Some interesting questions

[DanT2014]

Dear all,

I have recently become an enthusiast of buses in the UK, both modern and vintage. Unfortunately, I have experienced difficulty in finding a suitable venue to pose various questions I have about buses. All I could find were forums for specific enthusiast groups, which tend to be very regional in their remit. And so, if anyone has any information about places I could go to ask these questions, could you please post it here?

Also, I will post my questions here anyway, some of which are quite obscure, so that you can provide any insights to them that you might have. The questions are as follows:

1. After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?
2. Why are Transport for London so resistant to using LED destination displays on their buses? Isn’t that the cheap industry standard now? Who on earth is still making the old roller blinds? Couldn’t they at least try out the LED displays on a review basis?
3. Why on earth were buses so “regional” in the 1960s? What I mean by that is, why were there bus bodies that rarely or never appeared in one area but are extremely common in another? I know of several examples of this phenomenon, especially in London. For some reason London once had, and occasionally still has buses, such as Routemasters and Regal IV Buses, that have never shown up anywhere north of Watford. Also, I notice that Eastern Coach Works bodied and Bristol chassis single-deck buses were as rare as hens’ teeth in Scotland, but were all over the place in such places as Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea and even places as far north as Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland. What on Earth is going on here?
4. Why did we lose so many chassis and body builders? Whatever happen to such names as, AEC, Park Royal, Guy, East Lancs, Eastern Coach Works, Daimler, Leyland, Bristol, Harrington, Northern Counties, Weymann, Metro-Camell, and many others?
5. Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?
6. Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all of these questions? I look forward to hearing from you soon?

 

[cnjb8]

Dear all,

I have recently become an enthusiast of buses in the UK, both modern and vintage. Unfortunately, I have experienced difficulty in finding a suitable venue to pose various questions I have about buses. All I could find were forums for specific enthusiast groups, which tend to be very regional in their remit. And so, if anyone has any information about places I could go to ask these questions, could you please post it here?

Also, I will post my questions here anyway, some of which are quite obscure, so that you can provide any insights to them that you might have. The questions are as follows:

1. After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?
2. Why are Transport for London so resistant to using LED destination displays on their buses? Isn’t that the cheap industry standard now? Who on earth is still making the old roller blinds? Couldn’t they at least try out the LED displays on a review basis?
3. Why on earth were buses so “regional” in the 1960s? What I mean by that is, why were there bus bodies that rarely or never appeared in one area but are extremely common in another? I know of several examples of this phenomenon, especially in London. For some reason London once had, and occasionally still has buses, such as Routemasters and Regal IV Buses, that have never shown up anywhere north of Watford. Also, I notice that Eastern Coach Works bodied and Bristol chassis single-deck buses were as rare as hens’ teeth in Scotland, but were all over the place in such places as Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea and even places as far north as Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland. What on Earth is going on here?
4. Why did we lose so many chassis and body builders? Whatever happen to such names as, AEC, Park Royal, Guy, East Lancs, Eastern Coach Works, Daimler, Leyland, Bristol, Harrington, Northern Counties, Weymann, Metro-Camell, and many others?
5. Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?
6. Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all of these questions? I look forward to hearing from you soon?

2. They did trial it but I'm not sure if it was successful.
4. East Lancs was purchased by Darwen who then purchased Optare. They effectively shut down East Lancs.

 

[Titfield]

2 https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2013/2716
3. Bristol (Bus builder) and ECW (Eastern Coach Works) were state owned from 1947 and could only sell chassis / bodies to other state owned operators. In Scotland 3 of the state owned operators were formerly owned by Walter Alexanders who had their own bus bodying business.
Municipal operators would buy buses / bodies built in their home town / county to protect local jobs.
Bus Companies were conservative (with small c) and would prefer to buy from the same supplier if at all possible.
4 Demand: Supply. As the number of buses and coaches in the UK dropped dramatically there was insufficient business for many to stay in business.
5: Because it is their property.
6. Demand: Supply Equation but Im not sure why you think they are so hard to come by. 1:76 is 4mm to 1 ft.

