. And as far as I am aware, it has never been seen since. Attemps to trace members of “The Guildford LU2 Group” have been equally negative.
Nick Webster
15/11/13 – 06:25
Chris, the Lance K3 was a remarkable machine, with its free running 7.58 litre 24 valve O6 engine, giving (unlike the optimistic claims of contemporary Crossley and Daimler engines, both of which had a litre greater capacity) a genuine 100 bhp, and this was coupled to the ‘O’ type gearbox with its preselective overdrive fifth gear. It was probably the fastest double decker of its time. In an age when the legal maximum speed for a psv was 30 mph, it always amused me to read the plate on the internal cab bonnet side of the Aldershot and District Lances and Lancets – “Do not engage fifth gear below 30 mph”. In my own experience, sadly only as a passenger, the drivers certainly complied, and these machines spent much of their time in overdrive. To the best of my knowledge, the A&D timetables of the 1960s did not differ greatly in terms of running time from those of the late 1950s. One had to drive a Loline pretty hard to get to Petersfield on time from Guildford or Aldershot, so the old 30mph limit must have been regularly observed in the breach.
Roger Cox
16/11/13 – 11:30
About,1963 I took a return journey from Portsmouth to Milford, swapping from Southdown to A&D at Petersfield. The Southdown, from memory, was one of the East Lancs PD2/12 registration RUF ###’s, but the A&D was a Loline; interesting, but not a Lance, to my eternal regret Roger, on that challenging route.
Chris Hebbron
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
28/07/18 – 06:29
It’s confession time – I was the “Guildford LU2 Group” After my initial attempt at vehicle preservation (OWB GCV 623) failed with the vehicle being vandalised on a farm in Elstead, I tried again with YYB 119 which I bought directly from H & C and drove home. Sadly, after securing a parking space next to a pub in Witley, I tried to get an MOT and needed to replace the kingpins, something which I was unable to do. Having run out of money and enthusiasm, I am ashamed to say that the bus was abandoned and I suspect that the kindly publican probably sold it for scrap. My next foray into bus ownership was the purchase of VCH 172 from Tillingbourne which I operated as KRC Coaches (Later to become Surreyways).
East Kent Road Car Co Ltd 1957 AEC Reliance MU3RV Beadle C32C
When new, this handsome-looking vehicle would have worn East Kent’s traditional coach livery of maroon and cream. In the photo it is seen towards the end of its East Kent days, still on active coaching duties, but wearing a revised livery of grey and maroon. At some point in its career, MJG 48 has received extra aluminium trim strips along the body sides, with another strip discreetly added above the headlights. This subtle, well thought out modification has, in my view, allowed for the application of an updated livery, whilst maintaining an air of quality and dignity befitting an older vehicle. (The coach is actually sporting NBC white bus-style fleetnames and ‘Double N’ logos on the sides, but somehow they do not dominate). This fine coach and its siblings had long working lives with East Kent, and most were not withdrawn I believe until 1975.
Talking of subtle differences, this is essentially the Rochester body (for separate chassis) but the front end does not immediately give it away. The main part of the body is uncannily like the Weymann Fanfare – even more so on the Rochester itself. Fine vehicle, fine operator – fine memories.
David Oldfield
24/09/12 – 17:15
After looking at yesterdays posting of the East Kent Beadle bodied Reliance I remembered having a photo of another of the batch in the original livery which was taken in the mid sixties in Eastbourne where I think the passengers had taken a lunch break on their way to Swanage. The traditional East Kent colours look superb on this style of bodywork but then they suited just about any style available at the time, we were fortunate in the south east in having three companies namely Southdown, M&D and East Kent all with superbly elegant liveries plus Eastbourne Corporation with their deep blue and primrose colours all within a relatively small area.
East Kent had three batches of Beadle bodied Reliances delivered in 1957 the 32 seat tour coaches with centre entrances in the photo No’s MJG 41-52 followed by No’s MJG 285-300 with 37 seat front entrance bodies which bore a resemblance to the Rochester integral design and lastly No’s NFN 327-349 with 41 seat bodies similar to 285 etc at least some of the later type even had a rear destination screens used when on express work, attached is a photo taken again in the mid sixties of NFN 341 on Margate sea front alas can’t see the rear panels.
NFN 341
I think that these Reliances along with Southdowns Tiger Cubs were the only underfloor engined chassis bodied by Beadle if you discount the Commer powered integrals of which incidentally East Kent had three KFN 250-252 delivered in 1955 with 41 seat front entrance dual purpose bodies if I am wrong no doubt someone on the site will put me in the picture.
I knew that I had to have forgotten something namely the Sentinels, but an even greater omission considering that I lived nearby is of course the Maidstone & District’s batch of Reliances delivered in 1957 No’s SO 223-239 reg No’s YKR 223-239 with B42F bodies. I am open to further correction.
Diesel Dave
06/01/13 – 07:04
The NFN is shown with the livery used when downgraded for bus work. Originally the livery was all-over red with an ivory waistband – which didn’t stop them being used on bus routes, of course.
