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Grantham - the Streamliner years


LNER4479
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57 minutes ago, gr.king said:

From public viewing distance I imagine that most would find it hard to tell that it was not the Lincs Road Car Leyland type in the earlier picture.

 

My Uncle would - Brian Kirkby was the manager of the Lincolnshire Road Car Company depot on Huntingtower Road in the 1960s.

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3 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Ah! But if some puffer nutter can spot the wiggly pipes on an A3 are not correct then a bus spotter will have a apoplectic episode if it is the wrong type of bus. 

Hqving been in contact with some of the bus fraternity i am certain ghat they would spot such things.

 

Jamie

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A further thought on buses - why not create a fictitious bus company with a route to a local destination, as a deliberate attempt not to be prototypical. E.G. - Wright Bangers route OO to a well known destination just south of Grantham ;) - probably too silly, but I hope you get the drift...

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1 hour ago, Curlew said:

Lots of bus variety in the old days. Far more independents around before post-war consolidation.

 

As Grantham was on the A1, there would be lots of long distance services too

 

17 minutes ago, Curlew said:

A further thought on buses - why not create a fictitious bus company with a route to a local destination, as a deliberate attempt not to be prototypical. E.G. - Wright Bangers route OO to a well known destination just south of Grantham ;) - probably too silly, but I hope you get the drift...

Thanks for that.

 

As we're firmly in the 'prototype' camp where Grantham is concerned, I'm not keen on the idea of fictitiousness; however, the point about independents is well made and food for thought. I quite like them buses with a central front snout; they look quite old and interesting (shades of the last 20 mins of 'Where Eagles Dare'). Alternatively, there appear to have been some quite stylish road coaches pre-war (used for longer distance?) which would be a further contrast.

 

Decisions, decisions ... 

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Talking of the A1 (road), if you haven't seen it before, this video is certainly worth 10 mins of your time. Note the date; one suspects someone went out to record a certain way of life before it was too late.

 

 

What comes across to me is how many cars there are! We're concentrating on lorries and buses but we really need a few cars ... Trouble is, the smaller you go the more challenging it is to hide the battery and associated gubbins. They (Faller) do do some cars but they certainly don't look like any of these pre-war cars!

 

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27 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Talking of the A1 (road), if you haven't seen it before, this video is certainly worth 10 mins of your time. Note the date; one suspects someone went out to record a certain way of life before it was too late.

 

 

What comes across to me is how many cars there are! We're concentrating on lorries and buses but we really need a few cars ... Trouble is, the smaller you go the more challenging it is to hide the battery and associated gubbins. They (Faller) do do some cars but they certainly don't look like any of these pre-war cars!

 

What a fascinating film. Interesting that the traffic gets less as you get further north, if indeed the filming is representative. The Home Counties were a centre of prosperity even back then!

 

The main drag in Stilton would be fairly familiar today. The Norman Cross monument near Yaxley - the pillar with the eagle - was sadly damaged and the eagle stolen a few years back, but a local campaign erected a replica close by and this is now just off the A1 on the way into Yaxley. The original was apparently erected by French prisoners after the Napoleonic War. Further north the two bridges around 6 minutes appear to be Wansford, and I'd no idea the new bridge, which is effectively a bypass, had been built so early.

 

Stamford isn't changed much at all from this, having had a very protective local council over the years, Great Casterton too would be familiar, both having been bypassed by a dual carriageway that I think was built c.1960.

 

The final part, being the descent north from Gonerby hill looking north towards Newark, is also quite similar today, although there is a large services at the bottom on the left serving the dual carriageway that bypasses Grantham on the west.

 

John.

Edited by John Tomlinson
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What amazes me, in the earlier part of the film, is that the photogapher several times blithely stops his car in the left hand lane, forcing the fraffic behind to divert into the central ('undertaker's') lane in order to get past! A very different attitude to road safety .

Edited by LNER4479
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2 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

 

Thanks for that.

 

As we're firmly in the 'prototype' camp where Grantham is concerned, I'm not keen on the idea of fictitiousness; however, the point about independents is well made and food for thought. I quite like them buses with a central front snout; they look quite old and interesting (shades of the last 20 mins of 'Where Eagles Dare'). Alternatively, there appear to have been some quite stylish road coaches pre-war (used for longer distance?) which would be a further contrast.

 

Decisions, decisions ... 

Unfortunately I don't think there is a good book on Lincolnshire independents, unlike one or two other local counties. These people may be able to help you?

http://www.lvvs.org.uk/

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1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

What amazes me, in the earlier part of the film, is that the photogapher several times blithely stops his car in the left hand lane, forcing the fraffic behind to divert into the central ('undertaker's') lane in order to get past! A very different attitude to road safety .


At 1:42, someone goes past his stopped car, and someone overtaking that vehicle ends up right at the far right hand side of the road. It looks like fresh tarmac with no markings there, but it also looks very much like the same standard as the three-lane parts either side of that clip, too, so I'm assuming there could have been oncoming traffic at any moment...

