Rapido Trains UK celebrates the 50th birthday of the Leyland National – with all new model

[AY Mod]

Rapido Trains UK celebrates the 50th birthday of the Leyland National – with all new model

 

 

·        All-new Leyland National models

·        Mk 1 and Mk 2 versions planned

·         Highly detailed 1:76 scale models

 

Rapido Trains UK is delighted to kick-off 2022’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Leyland National bus with a new range of 1:76 scale models.

 

Rapido is to laser scan a Mk 1 and a Mk 2 National at Transport Museum Wythall on April 22nd. This is the first stage in the model development process and enables Rapido’s designers to fully capture the National’s distinctive shape.

 

The new models is set to match the high standards set by its critically acclaimed 1:76 WMPTE Fleetlines and BCT ‘New Look’ Guys. Full specification are still to be confirmed but expect to see an injection-moulded plastic body to enable all panel lines and rivets to be accurately rendered. A highly detailed interior will be visible through the flush-fitting windows and the new National is also planned to have working steering.

 

Cumberland Motor Services became the first operator to receive Leyland Nationals, with ERM35K being handed over on March 13th 1972. To celebrate this, ‘LN50’ events are to take place at Whitehaven on April 30/May 1 and at Gaydon on July 2 to mark 50 years since it entered revenue-earning service.

 

Sales & Marketing Manager Richard Foster said, “The Leyland National is a true ‘Marmite bus’. But love it or loathe it, the National played a seminal role in British bus history.

 

“Given that the National celebrates such a milestone this year, we’re delighted to announce that we’re adding it to our growing range of 1:76 scale buses and coaches.”

 

The full range, livery options and prices have yet to be confirmed and you can have your say on what versions and liveries Rapido produces by filling in a form at https://rapidotrains.co.uk/leyland-national-bus/

 

Phil's popped along to the scanning today!

 

 

 

 

 

[lyneux]

Midland Red West please!

 

Guy

[Wolf27]

The bus of my childhood! Midland Red South for me! NOE555R if you can with white cantrail and waist bands.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Wolf27

[newbryford]

Short Ribble Mk2 for me from Clitheroe depot

(My brother used to drive them)

 

[Butler Henderson]

Whatever a 1051/2R variant was as used by Nottingham on the free central area services with the green livery enlivened by yellow or orange band below the window and above them.

[slg]

J. Fishwick & Sons from Leyland.

My family are from Leyland and my father worked for Leyland Bus until the very end. 

The building he worked in is now Morrison's petrol station.

 

 

 

[JSpencer]

And what about the Maidstone & District:

 

 

[Darius43]

PMT “Westlands” for me - my bus to and from school in the mid to late 1970s.  Preference form completed accordingly.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Darius43

[Bucoops]

Sir Harry Secombe in Eastern National for me

 

IIRC it was a think strip of wood above the windscreen painted red and tiny white letters. Sir Harry must have been very proud

 

Ooh found a picture (not mine)

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Bucoops

[Enterprisingwestern]

Whilst we're wishlisting, firstly, SYPTE 1 - 4 in light coffee and cream, or as delivered in all over cream, secondly, 88 the kneeling National, observed and invented by those super chaps at Queens Road, and thirdly, it can't be too big a step to the Leyland/DAB bendy bus?

TIA.

 

Mike.

[Geep7]

Great subject to tackle. Whilst the EFE model was good for it's time, the lack of rivet detail and other painted one details always let it down.

 

Personally, i'd love to see 2 versions (from a purely personal viewpoint I might add). Alder Valley Green & Yellow Mk1 (long body with single door and short roof pod iirc), my local bus during my teenage years (34 through Camberley) was always either one of these or a Bristol VR. And going back earlier, I used to remember getting the 203 Hounslow to Staines with my mother, which was always an LT red National Mk1, 2-door short body..... I distinctly remember the yellow front doors (especially when one half was replaced with a red door from the rear set, something which would be great to see done).

 

Any chance of working doors? *joking*

[big jim]

Don’t know which variation it would be but I’d certainly go for a Crosville livery one as used to work out of corwen depot in the late 80s, my old school bus to Bala 

[HKG Steve]

Does anyone out there have a  guide to decipher the type codes on https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/index.htm?https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/list.asp?listname=674&Type=Chassis, so that I can work out which of the variants in the Rapido questionnaire are relevant to Crosville?  

[melmerby]

 

Midland Red's first of 420 New Mk1s

[wombatofludham]

To be honest, NBC red and NBC green could be produced almost as a production line, then by adding fleetnames limited runs of everything from Western National to United and Cumberland could be produced, possibly as regional releases for stockists in the areas they operated.  In that way the factory has a good production run whilst the fleetnames allow a degree of customisation,  Ironically only Midland Red deviated from the corporate style before the 80s with the local identity white roof cove panel.  I know NBC liveries have their detractors but from the bus's launch to 1986 they were the norm,  Being such a highly standardised livery I would imagine it would be a good way of having local issued models whilst achieving a degree of economy of scale - and would be spot on for the growing interest in BR blue and sectorisation.

