For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[Rugd1022]

A few more oldies...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rugd1022]

Two more I missed off that last post - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg larking about on a bus, I know not why...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[great central]

Two more I missed off that last post - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg larking about on a bus, I know not why...

 

BUS 6339c.jpg

 

BUS fc158.jpg

 

So that's what the song means, they love buses

[BrushVeteran]

Two more I missed off that last post - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg larking about on a bus, I know not why...

 

BUS 6339c.jpg

 

BUS fc158.jpg

We have the 'sister' to this AEC Bridgemaster preserved in our small collection...312MFC.

[coachmann]

Back in May I rode on a modern bus for the first time in years. It shook about a lot and was noisy so it had me wondering if I was imagining that buses were quieter and more comfortable in the 1950's. I think this video may have the answer...  

 

[BernardTPM]

Modern buses have horribly revvy engines and, when they idle, most seem ideally tuned to rattle the body. Add in awful hard seating and basically they're crap! I've been to Brighton and back on an RCL - nice comfortable (air suspension) ride, very comfortable seats (and they are better than standard RM ones) and the relaxed engine purred along.

Even when the SMS/MBS rear-engined horrors came along circa 1970 they were rattletraps. Dire compared the the RTs they replaced.

[coachmann]

We do a park 'n ride to the local hospital and my wife told me the ex.London bus we travel on is nowhere near as quiet and comfy as the Enviro400 buses on the Rhyl-Llandudno service. Me bus-pass arrived recently so I must give one a go. The Crosville Lodekkas used to put me to sleep. 

[Gwiwer]

I have ridden on many buses in several countries over the past six decades. Few have been as luxuriously comfortable as the LT Green Line RCL class Routemasters. Large low-revving engines and Widney wind-down droplights coupled with indestructible build ensured rattles and bumps were kept to a minimum. Even in their unloved final years with LCBS and as exiled red buses on the Central Area 149 they stood above many other contemporaries.

 

The nadir was probably the Bristol LH6L when fitted with Plaxton Supreme bus grant body. Noisy, slow and everything from the doors and poles to the driver’s coin tray vibrating fit to bust. And they wondered why people were put off bus travel.

 

There are some good ones among current buses. Why has it taken so long to eliminate rattles, squeaks and thumps? But the latest ADL Enviro200 and 400MMC types are pretty much rattle-free. Remarkably so in fact. And the Wright StreetLites are not too far behind either.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Gwiwer

[russ p]

For me the most comfortable bus/ coach I've ever ridden on is the ECW coach bodied RE lovey seats and lots of leg room , great suspension , pressure ventilation that works yet you still have albeit a little quieter soothing RE transmission whine.

There were very few that had all of these as most MK1s were manual box and MK2s lost air bag suspension.

There is a preserved Eastern countries one which has all of the above

[Rugd1022]

Piccadilly, 1952...

 

[leopardml2341]

Several buses at the Ilkeston show today mostly from the collection at the GCR at Ruddington.

This one caught my eye, very much an in service look rather than the as new look of many restored vehicles.

 

IMG_20180812_134458616.jpg

 'Professionally weathered'

 

Whoops, wrong thread

[The Stationmaster]

Two more I missed off that last post - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg larking about on a bus, I know not why...

 

BUS 6339c.jpg

 

BUS fc158.jpg

 

At Gloucester Green 'bus station in Oxford

[Unicorn1]

Here's one for Routemaster addicts. Taken on New Years eve 1977, my trusty Hillman Imp is parked across the road at Haven Green in Ealing.

 

RM7 is laying over before it's next turn to Chessington. She's wearing the correct nearside wing for her age, but the offside one is a later wing from a much newer RM, or an RML. As Aldenham would never have let the bus out with odd wings this must have been a garage repair.

 

Any way, this is still one of the best RM shots I ever managed, and if I'd been a few minutes later, on that vert snowy day, she would have gone.

 

 

Les

[Gwiwer]

Thanks for that.  I never had RM7 down as a Norbiton bus so she might have been there short-term or (more likely) I have missed a reallocation somewhere.  NB ran the 65 with RTs until enough RMs were spared by one-man conversions around the fleet.

 

The 65 still runs from Ealing Broadway to Chessington (these days "Zoo" is World of Adventures but the destination is plain Chessington) though only through the night.  When Routemasters ruled the service finished around 1am but today it continues through the night.  During the daytimes it is cut short at Kingston with the 71 covering the southern section to Chessington via Copt Gilders as the 65 always did.  

