Jason's 2017 Mystery Tour

[Legend]

I thought the most refreshing announcement was from SLW. Announced and ready for sale immediately. No blacked out pictures in advance creating months or even years of froth, so that when the model is actually announced it's lost in 30 pages of froth or half the folks are disappointed because it's not the model they want.

 

Disappointed you're not heading to Scotland. I suppose I can rule out the Swindon 126 at Bo'ness for future model. Nice bus museum at Lathallan just up the road too.

[TheSignalEngineer]

 

8-Brum.jpg

 

I was honoured that the chaps at Wythall opened up for me in the dead of winter, but I was even more honoured to be given a tour by Malcolm Keeley. Malcolm is the O. S. Nock of Birmingham buses. He literally "wrote the book" on Birmingham City Transport and Midland Red, and his most most recent book - Birmingham's Blue and Cream Buses - is one of my favourite bus books (and I have a lot of bus books). I read it cover to cover last month and I was a bit of a gushing fanboy when wandering the museum with The Man Himself.

 

 

 

Why am I spending so much time writing about buses? The main reason of course is that I love classic buses. While I have always loved North American New Looks, I've only recently discovered the colourful world of classic British buses. My passion for them was kickstarted by a spur-of-the-moment purchase of a Sunstar Routemaster three years ago and I was hooked. I've been devouring bus books and subjecting my friend, family and employees to minute bus anecdotes like "Did you know that Birmingham's single-deck Fleetlines were purchased exclusively for the 27 route to Bournville because of that low railway bridge? Isn't that fascinating?"

 

I remember the Birmingham single deckers very well. They were all based at Selly Oak garage which was about half a mile from where I was born. They also ran the 2B service from the Ivy Bush pub on the Hagley Road via Selly Oak and Bournbrook to Kings Heath. During the transition from trams to buses on the Bristol Road around 1951 there were always lots of new vehicles parked across Gibbins Road from the depot on the site of an old basin on the disused Dudley Canal.

My Dad worked for BCT for three years between leaving school on the outbreak of WW2 and joining the army. He was an Inspector's Time Clerk at Hockley garage. One of his jobs was to check the records from the Bundy clocks against the duty rosters to make sure that the buses had left the clock points at the right time. He was working there when it was bombed in 1940. About 20 buses were destroyed and another 90 damaged. 

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-birmingham-blitz-during-the-second-world-war-damage-to-hockley-bus-84719108.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=417C8231-8117-4943-9B60-316D29BEC1E4&p=62486&n=0&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3Dbar%26st%3D0%26sortby%3D2%26qt%3Dthe%2520blitz%2520hockley%2520bus%2520depot%26qt_raw%3Dthe%2520blitz%2520hockley%2520bus%2520depot%26qn%3D%26lic%3D3%26mr%3D0%26pr%3D0%26aoa%3D1%26creative%3D%26videos%3D%26nu%3D%26ccc%3D%26bespoke%3D%26apalib%3D%26ag%3D0%26hc%3D0%26et%3D0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3D0%26loc%3D0%26ot%3D0%26imgt%3D0%26dtfr%3D%26dtto%3D%26size%3D0xFF%26blackwhite%3D1%26cutout%3D%26archive%3D1%26name%3D%26groupid%3D%26pseudoid%3D%26userid%3D%26id%3D%26a%3D%26xstx%3D0%26cbstore%3D1%26resultview%3DsortbyPopular%26lightbox%3D%26gname%3D%26gtype%3D%26apalic%3D%26tbar%3D1%26pc%3D%26simid%3D%26cap%3D1%26customgeoip%3D%26vd%3D0%26cid%3D%26pe%3D%26so%3D%26saveQry%3D%26editorial%3D1%26t%3D0%26edoptin%3D

I believe one of the staff got a medal for saving a number of vehicles by driving them out of the burning building.

[ian]

I was honoured that the chaps at Wythall opened up for me in the dead of winter, but I was even more honoured to be given a tour by Malcolm Keeley. Malcolm is the O. S. Nock of Birmingham buses. He literally "wrote the book" on Birmingham City Transport and Midland Red, and his most most recent book - Birmingham's Blue and Cream Buses - is one of my favourite bus books (and I have a lot of bus books). I read it cover to cover last month and I was a bit of a gushing fanboy when wandering the museum with The Man Himself.

