For those interested in old buses (and coaches)

[Mike_Walker]

Or this...

 

Leyland Vehicles UTJ595M was a 1973 Leyland National 1151/1R/2811 with C22F body configured for executive commuting with desks etc. The larger pod contained air conditioning equipment. It failed to attract any buyers!

Edited April 10, 2022 by Mike_Walker

[leopardml2341]

11 hours ago, ColinK said:

- getting round Vulcan Village was very difficult.

I agree, I did part of my PSV learning around there - in the bus that I subsequently bought and restored.

 

It was Timeline Travel's fleet No.1 (TNA161J) at the time; a short steering column PSU3/3R with no power steering and a manual semi synchro box. Interesting times 

[John M Upton]

20 minutes ago, Mike_Walker said:

Or this...

 

Leyland Vehicles UTJ595M was a 1973 Leyland National 1151/1R/2811 with C22F body configured for executive commuting with desks etc. The larger pod contained air conditioning equipment. It failed to attract any buyers!

 

This one is still alive apparently, complete with the cruise ship funnel pod on the roof!!

[Johann Marsbar]

There is always the MAN National as well......

 

[Clive Mortimore]

As a passenger on Nationals, I very often had to get off quite a few stops before the end of my journey, take some deep breaths and walk the rest of the way.

 

They were not designed with motion sickness being a potential problem......or were they?

[John M Upton]

Sharp corners and the enthusiasm of the driver to get rid of us schoolkids as fast as possible (I wouldn't say my secondary school was poor but we did rather make Grange Hill look like a documentary) meant kids being thrown into the aisles every time we turned a corner.

Those in the rear part (which you could rarely see through all the cigarette smoke, yes the school was that bad!) also had the chance to be deafened by the high revving engine as well.

 

I always sat down the front on the bench seat over the nearside wheel arch and well betide anyone who took my seat.....

Edited February 10, 2021 by John M Upton

[russ p]

I've always had a soft spot for nationals. Last time I was on one was for a fiends funeral about 12 years ago . It was a preserved one which picked us up from Chelmsford Station and took us to the crematorium and the wake.

Although a sombre occasion the bus ride was fun I sat at the back over the engine as the weather was quite snowey the driver did manage a bit of tail slide on a roundabout! 

[Gwiwer]

My first ride was on Provincial no.16 (HOR 416L iirc) from Gosport Ferry to Fareham via the nain road so route 1. My final ride was on a superannuated Western National / Devon General one running by then for North Devon (t/a Red Bus) on the lengthy Barnstaple - Exeter 315. 
 

On the first ride I was impressed by the spaciousness and general style but underwhelmed by the demented whining from the engine and the black smoke it produced. On the last ride the screaming from the engine was still apparent, the smoke had mostly gone but in its place were filthy black streaks down most interior panels. The air filters - if indeed any were still fitted - had possibly never been changed meaning that pod on the roof was feeding filth into the passenger’s lungs. Sadly many a National I travelled on looked similar - quite dreadful - though none was as bad. 
 

They were far too big at a time of declining traffic generally. They pitched and rolled making life intolerable for any standees. In many fleets they replaced deckers with the typical B49+22F capacity allegedly sufficient. In many cases it was and in most cases it wasn’t viable to retain deckers for just a handful of busy trips which often conveyed school children who were unable to reach the grab-straps at ceiling height. 
 

The 11.3m length - though many later ones were up to 1m shorter - and huge overhangs caused major problems on suburban roads and country lanes alike. A 90-degree left turn which had been perfectly within the safe swing of a crew-operated decker was no longer an option with a one-man bus swinging its back-end halfway across the lane of oncoming traffic and requiring rear wheels to mount the kerb if traffic islands were not to be demolished in the middle. 
 

They were a technological advance of some magnitude which fitters and even a few chief engineers found hard to cope with.  Once the vagaries had been mastered however they were often liked by drivers because they offered semi automatic transmission and a welcome change from aching shoulders accustomed to more direct steering and legs from double-declutching. 
 