East Kent Road Car Co Ltd 1957 AEC Reliance MU3RV Beadle C32C
It’s a fine warm day on 12th July 1969 as this East Kent coach stands outside Lichfield cathedral on a private hire (assumed as it is unlikely at 12 years old to be on an extended tour). The entrance door and forward emergency exit are both open allowing a cooling breeze to pass through the coach. It looks very smart for its age with a livery and fleetname which exudes pride and quality. The dead hand of NBC corporatism had much to answer for in years to come.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Ian Wild
20/02/14 – 06:49
A superb photo of a superb coach. Thanks, again, Ian. It could almost be a publicity shot or the cover of a holiday brochure. As a mere Northerner, can any of our Southern experts help me out? In terms of outright quality and reputation, where did Beadle rank compared with Burlingham and Harrington, let alone Duple or Plaxton?
David Oldfield
20/02/14 – 06:50
I could be miles off the mark ‘as usual’ I know it’s centre entrance, but to me it has more than a hint of the Weymann Fanfare about it, especially around the windows. It’s certainly a handsome beast that would look good in almost any livery, even the ‘Corporate Image Brigade’ would have a job to make it look bad, but I’d bet it wouldn’t be for the want of trying.
Ronnie Hoye
20/02/14 – 09:13
Jack Davies was forced to leave Weymann under “shady circumstances” and ended up at Beadle. Shortly after, the Rochester was put on the market – a Fanfare clone.
David Oldfield
22/02/14 – 08:00
The recent posting of an East Kent Reliance reminded me of this photo taken on the A259 road across Romney Marsh in the mid sixties. It shows AFN 497B a Reliance 2MU4RA with a Duple Commander I C34F body one of a batch of ten delivered in May and June 1964 these took over the touring duties of the Reliance/Beadles. Photos of this batch of coaches seem few and far between as my admittedly limited searches have so far drawn a blank. I think that the Duple Commander body evolved with a minor hiccup in the Mk 2 with it’s overly heavy grille through the very stylish Mk 3 into the superbly elegant Commander IV of the early seventies one of the classics of the period, we all know what followed in the Dominant not bad but a definite backward step and the build quality was very suspect. The comments regarding the rich colours of the superb East Kent livery apply equally to these and all their other vehicles until that awful paintbrush wielding dead hand of the NBC corporate colour scheme struck like a plague of mediocrity.
Diesel Dave
22/02/14 – 09:24
Your critique of NBC paintwork and Duple coachwork is both poetic and true, Dave.
David Oldfield
23/02/14 – 06:47
These two coaches are a perfect example of the post war pre NBC differences between Tilling and BET Group coach fleets. Apart from vehicles acquired through takeovers, Tilling group companies had their hands tied, and other than cosmetic differences down to livery and trim, all their coach fleets were just variations on the same ECW box. Not that there was anything wrong with them, and I suspect that many BET Group companies would from time to time have opted for ECW bodies given the opportunity. However. looking at BET, the variety they had was endless, over the years BMMO and NGT had a couple of in house designs, and throughout the group virtually every coachbuilder was represented at some time or other, some even dipped a toe into the water with Bedford SB’s, Ford and Commer, but for the main part they stayed with the mid to heavyweight end of the market. Days that have sadly gone, but nostalgia is not what it used to be.
East Kent Road Car Company 1967 AEC Regent V 3D3RA Park Royal H40/32F
This photograph, copyright of the ‘M & D and East Kent Bus Club’, shows East Kent Road Car Company MFN 946F in the guise of one of the holiday exhibition buses which toured northern towns in the 1960s to publicise the holiday resorts in Kent and Sussex. In the early 1960s, as a school boy in Rochdale, I recall seeing a similar type of touring exhibition double decker of Maidstone & District. This was a rear entrance model probably one of the then latest intake of buses to M&D. (Some time ago John Stringer made mention on the OBP site of his sightings of same in Halifax). From memory the lower deck rear longitudinal seats remained in place although the area forward of these (normally occupying the transverse seating) was fitted out with poster panels/tables with publicity material on display. The upper deck might have been set up to show films but I am not sure on this. I wonder if anyone has any recollections or maybe photographs of these buses ‘on tour’? The destination blind service number aperture shows ‘IN 1968’. I have no idea where this shot, in thawing snow, was taken but the ornamental sign seems to say ‘Barley Mow’.
My interest in buses was in its formative stage at this time and anything outside Lancashire and Yorkshire was truly alien so these visitors were quite ‘mysterious’. They also inspired me to cut thin strips of paper and insert them between the ‘windows’ of Matchbox Routemasters to crudely replicate the real thing!
Photograph and Copy contributed by David Slater
23/03/14 – 17:52
Further to my old friend David Slater’s picture of the East Kent ‘Publicity Bus’.
Here is a picture of the same bus parked outside Oldham Town Hall fulfilling the same duty, but this time praising the holiday virtues of Folkestone. I wonder if it was enough to entice Oldhamers from the charms of Blackpool and the Lancashire coast for their ‘Wakes Holiday’. After all it was a long way to travel, when you could hop on a Yelloway Coach at Mumps and be there in a couple of hours.
Stephen Howarth
13/09/18 – 06:55
This vehicle is still going, and in excellent condition. Last seen in Chichester, on loan to Stagecoach, on the shuttle service from the Station to the Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit for the Goodwood Revival.
www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/