 

Here's a picture of Malcolm in front of Birmingham "Standard" Guy Arab IV #2976.

 

 

Apart from being the fount of all knowledge BMMO and BCT Malcolm is also a really nice chap. I'm sure he made you very welcome.

 

Here's another Midland bus superiority anecdote for you.

 

Midland Red had their own engineering works and produced many of their own vehicles, often using 'cutting edge' technology for the time. Their immediate  post-war single deck, the S6, was a case in point. This was a full fronted underfloor bus when the rest of the country had half-cabs. Bus operators and manufacturers tended to be (small c) conservative and Leyland, in particular, was having none of this new-fangled nonsense.

 

A few miles west of Brum, but still in Midland Red land, is Shrewsbury which was home to Sentinel. Apart from small locomotives and the occasional railcar they used to make steam lorries and had had a crack at steam coaches. In the post-war world they decided to try their hand at bus manufacture and procuced their own underfloor bus in the Midland Red mould.

 

Oop north the local large operator around Leyland's homeland was Ribble who had a progressive streak. They asked Leyland about underfloor buses and got a curt reply. So they went out, purchased some Sentinels and put them to work - on a route that went past Leyland's front gate.

[Mr_Tilt]

 

 

Midland Red had their own engineering works and produced many of their own vehicles, often using 'cutting edge' technology for the time. Their immediate  post-war single deck, the S6, was a case in point. This was a full fronted underfloor bus when the rest of the country had half-cabs. Bus operators and manufacturers tended to be (small c) conservative and Leyland, in particular, was having none of this new-fangled nonsense.

 

 

Didn't Midland Red design and build the 100mph buses that ran from London to Birmingham when the M1 was first opened? I remember my Dad being appalled when i showed him a cutaway drawing of one in the centre spread of my 'Eagle' comic at the time. 

 

'100 mph! In a BUS!!!' was his response. 

[rapidotrains]

I spent Friday night and Saturday with old friends in Birmingham. It's been 13 years since I saw most of these people. The ones who haven't died look great...

 

Saturday night I headed to Crewe where I treated myself to a couple of nights at Crewe Hall. 

 

 

Crewe Hall was built in the 1600s as the home of the Crewe family. It's been turned into a very posh hotel and spa, and I'm telling you I can seriously get used to staying in places like this. This is the lounge!

 

 

As a budding bus crank, it is very helpful that I am good friends with Peter Crichton. Peter is the owner of Omnibus Passenger Transport Solutions, providing timetable software to 70% of the UK's bus companies. He's now expanding overseas. Pete owns Manchester Corporation Leyland Titan PD2 (Metro Cammell body) #3706, as well as London Routemaster RM1152. 

 

Pete picked Terry Wynne and me up at Preston station and took us to visit his buses. And my weren't they lovely!

 

 

Terry is very active with the Crewe Heritage Centre and the Calder Northern group. Rapido's UK office is Terry's kitchen table!

 

Last time Pete let me drive RM1152 I had never driven a bus before. What a change in 14 months! Now I have a full PSV licence and I own my own bus! RM1152 is much, much easier to drive than my 10-ton, 40-foot-long, 102"-wide, 50-year-old New Look with manual steering. At least I didn't have to do a "run up" in 1152 to get over the snow, like I had to do in my bus last month...

 

 

I drove RM1152 to the Manchester Museum of Transport. All I can say is WOW! This is as fine a collection of buses (and one tram!) as you'll ever see. First things first, and I brought out the pre-production sample of our North American New Look bus.

 

 

Here Pete, Paul Nicholson, Paul Wreghitt, Adam Stephenson and Peter Bradbury go "oooh" and "aaah" while looking at the bus model. I'm proud to say it really is head and shoulders above every 1:87 and 1:76 bus model hitherto produced anywhere on the planet. Have a look at these close-ups of our bus model:

 

 

 

Once we got that out of the way, I was fortunate to get an insider's tour from Adam, Paul Wreghitt and Paul Wotton. (There were rather a lot of Pauls at the museum.) 