 

[busesrusuk]

I will have a go at answering some of the questions.

With regards to No2, various batches of buses have trialled LED blinds and I believe its now an option for operators to choose. Indeed, the new Caetano electric buses being delivered to Abellio London for routes C10 and P5 have electronic blinds.

Point 3, many operators were loyal to either a particular chassis make or bodybuilder - many of them local to the operator. If you look at the fleets of the North West municipals in the 50's/60's many of their buses were Leyland chassis with either Northern Counties (Wigan) or East Lancs (Blackburn) bodies. With regard to the Routemaster and RegalIV (RF class), these were specifically designed for London Transport and generally cost more than other products of the day which is why others never bought them. The exception being Northern General who bought 50 front entrance 30ft Routemasters.

The Bristol/ECW combination was restricted to certain operators (cant remember which group it was - either the BET or THC group who owned the majority of bus companies which were not owned by the local councils (known as the municipal operators) in the UK prior to the creation of the NBC). Scottish "company" operators could choose Bristol/ECW buses and actually bought a number of the Lodekka model. They also bought a number of Bristol VRT's when that chassis was introduced but quickly decided they didn't like them and they were swapped with English operators who wanted rear engine deckers for Lodekka's. I am sure others can add much, much more to this particular story.

Point 4, the industry went through a period of consolidation during the 50's and 60's with various companies being bought out by competitors until most of them were under the ownership of Leyland. Same thing happened with the bodybuilders. By the 1970's the only real competitor to Leyland was MCW and subsequently Dennis re-entered the PSV market. With a lack of choice many operators looked abroad as they didn't like the apparent "take it or leave it" attitude of Leyland who streamlined their product line so there really wasn't much choice for either single or double deckers. This allowed foreign bus builders such as Volvo and Scania to get a foothold into the UK market. Again, a very broad brush overview of the industry.

With reference to No6, there are many model buses put there manufactured by Corgi, EFE (Bachnman), Northcord, Britbus etal. However, they are scale models (mostly 1/76 scale) and priced accordingly. However, the market is pretty flooded now and you can pick up older release models for as little as a fiver at many rallies. There was in the past the likes of the Matchbox 75 range which always had a bus in the range which were pocket money models back in the day but Matchbox have long since gone. Search some of the online model shops such as Hatton's to see what has been produced (its qute alot!) or visit this site for more info:

britishmodelbuses.com

Hope that helps..

 

[GusB]

Welcome to the forum @DanT2014 , and don't worry about asking questions - you'll never find out if you don't ask.

After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?

There was a thread discussing cross-border services a few months ago - might be worth having a scan back through "the archives". No doubt someone will be along to answer in more detail shortly.

Why on earth were buses so “regional” in the 1960s? What I mean by that is, why were there bus bodies that rarely or never appeared in one area but are extremely common in another? I know of several examples of this phenomenon, especially in London. For some reason London once had, and occasionally still has buses, such as Routemasters and Regal IV Buses, that have never shown up anywhere north of Watford. Also, I notice that Eastern Coach Works bodied and Bristol chassis single-deck buses were as rare as hens’ teeth in Scotland, but were all over the place in such places as Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea and even places as far north as Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland. What on Earth is going on here?

Local loyalty, to a certain extent. You had Greater Manchester with Northern Counties on its doorstep. Park Royal was local to London, and similarly Alexander was the dominant supplier in Scotland because it was based there. ECW bodies were fairly common north of the border, though. East Lancs was an odd one, though - they supplied fleets like Nottingham and as far afield as Tayside.

Why did we lose so many chassis and body builders? Whatever happen to such names as, AEC, Park Royal, Guy, East Lancs, Eastern Coach Works, Daimler, Leyland, Bristol, Harrington, Northern Counties, Weymann, Metro-Camell, and many others?

Leyland! Park Royal, Roe and AEC were all part of the ACV group until its merger with Leyland. Leyland also absorbed Guy, Daimler and eventually Bristol. East Lancs disappeared into Optare (itself born from the ashes of Roe). It's a long story!

Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?