It’s a moot point now but had NBC not effectively forced all bar one (City of Oxford) of its subsidiaries to buy them whether the Leyland National would have sold in the numbers it did. 
 

The unpopular leathercloth seats were changed on later builds for moquette in response to operator and passenger conplaints. But the black smoke, noise and inefficient “air-curtain” ventilation system never left the Mk1.  
 

I liked the National 2. By then it was a thoroughly refined and good bus for drivers, passengers and operators. But by then it was too late. Fleets were full of young-to-midlife earlier types and needed no more.  Brighton & Hove took the last batch and Hyndburn the very last one. The Leyland National had come, made its mark and had ceased production. It was perhaps too many years until it had finally gone. 
 

 

[John M Upton]

The National would go on to be replaced by the Lynx which never really took off, too big a bus with the same manufacturer's integral body as the National, when the pioneering, smaller and more agile Dart from Dennis with an operators preferred choice of bodywork was starting to appear:

 

[laurenceb]

It would be interesting to know how many passengers the national drove away , Locally we went from the Midland Red built S21-S23 to these abominations

[Busmansholiday]

8 hours ago, leopardml2341 said:

And there was this pioneering example....

 

 

Featured on Tomorrow's World IIRC......

Created after it hit a tree in wet weather. 

[ColinK]

I think our Mk1 Nationals were planned replacements for Leopards - comfortable buses which were a joy to drive, some of our Leopards had ‘click & flick’ semi-automatic gearboxes (presumably electric gear change) which were a delight to use, others had air operated semi-automatic boxes which were a bit slower to change gear, but still nice to drive.

 

While most of the double decks were Fleetlines, we started getting. GM standard atlanteans with fully auto gearboxes - the change was very rough and when slowing down all the passengers got a nasty jerk as it changed down, very uncomfortable for the driver.  To overcome this drivers would knock them into neutral when slowing down - probably very bad for the gearbox, but at least the passengers stayed on their feet.

 

The Nationals and Atlanteans didn’t do Leyland any favours.

 

i see someone mentioned Dennis Darts - lovely vehicles to drive and ride in. 

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

There is always the MAN National as well......

 

Re-engined? The fixed head 500 engine was not the best example of Leyland engineering. Quite a few received Volvo engines and alternative engines were offered in the Greenway rebuilds.

6 hours ago, laurenceb said:

It would be interesting to know how many passengers the national drove away , Locally we went from the Midland Red built S21-S23 to these abominations

The Greenline 721 route went from RCL Routemasters to RP class AEC Reliances, comfortable if a little cramped to bog standard Nationals with shiny plastic seats. Some regular users of the route reckoned they were worse than the Utility Daimlers that preceded the RT's on that service. But in this case the intention was to drive the customers away so the service could be abandoned.

[great central]

Having bought my first car in 1971 I didn't really travel by bus much after that so missed anything introduced after then apart from as a spectator.

I did travel on a couple of Nationals long after they were past their prime, operated by Camm's of Nottingham, their nickname being Camm's Collapsibles due to the general state and age of their fleet.

They used to operate the route past my house on contract to Nottinghamshire county Council so after 1988 at the earliest. One morning rather than take my car into Nottingham, parking around Victoria leisure centre in Sneinton was never very good but with the market outside the door almost impossible, for our club show I decided to use the bus. It was a rather snowy day but the bus turned up more or less on time. It was an interesting experience, everything rattled but  sitting towards the rear of the bus and looking forwards it seemed that when the body lurched to the left the front section lurched to the right and vice versa!

I felt sure the ticket machine and money was going to end up on the floor at any moment, but it soldiered on and got us there.

The other occasion I didn't make the journey, after taking over a video shop which we only opened in afternoons and evenings I decided to use the bus, along with a brisk walk, to the bus stop sometimes. The first occasion I tried I arrived at the bus stop in plenty of time but after 20 minutes or so I decided to start walking towards home hoping if the bus turned up I could get to the next stop. 