 

Pete, Terry and I were larking about at bus #1000, the first Mancunian...

 

 

But then someone had the bright idea of letting Terry drive. I may have my PSV licence, but Terry worked for 40 years in the railway. He's definitely not a bus driver, and I learned this the hard way.

 

 

Look down, Terry! No, not to the left! I'm down in front!

 

 

Ooooh, my achin' noggin.

 

The guys at the museum were very generous. We got a ride in Leyland-engined Routemaster RM1414, and we got to go inside many of the vehicles. 

 

Doing research for the Realtrack 142, I determined that Leyland National bus seats are terrible:

 

 

They even let me drive one of the buses in the museum:

 

 

After a really fun three hours or so with the chaps at the museum, we headed back to 3706 and RM1152, where I found some broken glass on the rear platform. On closer examination, we discovered that someone had smashed the glass (with its original London Transport transfer) and stolen the fire extinguisher! What a bl**dy b*****d!

 

 

There are some people (and they are a tiny minority) who have a total disregard for private and public property. They are raised completely without values, likely by people who are similarly valueless. On the one hand, I want anyone who commits vandalism like this to get public lashes. On the other hand, I believe in education and support for people who are most likely to commit crimes to prevent them from doing it. The trouble is, how do you teach respect to people who were raised without any love or support? Until someone solves that big question, we have to deal with vandalism like this and I say we go with the lashes.

 

Terry and Adam clean up the mess.

 

 

I have friends in Manchester, Rob and Jade Block, that I only get to see once every few years. I texted Rob to let him know I was coming, but I didn't say how I was getting there.

 

 

And sure enough we pulled up in a residential street in Prestwich in a pair of double decker buses!

 

Rob hadn't got back yet. I knocked on the door. Jade answered. 

 

"Hi Jason! Come in!"

 

"No - I think you want to come out."

 

"Don't be silly! Come on in!"

 

"I really think you want to come outside."

 

 

Turns out it was their youngest son's birthday party, so we gave everyone a trip in RM1152. The guests thought it was all arranged, not realizing that Rob and Jade just have a friend from Canada who is a nutter.

 

Absurdly, with two bus industry people on board, the train nerd was the only one with a valid PSV licence! So I had to drive! That was a blast. 

 

Thank you to my fellow train fans who couldn't give a jot about buses for sticking with me this long. The next instalment is all about trains. I promise!

 

[rapidotrains]

Didn't Midland Red design and build the 100mph buses that ran from London to Birmingham when the M1 was first opened? I remember my Dad being appalled when i showed him a cutaway drawing of one in the centre spread of my 'Eagle' comic at the time. 

 

'100 mph! In a BUS!!!' was his response. 

 

 

They really moved. Those were the C5 and C6 coaches. I love double deck buses. Coaches - not so much.

 

I have a book on the Midland Red D9 called More Room On Top. It's a great read by Steve Richards. He asked me if I was interested in his book on Midland Red motorway coaches, so I thought I would give the it a try. It's well researched and written. The trouble is, I hate riding in a coach. I much prefer the train.

 

When I read about the common problem in the motorway coaches of the toilet leaking into the luggage compartment while on the M1, I just thought "YUCK."

 

I'll stick with the train, thank you.

 

-Jason

[ian]

The thing is, most private cars couldn't do 100 mph then. That's how fast they were!

 

And the motorway didn't have a speed limit...

[Phil Parker]

What a strange sight on Leamington station this morning.

 

 

We don't get many class 70s through here.

[Mr_Tilt]

 

We don't get many class 70s through here.

 

 

It's a pity the darn things get anywhere.............. 

[Ozexpatriate]

What a strange sight on Leamington station this morning.

I thought you meant the bell bottoms.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Didn't Midland Red design and build the 100mph buses that ran from London to Birmingham when the M1 was first opened? I remember my Dad being appalled when i showed him a cutaway drawing of one in the centre spread of my 'Eagle' comic at the time. 

 

'100 mph! In a BUS!!!' was his response. 