I wouldn't say photographers are greedy. I know a few people who have been kind enough to share their photographs online, only for others to post their work elsewhere without crediting their work.

Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

Oxford Die-cast is one place to look, and there are other manufacturers of model buses. Pick up a copy of one of the railway modelling titles and you'll see them advertised.

 

[Titfield]

and here is a body builder challenge to tax the grey cells:
What do Plaxton, Burlingham, Harrington and ECW have in common?
What is a plausible explanation for this?

 

[GusB]

and here is a body builder challenge to tax the grey cells:
What do Plaxton, Burlingham, Harrington and ECW have in common?
What is a plausible explanation for this?

Plaxton - Scarborough
Burlingham - Blackpool?
Harrington - south coast somewhere, but can't remember
ECW - Lowestoft

They're all seaside resorts, although I've no idea why.

 

[Titfield]

Harrington is Hove and yes all seaside towns.

I have heard it postulated that bus bodies and especially coach bodies were built in the winter for delivery in the spring. Thus the work was counter seasonal ie in the winter.

Seaside towns had lots of spare labour in the winters hence the body builders were based there.

Not sure if this is a perfect explanation but it works for coach bodies.

 

[cainebj]

1. After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all of these questions? I look forward to hearing from you soon?

Welcome to the forum.
The cross-border services into Carlisle used to be operated by Western, who previously had their own depot in Carlisle. They were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland in the early 90s (I don't have a confirmed date at hand myself), after Carlisle passed from Ribble to Cumberland hence not finding any photos of Ribble buses with Scottish destinations on the blinds. Western previously operated service 84 from Longtown to Carlisle too, wholly in England, which was transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland on 10th Feburary 1992. The others may have transferred across on the same date.

 

[Busaholic]

I will have a go at answering some of the questions.



The Bristol/ECW combination was restricted to certain operators (cant remember which group it was - either the BET or THC group who owned the majority of bus companies which were not owned by the local councils (known as the municipal operators) in the UK prior to the creation of the NBC). Scottish "company" operators could choose Bristol/ECW buses and actually bought a number of the Lodekka model. They also bought a number of Bristol VRT's when that chassis was introduced but quickly decided they didn't like them and they were swapped with English operators who wanted rear engine deckers for Lodekka's. I am sure others can add much, much more to this particular story.

Bristol chassis and Eastern Coach Works bodies could only be bought by the nationalised BTC/THC fleets after 1948. BET was very much a private company, and quite profitable too during the period in question, of which Ribble, Midland Red, Southdown, Northern General, Western Welsh and Maidstone and District were probably the major operators.

 

[Man of Kent]

Welcome to the forum.
The cross-border services into Carlisle used to be operated by Western, who previously had their own depot in Carlisle. They were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland in the early 90s.

Western's Carlisle allocation was in fact in Cumberland's (previously Ribble's) depot. Both companies were subsequently purchased by Stagecoach, which made the changes noted above.
Similarly Eastern Scottish had a depot in Berwick - in this case separate from but adjacent to that of United. From 1985 it was transferred to Lowland (and United's to Northumbria), along with the routes, which ran to the west and north of Berwick. I don't know when they closed.
At one stage there were through routes from Edinburgh to Newcastle, operated jointly by Eastern Scottish and United, but these were withdrawn I think in the 1970s.

 

[Man of Kent]

5. Copyright, in most cases, lasts for 70 years after the death of the photographer. The sale of old photographs is an important source of income for many preservation and enthusiast groups, which would be undermined if photos appeared indiscriminately on the net. Indeed, not only are there people who feel able to put things on the internet whether they have permission to do so or not, there are even some who have sold copies of others' photographs without permission.

 

[carlberry]

5. Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?

Copyright expires a certain number of years after the creator dies (and the number keeps on being extended because of the interests of companies like Disney) so a photo from the 1960s, even if the creator had died in the 1960s wouldn't have expired yet in most cases. Copyright isn't greed (very few people can get rich, or even make a living, from selling old photographs and nobody is ever going to benefit from trying to deal with copyright theft except lawyers), it's a side effect from creating something and gives the originator control over how their creation is used. Unfortunately very few people fully understand the concept which is why so much stuff ends up being published on the Internet by people who don't actually own the copyright of what they're publishing.