It eventually turned up something like 45 minutes late and crawling along at no more than 20 mph at best. By now I'd already rung home to see if someone could pick me up so didn't get the ride. I think Camm's disappeared shortly after that would have been 1999-2000.

[Johann Marsbar]

11 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Re-engined? The fixed head 500 engine was not the best example of Leyland engineering. Quite a few received Volvo engines and alternative engines were offered in the Greenway rebuilds.

 

 

Presumably so - I was rather surprised when I actually saw what appared to be a Leyland National heading towards me, and even more so when I saw the MAN letters and logo on the front!

Not sure where it originated from, but I know Canberra had some and possibly Brisbane.  As the bus in question was owned by Amberley-Rosewood Coaches of Ipswich, Qld, at the time (1992) a Brisbane connection would be the most obvious. Certainly didn't expect to see LN's running in 2 Ipswich's in the World at that time!

Amberley-Rosewood had an interesting fleet in the early 90's, including ex LT Merlins, but I only saw a few of their vehicles on the short visit to the place that day.

 

This was one of their AEC's....

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by Johann Marsbar

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, ColinK said:

I think our Mk1 Nationals were planned replacements for Leopards - comfortable buses which were a joy to drive, some of our Leopards had ‘click & flick’ semi-automatic gearboxes

Lucky drivers!  It was Southdown where I first handled Nationals from the "front seat"; we had a batch of L-reg delivered which replaced both semi-automatic Fleetlines (which in their turn had only arrived a year or two earlier) on town routes and Queen Mary PD3s on the lengthy 9 road between Brighton and Littlehampton.  Our Leopards had a full-length manual gearbox with 20-something feet of clutch linkage and the Bristol REs were the same but took an age to pull through; you doubled every change on those and always 1 - 2 and 2 - 1 on Leopards. 

[leopardml2341]

8 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

....... and Hyndburn the very last one.

 

 

Are you sure Rick? I thought the last one went to Halton Borough Transport; iirc it is preserved.

[John M Upton]

Australia took a fair few Nationals, all bar one were built to a special intermediate length of 10.9m long (rear half the bays from a 11.3m version and front half bays from a 10.3m version!!)  One, the prototype stayed in the UK and I think wound up at Fishwick's, that well known collector of Leyland oddities presumably because they got them cheap and were only just down the road.

 

One Australian National was apparently demonstrated on Malta on its way around the World, it was unloaded there for one day only for a demo and then reloaded back on the ship and sent on its way.  The Maltese were apparently unimpressed....

[great central]

The talk of Leyland Nationals reminded me that these are still in service with a couple of operators.

I quite liked them and, although I don't know the Welsh ones, the ex GW ones we received a few years ago proved they could be made into a decent train.

Leyland National body panels and when I first worked on some of them the Leyland logo was moulded into the panels above the doors, since removed when they were refurbished.

Pictured at Liverpool on 2nd January this year, coupled to a fully updated Welsh one.

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

They had some Leyland Nationals in Jamaica and a few can be glimpsed in this rather interesting film...

 

 

 

The nearest they got to having them in the USA was this sort of thing though...

 

 

....which is still available for sale at the Connecticut Trolley Museum if you want it....

 

 

[John M Upton]

I dread to think what the USPS would charge for the postage on that.... 

[Mike_Walker]

In addition to the Nationals that Jamaica film also shows many Leyland-MCW 'Olympic's.   Here's an example of the early "Home Range" version "deskinned" for Weymann's official photographer.

 

 

Apparently they had 150 Nationals.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Mike_Walker

[John M Upton]

One of London Transport's batch were supposedly  a cancelled export order.  I cannot recall which though.

[Metr0Land]

LS7-57 (after LT had bought LS1-6 for trials on the S2)

 

http://www.countrybus.org/National/LS.htm

[Rugd1022]