According to an article http://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/27th-march-1959/39/midland-red-get about the licence for the service at the time the M1 opened the cruising speed for the motorway section was 50mph, and the overall journey time was 3 hours 25 minutes. I talked with a driver when we chartered one for a trip and he said on a good day he could do it in two hours. Not bad when you think the motorway only ran from Daventry to Watford in those days. The rest was on ordinary roads although 100mph was quite common on motor bikes on the A45 past Birmingham Airport

[BigAndy]

Hi gents,

 

No time to do a report today - it may be Monday before I have another chance. But I thought this photo might be a good teaser of things to come...

 

-Jason

 

1-Charlie.jpg

 

By Gum, when Charlie Petty gets hold of a fiver, it's a prisoner forever. This photo of Jason attempting to remove said fiver from Charlies grip, just goes to show the intensity and strength of the glue he uses to keep it in his palm.............

[Hilux5972]

Hey Jason. Love the post about the busses. Any chance of a 1/76 Routemaster to the same level of detail as your North American New Look bus? Would be fantastic to have several all lit up on a nighttime layout sat at the station.

[uax6]

I'm not so sure about public flogging, but I think town centre stocks should be brought back. Nice cosy cell between 11pm and 6am and then the rest of the day in the stocks. A bit of public humiliation should work wonders....

 

Anyway, it's nice to see proper buses out and about, and I just would have loved for you to turn up to give me a bus ride. Is it wrong to be jealous of children?

 

Its strange to think that regulations that came into force at the beginning of this year now means that you can't have any step-entry buses in use on licensed routes.

 

Andy G

[cheesysmith]

you may have a pcv licence but do you have a cpc card? drivers in Europe of hgv/psv have to have 35 hours training over a 5 year period (blame the French). 

[Savoyard]

you may have a pcv licence but do you have a cpc card? drivers in Europe of hgv/psv have to have 35 hours training over a 5 year period (blame the French). 

 

You only need the cpc card if you are driving for hire or reward not for private use.

[rapidotrains]

Monday started with a Pendolino from Crewe to Stockport...



...followed by a Class 158 from Stockport to Sheffield.



The scenery between Stockport and Sheffield is just gorgeous. Rolling hills, wonderful outcroppings, lakes - the lot.

And this is how it is viewed through a 158.



The other side of the train had even nicer scenery.



Let's be honest. The 158 - with its ten-foot-high headrests - is possibly the worst train in the UK for viewing the passing countryside. And the fact that these things are used on scenic routes like the Settle & Carlisle is just appalling. So I enjoyed looking at the back of the seat in front of me. Just lovely...

Railway modellers know Sheffield for Rails of Sheffield. And I did get to that famous northern landmark. But first I had to do some real anorakking....



Galaxy 4 (named after the Doctor Who story of the same name) is a great little nerdy shop on Glossop Road. Needless to say, I ended up buying most of the shop and I actually had to buy a second suitcase to take all this stuff home. But how could I pass up priceless gems like a 1975 Denys Fisher Doctor Who board game?



If being a mad Doctor Who fan isn't enough nerd for you, I then went to photograph trams and buses. Honestly, look up the word "nerd" in a dictionary and you'll see me there.



Bus meets tram. I really stink as a public transport photographer.



And here's another one...



It's nice to see the expansion of tram and train services here in the UK.

In Canada we will often have public transport set back by a generation or longer because one single dufus gets elected - or even appointed - to office. Here's a quick and depressing potted history that gives you a bit of an idea of what we continually have to deal with. This is a tiny list and is by no means comprehensive of the many kinds of stupid involved in transport planning over there. If you don't care about real trains/trams, scroll down to the interesting stuff about Rails of Sheffield.

In 1968, the newly-appointed bureaucrat in charge of Transport Canada believed that trains were the equivalent of a horse and buggy and ordered Canadian National Railways to stop promoting its passenger trains, stop investing in new trains, and cut services. That was the beginning of the end for Canada's expansive passenger train network. Whereas Dr. Beeching is an infamous name here, probably not more than a few dozen Canadians remember the name of Jack Pickersgill.

In 1990, what remained of our national passenger railway - VIA Rail Canada - was cut in half because the prime minister at the time, Brian Mulroney, wanted to "kill VIA" (his words). The network has been eroded further many times since.