 

[carlberry]

Harrington is Hove and yes all seaside towns.

I have heard it postulated that bus bodies and especially coach bodies were built in the winter for delivery in the spring. Thus the work was counter seasonal ie in the winter.

Seaside towns had lots of spare labour in the winters hence the body builders were based there.

Not sure if this is a perfect explanation but it works for coach bodies.

It is the actual explanation. Most coach operators wanted new vehicles delivered for spring, ready for their busy time. The builders would take on extra workers during the winter to cater for that and then lay them off after which they'd get jobs in the summer season at the resort. By the autumn the summer jobs would stop and they'd drift back to the coach builders. By the 1960s with much lower unemployment the practice declined and the peaks of demand became less noticeable into the 1970s (ECW obviously also built lots of bus bodies at the time however even there the peak of coach building always happened in the early months of the year until the 1970s).

 

[carlberry]

6. Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

Any other year and the answer would be just go to any bus rally and you'll find hundreds of them on stalls. At present that's not happening however once it does there will be loads available. One problem is that a lot were produced in the 1990s/2000s which caused problems with over production followed by rising costs which means that theres a lot less more recent vehicles being modeled so if you're after models of what's running now then the prices are higher and less variety is available. As others have said they're mostly sold using size ratios that fit with model railways with a few very large (O gauge and above), lots of medium sized ones OO guage (1:76 ratio) and more recently smaller (N guage) ranges.

 

[carlberry]

4. Why did we lose so many chassis and body builders? Whatever happen to such names as, AEC, Park Royal, Guy, East Lancs, Eastern Coach Works, Daimler, Leyland, Bristol, Harrington, Northern Counties, Weymann, Metro-Camell, and many others?

Unfortunately most of the chassis manufacturers ended up as part of British Leyland and they dragged into the issues that surrounded their car division (you can blame the government, the management or the unions depending on your preference), for the bus division the issue was the management and there's a book 'Beyond Reality' that's worth reading if you want some of the gorier details. Some of the body manufacturers went the same way (as part of Leyland), others just lost out as the number of vehicles ordered each year (which had been fairly constant) dived in the 1980s as the industry reacted to minibuses and deregulation.
Equally few in the early 1980s would have predicted that Roe (closed by British Leyland in the 1980s) would still be going today as Optare, Dennis (who hadn't produced bus related for most of the 1970s) would be a major manufacturer or Wright would be making vehicles for the mainland.

 

[carlberry]

3. Why on earth were buses so “regional” in the 1960s? What I mean by that is, why were there bus bodies that rarely or never appeared in one area but are extremely common in another? I know of several examples of this phenomenon, especially in London. For some reason London once had, and occasionally still has buses, such as Routemasters and Regal IV Buses, that have never shown up anywhere north of Watford.

Same today with Borismasters (thankfully!)

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?

To build on what others have said....

Carlisle traditionally had FOUR main operators and each had its own patch.

• Ribble were the main operator of services in the city but also operated to the south where they had a depot at Penrith, and one route worked from a small outbase at Bowness on Solway. These operations remained with Ribble until 1986 when they passed to fellow National Bus Co firm, Cumberland
• Cumberland once had a depot in the town but that had closed some years ago. Instead, they operated into Carlisle from the Cumbrian Coast with depots at Wigton, Maryport, Workington and Whitehaven, but gained the Ribble operations at Carlisle and Penrith in 1986. It was one of the original Stagecoach subsidiaries being bought by them from the government
• United Automobile had a depot in the city. It operated some services to the east of the city (e.g. Wetheral) and up into the hills with an outbase at Alston. This continued until 1969 when the National Bus Company was formed and the operations were transferred to Ribble and merged into their operations (though they still operated into Carlisle from Newcastle and Hexham on the 685 - a situation that continues now as Arriva)
• Western SMT/Western Scottish - they were the firm who operated to the North of the city and the majority of cross border services. They operated into Carlisle from Annan and Lockerbie (where they had small depots)and Dumfries which was the main depot and did most of the big servicing. The depot closed in the early 1980s (I think) but they continued running in from the north. They were privatised but were bought later by Stagecoach

There was a fifth main operator that visited Carlisle

• Eastern Scottish - they had the 95 service that ran in from Edinburgh and the Borders via Longtown, operated mainly by vehicles from Hawick and Galashiels. This became Lowland Scottish in 1985, becoming First and then selling out to Border Buses (West Coast) and still runs today.