 

The 71 (Kingston RTs then RMs) used to run straight down the main road and through to Leatherhead Garage, also northward from Kingston to Richmond around the houses of Ham.  It still does the latter but diverts through Norbiton these days not via the old trolleybus route along Kings Road Kingston.  Of note the RMs allocated to Kingston could never access the garage as its roof was too low.  They were outstationed overnight in the railway coal yard - now the site of Cromwell Bus Station - and went down the road to NB for fuel and minor maintenance.

[RANGERS]

interesting observation of three trips on double decks in the past few days. A Scania based Enviro400 of 2012 vintage which has one of the harshest rides of any bus I've ever driven or travelled on, the front end being particularly susceptible. The ride practically shakes the body to pieces, not something the Enviro needs much help with.

 

On Monday it was the turn of a lengthy run on a London Enviro400 MMC and how things have changed. The latest ADL based version and a much better ride, the efforts to tighten the body have paid dividends and whilst only a few weeks old, it was a world away from the previous version but the screaming Cummins engine still left little doubt of when it kicked in.

 

Final ride home tonight was on a 1997 Northern Counties Palatine bodied Volvo Olympian on rail replacement, 20+ years old step entry and the quietist and most refined of the bunch. Amazingly, no rattles at all, just a speed related mechanical squeak from the back end.

[John M Upton]

I rode on an Optare Solo once (never again!) that every time it so much as sniffed a pot hole you were thrown upwards from the seat like being launched in a Saturn Rocket, just missed the ceiling and then crash landed back down again.  Worst bus ride since I once found myself on a Brighton Corporation (all right, Brighton Blue Bus) Dodge S56 breadvan back in the early 1990's.

Edited August 23, 2018 by John M Upton

[PhilJ W]

When I last visited Malta they were still operating the original Maltese buses alongside some more modern types. I took a bus trip, the outward journey on a modern type with thin seat cushions and my knees jammed up against the seat in front. On the return journey was on one of the classic Maltese buses, comfortable well padded seats and plenty of legroom.

[ColinK]

I rode on an Optare Solo once (never again!) that every time it so much as sniffed a pot hole you were thrown upwards from the seat like being launched in a Saturn Rocket, just missed the ceiling and then crash landed back down again.  Worst bus ride since I once found myself on a Brighton Corporation (all right, Brighton Blue Bus) Dodge S56 breadvan back in the early 1990's.

I suspect the shock absorbers on the Solo were worn out. I spend a lot of time driving them and ours are really comfortable (and well maintained). If you want something really awful, try a Wrightbus StreetLight!

[Gwiwer]

And here was me suggesting the StreetLite was one of the better vehicles in the current marketplace. Having ridden on several, both wheel and door-forward versions and operated in areas as diverse as suburban London and regional Dorset I remain happily impressed with them. My only reservation is the position of the driver relative to the entrance on the WF version which can make fare collection / touching cards fussy.

 

I have also clocked up quite a few Optare Solo miles. They are a fundamentally good design but do seem to tire quickly and present as rough-riding and noisy. Which should not be the case.

[PhilJ W]

I once drove a Transit minibus (breadvan type) with the beam front axle. The problem was the front shock absorbers were shot and every time you hit a bump the front wheels would lift off of the ground at more than 30 mph.

[laurenceb]

Local Wrightbus bodied buses all rattle no matter who operates them or the age. Local Solos are mostly rattle free with one exception, other Optares however......

[Coppercap]

RM7 is laying over before it's next turn to Chessington. She's wearing the correct nearside wing for her age, but the offside one is a later wing from a much newer RM, or an RML. As Aldenham would never have let the bus out with odd wings this must have been a garage repair.

 

 

Didn't the early production RMs like RM7 have a grille in the recess in the lower front wing, then later the recess was covered?

[BernardTPM]

Yes, they did.

[John M Upton]

Brake cooling grilles.  Later abandoned but the wing mould was still in use so the blank indent remained until later models had no indent at all.  Once body swaps and repairs got in the way the various wing types found themselves spread across the fleet, some with different wings on the same bus!

 

Then there is all the other Routemaster minutiae such as off side stair case panel route numbers, full depth intake grilles below the front destination display, hub caps, blank as opposed to opening front upper deck windows, grille designs, etc, etc, etc.

[Gwiwer]

 

Then there is all the other Routemaster minutiae such as off side stair case panel route numbers, full depth intake grilles below the front destination display, hub caps, blank as opposed to opening front upper deck windows, grille designs, etc, etc, etc.

Add in engine changes (including the trials with Ashok among others), livery details such as waistband colour, underlined or non-underlined fleetname, no name but the various roundels, Shoplinker modifications (the pa fittings remained after return to all-red livery) and SRM Silver Jubilee carpets and you could argue that in a fleet of over 2000 standard RMs no two were identical on any given date!