Here's a photo of the protests in Regina, the capital city of Saskatchewan, at the loss of their train services. They were never reinstated.



Also in 1990, the province of Ontario started to expand Toronto's long-neglected subway lines. Then there was an election in 1995, and the new premier, Mike Harris, couldn't give a toss about public transport. There had been two lines under construction. The line that went nowhere got built as the mayor of that municipality was a friend of the premier's. The line that was desperately needed due to population density and traffic did NOT go through Mike Harris-friendly ridings and it got cancelled. The contracts were cancelled at huge expense and the tunnels they already dug were actually filled in. Yes, you read that correctly.

The province is now building a tram - not a subway - along the same route as the abandoned subway line, but it won't be ready until 2021, almost 25 years after the planned opening of the original line. It's also costing several times as much as the original.

In 2010, after a different provincial government had signed the contracts for two new tram lines in the east end of Toronto, an imbecile named Rob Ford was elected mayor and he managed to convince city council that fully-funded tram lines were rubbish and instead they should build one unfunded subway extension with one stop. Needless to say, it's now seven years later and nothing has even been started.

Every time you see plain stupidity in your local and regional governments in the UK, remember that stupid knows no international boundaries.

Oh dear - I've gone completely off track. Right - back to the tour.

The real reason for the visit to Sheffield, of course, was Rails of Sheffield.



I have to say I was extremely impressed with Rails. They have a huge and efficient operation squished into little buildings spread over a whole "Rails of Sheffield" neighbourhood. They are clearly a growing and vibrant company.



No, this isn't a photo of a bunch of guys breaking into someone's flat. Adam Davies, Ian Beardsley and I are going from one office to another in the Rails of Sheffield neighbourhood. I think Rails is big enough to actually incorporate as its own town, Railsfield or something like that. We can run a spur from the Midland station to the back of the shop and have every second Meridian from London terminate there. Oh, the possibilities!



I had a great meeting with John Barber, "the man himself" who has built Rails of Sheffield into a hugely successful model train business. Honestly, Compared to Rails's state-of-the-art shipping department, Rapido's shipping department looks like Ronnie Barker's shop in "Open All Hours."



I know Rails's stock is online, but it's worth visiting the shop to see all the models in person. And there are a LOT of models. Here's one corner of the shop:



The Rails team knows of my obsession with double decker buses and they kindly gave me a souvenir of my visit.... A Routemaster phone! This was very useful on the train to London.



That Meridian to London was extremely busy.



Actually, I kept on getting visits from fellow railway modellers. It was uncanny!

First RMWeb's own srihaggis - colloquially known as Kyle Baldwin - joined the train in Derby, and we had a good chat about RDCs and APT-Es.

 

Kyle kindly took a photo of me leaving Leicester station!

 

A few minutes later, the guard comes through and says: "I know that T-shirt! Were you just in Rails?"

Sure enough, it's Matt Dawson, who does all of the locomotive weathering for Rails of Sheffield! I've seen his work in person, and it really is superb.

I was so excited to see Matt that I punched a hole in his tie.



The trip was a momentous one for me, as it was the first time I had gone to London for a proper visit in over eight years. Instead of just going from Paddington to Kings Cross, I was actually going to spend time in the world-famous capital city.

And I was dragging a suitcase full of Doctor Who books and a 1975 Denys Fisher Doctor Who board game with me everywhere I went.



The reason for my visit to London was to take Ben Ando from Revolution Trains to a whisky shop in Soho. And boy was it a whisky shop. 1100 types of whisky! Unfortunately, the man in the shop clearly hadn't drunk a drop of whisky in his life and was almost, but not quite, completely useless.



I settled on a peated bottle of Glen Scotia, which is now reverently packed in my suitcase in the middle of my laundry...

Ben, Mike Hale and I tried to go to Mildred's in Soho, a world-famous vegetarian restaurant that's too trendy to accept bookings, even when I dropped the name of world-famous DEMU member Mike Hale.