On the other side of the country at Berwick, it was again a shared town with the local services shared between United Automobile (later Northumbria) and Eastern Scottish (later Lowland Scottish). They even had a shared garage with a single building split by a dividing wall https://www.flickr.com/photos/73091...fJ-RoYnUT-gRyJM9-2idx7C7-gqDJC2-WCFnZN-QUujmA

There were joint services between Newcastle and Edinburgh but, as has been noted, they were largely split in the early 1980s so Eastern operated north (504 Berwick to Edinburgh) and United operated south (501/505) to Newcastle. Otherwise, the split was that the Scottish routes e.g. to Duns or Eyemouth were worked by Eastern/Lowland and English routes (e.g. Wooler) were worked by United/Northumbria. There were some exceptions

• 463 from Berwick to Kelso that was jointly operated though not certain if United vehicles got past Coldstream
• There were also some services from the very small United depot at Wooler that ran to Kirk Yetholm, and to Coldstream but only on certain days of the week

With deregulation, Northumbria introduced competitive local services against Lowland and also got some tenders so they did appear in places like Kelso and Duns. IIRC, the Berwick bus war was concluded with a deal between First and British Bus (respective group owners) so Northumbria gained the local routes. The depot was vacated and redeveloped with both Northumbria and Lowland moving to the DoT test centre, before both then moved again to Scremerston; again, it was mainly Northumbria but Lowland outbased a few vehicles for their services to St Abbs, Duns etc. Someone such as @DunsBus will be able to provide even more information on services in that part of the world.

 

[Westcountryman]

Point 3. London Transport rarely bought anything off the shelf. The RT, for instance was similar to the standard model, but with air brakes, air operated preselector gearbox, possibly non-standard steering and low bonnet line. It was difficult to get enough chassis in the late 40s and bodywork was built by four manufactures, Park Royal, Weyman, Cravens and Saunders. As this was not sufficient, Leyland chassis were ordered, 7' 6" rTL, which had a modified Leyland chassis with AEC preselector gearbox and either Park Royal or Metro Cammell body, and the 8' RTW with Leyland bodywork. The RTs were a highly specified and expensive bus, and only 101 RT chassis were sold outside London, only 40 were bodied as RTs, 39 for St Helens, with Park Royal bodies, and one for Coventry with a Metro Cammell body.

The RTs, for the time, were ideal for Central London operation, but were expensive and a little heavy on fuel, due the the transmission system. They were operated in the country area, but were overspecified and simple Bristols (if they had been available would have sufficed.

The RF again was a chassis specially modified to London requirements being similar to an RT with a horizontal engine. Bodies built by Metro Cammell. As it was only 7' 6" wide it was actually again a London special, as standard spec was 8'. Only the RFWs and BEA RFs were 8'. Again it was overspecified in the name of ease of driving and standardisation. They were heavily built and tipped the scales at virtually the same weight as the RT.

The RM was a similar story again; in his case the whole bus was designed for London, and again, RMLs supplied for the country are were overspecified.

So, that is the reason that London buses were rarely sold new to other operators. Basically cost and overspecification. And perhaps because London had the power to corner the market, little capacity was left for other customers.

 

[JetBlast]

the new Caetano electric buses being delivered to Abellio London for routes C10 and P5 have electronic blinds.