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4 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Talking of the A1 (road), if you haven't seen it before, this video is certainly worth 10 mins of your time. Note the date; one suspects someone went out to record a certain way of life before it was too late.

 

 

What comes across to me is how many cars there are! We're concentrating on lorries and buses but we really need a few cars ... Trouble is, the smaller you go the more challenging it is to hide the battery and associated gubbins. They (Faller) do do some cars but they certainly don't look like any of these pre-war cars!

 

You are quite right. Big motors you could, just about, hide the battery, but the smaller stuff, no chance.
You would have to use white metal bodies for the big stuff.
I'll be fascinated to see if you can do it.
I know, I'm a fine one to talk, I've not posted any 'production' stuff on here!
I am genuinely interested.
Regards,
Chris.

 

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5 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

 

Thanks for that.

 

As we're firmly in the 'prototype' camp where Grantham is concerned, I'm not keen on the idea of fictitiousness; however, the point about independents is well made and food for thought. I quite like them buses with a central front snout; they look quite old and interesting (shades of the last 20 mins of 'Where Eagles Dare'). Alternatively, there appear to have been some quite stylish road coaches pre-war (used for longer distance?) which would be a further contrast.

 

Decisions, decisions ... 

 

Red Leader,

 

The vehicle you are considering is a Leyland Cub.  Lincolnshire operated several.  As for Independents, there were many before WW2.  The main ones were Simmons, trading as Reliance, Blands and Blankney trading as GEM.

Due to the Great North Road virtually any kind of car or commercial vehicle would have been seen in the town, including Scottish vehicles in competition with the railway.  Edinburgh is a long way at 30mph!

 

Paul

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37 minutes ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Barry,

 

Too modern!

 

Paul

I know but they give an idea as to how a small vehicle can be fitted onto the Faller chassis.

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14 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

the central ('undertaker's') lane

Are there many of those still around? The last of any significance that I used regularly, about 25 years ago, was on the A5 between the M1 and Hinckley.

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14 hours ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

Edinburgh is a long way at 30mph!

Not as long as moving your fiancee from her family home in Fort William to our new house in East Kent* in 1983. Sans Cat who miaowed as far as Glasgow. My mini clubman estate blew up on the M6 in Birmingham and back fired behind a police car all the way through the Dartford Tunnel . Very echo-y.

 

That's when you realise what 'miles per hour' means as you crawl down a map of GB. 

 

ps Still very happily married. Mini went though. Part exchanged for a Talbot Avenger estate. . . .

 

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:
19 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

the central ('undertaker's') lane

Are there many of those still around

 

We had a suicide lane on the Thanet Way between the end of the M2 and Margate/ Ramsgate. Many accidents and many times astonished at the idiots in the central lane. Now dual carriageway.

 

There must be an entry in The Darwin Awards somewhere https://darwinawards.com for driver behaviour on those roads. . . .

 

* Kent Bus company, just to keep 'on topic'. 

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11 hours ago, Theakerr said:

Just to add to the list of Lincolnshire Buss Companies, I have this vague memory that there was one called Applby that operated in the Grimsby, Louth. Brig and Scunthorpe area

 

Appleby's of Conisholme, started small and grew by taking over firms such as Hudson's of Horncastle in the seventies.  Grew very big in the eighties and finally went bankrupt.

 

Lincolnshire's garage in Grantham opened in May 1930 in Hunting Tower Road (as it was prewar) and was purpose built.  The prewar fleet was mainly 20-seat Leyland Cubs (bonnet in front of driver and exposed radiator) and Leyland Tiger single-deckers to British Automobile Traction specification (BAT).  Livery was BAT green panels, lined in gold, with a light green band below the windows edged in black, and white window surrounds and roof.  The fleet name was LINCOLNSHIRE in gold. Wings were black and wheel centres were BAT green.

 

https://www.britishcommercialvehiclemuseum.com/product/leyland-tiger-ts7-lincolnshire-road-car-co-lt402-l017136/  shows the arrangement on a TS7.

 

https://www.ensignbushire.com/leyland-cub-c4.html  shows a preserved Leyland Cub of Ensignbus.

 

Note that the two preserved Lincolnshire Leyland Tigers may have 1935 chassis but were both rebodied by Burlingham in 1950 - and are in postwar Tilling green.

 

Most Grantham area independent bus operators had been taken over by 1938- Crabtree Services in November 1936 being about the last in Grantham itself.  Reliance of Great Gonerby continued until ceasing operation around 2000, with Skinners working in from Saltby and Pulfrey's from Newark.  These would have had similar buses to RoadCar, though probably not Leylands at that time.

 

More important than getting the type 100% correct is getting the liveries right and the period of the bus correct.

 

Hope this all helps

Les

 

 

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I cannot see a light green band and black edging on the preceding 1930s image that stimulated this discussion, showing a Lincs Road Car Leyland Lion. Were they painted in a different way, having been acquired (it would seem) from United?

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