The wait would have been 90 minutes and the three of us would have upped the average age of the clientele by about 19 years. 20-somethings can afford to spend half an evening standing around a restaurant. We got a taxi to Itadaki Zen, a different vegetarian restaurant which was really lovely and quiet. The toilet was so "zen" and clean I actually was tempted to steal the counter and sink and bring them back to Canada.

We asked a pretty Japanese lady to take our picture.



Unfortunately, I was distracted by the prettier things outside the window.



Ben put together an agenda for our meeting that had about 47 items, and we managed to get through five or six before I had to go to Marylebone to catch my train. For our next dinner meeting we'll start at 2 p.m.

We're very excited about the forthcoming N gauge Pendolino. We're starting production at the big Rapido factory immediately after Chinese New Year. Production quantity is approaching 15,000 carriages and locomotives so it will take us several months to make them! If you haven't ordered one, I recommend you get your order in to Ben and Mike by the end of this month or you won't likely get one. This promises to be as groundbreaking for N gauge as the APT-E was for OO gauge.



I love Marylebone station. It's my favourite London station. And that's not just because Doctor Who was filmed there in late 1969.



OK. I lie. It is entirely because Doctor Who was filmed there in late 1969.

Geoffrey Palmer played Edward Masters, a luckless civil servant who dies of a Silurian plague shortly after leaving Marylebone. The story is Doctor Who and the Silurians starring Jon Pertwee. Definitely worth a watch if you have a spare three hours.

My wife, Sidura, loves central London. For me, it's way too busy. I'm provincial. I'm from Canada. I can't handle the hustle and bustle of central London, especially dragging a 70LB case of Doctor Who books and a 1975 Denys Fisher Doctor Who board game everywhere I went. That's why, when tasked with finding a hotel in London, I booked one in Leamington Spa.



That's the Mallory Court hotel. I cheaped out and stayed in a room in the modern annex, but it's still nice and quiet.

The next report will be my final one from this trip. It's certainly been a whirlwind tour!

-Jason

[rapidotrains]

Upon reading this back I should clarify that the useless man in the whisky shop was not my very good friend Ben, whose photo appears beneath the description of the useless man. It was the guy who worked in the shop.

[eastwestdivide]

If it's any help for future reference, the seats on the Northern 158s on the Settle-Carlisle run aren't tombstones, and there's a reasonable number of bays of four seats, round a table that lines up with the window.

 

Also, was it luck or planning that got you a pic of the Sheffield tram in the "fake original" Sheffield Corporation livery?!

[rapidotrains]

If it's any help for future reference, the seats on the Northern 158s on the Settle-Carlisle run aren't tombstones, and there's a reasonable number of bays of four seats, round a table that lines up with the window.

 

 

I'd much rather have unmodified Mk 2s with bays at every window behind a 37 or 47....

 

-Jason

[newbryford]

If it's any help for future reference, the seats on the Northern 158s on the Settle-Carlisle run aren't tombstones, and there's a reasonable number of bays of four seats, round a table that lines up with the window.

 

 

 

And then you get the advertising vinyls across them.........

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Edge]

 

 

After "schlepping" from Leeds to Brum on another Cross Country Voyager I needed to put my feet up, so I met up with a friend at the Wellington on Bennett's Hill. I highly recommend this pub. It's a proper working man's pub that hasn't changed much since the 1940s. I can just imagine the office workers on Colmore Row in the 1950s stopping in for a pint before heading home on a local slam-door stopper. 

 

6-Brum.jpg

 

 

 

As I sit in Colmore Row typing my reply to this, I can assure you that even for a slender and handsome 26 year old like myself this experience has not really changed much

[stewartingram]

If it's any help for future reference, the seats on the Northern 158s on the Settle-Carlisle run aren't tombstones, and there's a reasonable number of bays of four seats, round a table that lines up with the window.

 

Also, was it luck or planning that got you a pic of the Sheffield tram in the "fake original" Sheffield Corporation livery?!

Looks like the bus is as well!

 

Stewart

[The Stationmaster]

Looks like the bus is as well!

 

Stewart

 

With a more appropriate shade of blue.

[Talltim]

I really should have planned my day better, could have met you somewhere in Sheffield to red pen you in my Platform 5 book of loony Canadians