Do you happen to have any registrations or pictures of these please? I could be keen to see them. Thanks

 

[randyrippley]

Welcome to the forum.
The cross-border services into Carlisle used to be operated by Western, who previously had their own depot in Carlisle. They were transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland in the early 90s (I don't have a confirmed date at hand myself), after Carlisle passed from Ribble to Cumberland hence not finding any photos of Ribble buses with Scottish destinations on the blinds. Western previously operated service 84 from Longtown to Carlisle too, wholly in England, which was transferred to Stagecoach Cumberland on 10th Feburary 1992. The others may have transferred across on the same date.

And its worth remembering many of the the Carlisle services only became Ribble branded after National shotgunned the original Cumberland into Ribble, so you only had a 25 year (or thereabouts) period of Ribble being the sole player in Carlisle

 

[randyrippley]

RE: (1)
There's possibly more Anglo-Scottish services than you are aware as some of the northwest municipals ran summer-only services to the Lancashire coastal resorts. Morecambe Corporation (later Lancaster City Transport) and Blackpool Transport ran a joint Glasgow-Morecambe/Blackpool service for the holiday market, possibly weekends only. Right up until LCT's closure many of the standard headboard rolls included "Glasgow" and "Edinburgh", even on the deckers with low-ratio gearing
I think I've read that some of the workings continued to Southport as well.
Must have been fun - down the motorway / A74 / A6 in an undergeared double decker at 40mph max

RE: (3)
The Lancashire municipals were a good example of "local" shopping, with chassis almost exclusively from Leyland, bus bodies from East Lancs, coach bodies from Duple

 

[busesrusuk]

Here is a link to a picture of one of them:

1514 BV20GOK (Abellio London) Camberwell

Some of the new Caetano e.City Gold buses have entered service on the P5, so a slight detour on the way home from work. I never rode on the new stock, but if you are the 'rider' type of enthusiast, you may wish to avoid the bit between Walworth Road and Camberwell New Road. On this short...

www.flickr.com

There will be a total of 35 coming for the two routes (C10 & P5), with fleet numbers 1500-34. most have arrived but the lockdown caused delays with the installation of the charging equipment at Walworth garage slowing down their introduction. So far these buses have only appeared on the P5. Not that many pictures out there at the mo - probably due to the lockdown.

Regitsrations for 1500-1503 are BV69KTP/T/U/X whilst the remainder are 20 plates - too complicated to list them all (and I'm liable to get it wrong!) but 1504 is BV20GNZ. It looks as though its not a straightforward set of registrations.

Hope that helps

 

[MotCO]

Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

If you are not too fussy about what model buses to buy, there are lots of discounted buses (old stock, unpopular models etc) from on-line suppliers. My grandson has built up a collection of around 100 buses in this way! (which he enjoys playing with btw)

 

[MotCO]

Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?

There are usually lots of photos for sale at bus fairs. These are printed on film, and there is a cost of attending as a stall holder, and the cost of getting there (they are not all local to the fair). If all photos are free to copy from the internet, or free to be used in publications, then the little money made by stallholders would dry up, and their stock would be valueless. It is certainly not the greed of the photographers - if anything it is the greed of people who think that they can use others' photos without cost to themselves.

 

[Busaholic]

There are usually lots of photos for sale at bus fairs. These are printed on film, and there is a cost of attending as a stall holder, and the cost of getting there (they are not all local to the fair). If all photos are free to copy from the internet, or free to be used in publications, then the little money made by stallholders would dry up, and their stock would be valueless. It is certainly not the greed of the photographers - if anything it is the greed of people who think that they can use others' photos without cost to themselves.

Well said.

 

[DanT2014]

Very interesting answers here, I have learned a lot here.

I’ve been looking at loads of bus photos recently, and I have an appreciation for them.

 

[GusB]

@DanT2014 - I'm glad that you feel you've received some interesting answers to your questions. However, as those questions did cover quite a broad range of topics, I feel this would be a good time to close this particular thread in order to prevent it becoming a general discussion. If you, or anyone else, wish to expand upon any of the subjects that have been covered here, you are welcome to start a new thread (or add to an existing one) on the relevant topic.

We can move posts into any new thread if necessary - just click the report link on this post and let us know which ones.