Personally for me, WMPTE, WMT and Midland Red (NBC and post '86 West and North with colour band for "Chaserider") are the must-haves, and with Wythall involved I suspect at least two of those are locked and loaded.

[AY Mod]

22 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

Personally for me, WMPTE, WMT and Midland Red (NBC and post '86 West and North with colour band for "Chaserider")

 

Dammit, if you've filled in Rapido's form too they'll think they've got a duplicate. 😞

[newbryford]

And how long before we get a Class 140 or 141 based on the same tooling??

Or one of these? (pic from flickr)

 

 

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, newbryford said:

Or one of these? (pic from flickr)

 

They're catering for you special sorts on their suggestions form!

[melmerby]

32 minutes ago, HKG Steve said:

Does anyone out there have a  guide to decipher the type codes on https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/index.htm?https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/list.asp?listname=674&Type=Chassis, so that I can work out which of the variants in the Rapido questionnaire are relevant to Crosville?  

No 230 on the list is the BMMO (Midland Red) vehicle in the picture I posted. (type is 1151/1R/2501)

It is a 11.3m single door Mk1 with 52 or 51 Bus seats

The first Crosville batch in 1972 is 1151/2R/0403 with 48 bus seats (I would guess 2 door and urban services)

The next batch in 1973 were 1151/1R/0403 with 48 dual purpose seats. (I would guess single door with better seats for rural services)

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by melmerby

[Clive Mortimore]

55 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

Sir Harry Secombe in Eastern National for me

 

IIRC it was a think strip of wood above the windscreen painted red and tiny white letters. Sir Harry must have been very proud

 

Ooh found a picture (not mine)

 

 

Ho No!!!! Not one of my mate Ian's cabbage and custard livery Nationals. Ian worked as ENOC's publicity manager and based this livery on some US railroads colours.

 

And more to the point someone getting on the Pleshey bus, nobody ever went to Pleshey, it was always empty by Ash Tree Corner, Little Waltham.

[Covkid]

Brilliant choice especially as I had only written about it in another thread this morning.

My first encounter with Nationals was in the 1970s when the brand new Crosville ones replaced the Bristols in mid and north Wales. The problem is these were the shorty version without the roof pod.  I moved to the Wednesbury / Walsall area in Summer 1980 and became aware of the WMPTE National fleet which then were 447x upwards.  These were renumbered by replacing the first 4 with a 1 eg 4478 became 1478.

 

WMPTE also had some dual purpose Nationals with fluffy coach seats instead of the standard red vinyl. These had the large area of cream relieved by blue and gold graphics and lining.

 

Much later, when I had moved to South Staffordshire the Chase buses in the orange, brown and white livery were very common on our routes and quite a gaggle of Nationals gathered. 

 

From my history then I will order a Crosville (podless shorty if produced) WMPTE cream, WMPTE DP and a Chase

 

Thanks Rapido for once again stepping up to the plate.  

 

 

[wombatofludham]

50 minutes ago, HKG Steve said:

Does anyone out there have a  guide to decipher the type codes on https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/index.htm?https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/list.asp?listname=674&Type=Chassis, so that I can work out which of the variants in the Rapido questionnaire are relevant to Crosville?  

Crosville had multiple versions of the Leyland National.  Their first batch were 11.3m long, long pod, dual door (with luggage pen opposite the centre exit) and had the Phase 1 interior (white laminate trim, glass partitions on the raised rear saloon, 5% angle seating in green vynide) and were allocated to Liverpool and Runcorn.  Subsequent deliveries were 11.3m but single door.  They also took substantial numbers of dual purpose semi-coaches which in typical Crosville fashion would often end up on summer express coach service.  Later deliveries of 11.3m buses had the short roof pod and Phase 2 interior (orange seating and beige panelling and cheap black powder coated metal kick-plates to separate the upper saloon, and black handrails)  When the short "podless" Type B National was launched Crosville became an enthusiastic buyer of the vehicles in 10.3m format.  Finally, it received a small batch of Leyland National Mk2s, in 11.6m single door format, which if I remember correctly were allocated to Runcorn and had the "Busway" livery applied.

Crosville even had one freak National - one that had been adapted from a Ribble bus towing a trailer full of batteries powering an electric motor and was used for a while on the Runcorn Busway.  So battery powered buses are nothing new!

So, based on the choices on the questionnaire all the following apply for Crosville:

 

11.3m dual and single door, long and short pod
10.3 Series B podless single door
11.6 Mk2 single door no pod

Also select the dual purpose option

Edited April 22, 2022 by wombatofludham

[Mike_Walker]

35 minutes ago, HKG Steve said:

Does anyone out there have a  guide to decipher the type codes on https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/index.htm?https://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/list.asp?listname=674&Type=Chassis, so that I can work out which of the variants in the Rapido questionnaire are relevant to Crosville?  

The earliest Nationals were coded 1051/1R or 1151/2R etc which indicated the length 10.3m or 11.3m, 51 referred to the 510 engine.  After the first / 1 or 2 indicated the number of doors and R right hand drive - export models were L depending on where they were going.  The bit after the second / referred to minor variations which did not affect the exterior appearance.

 

From 1974 the length codes became 103 or 113 to more accurately describe the actual length - i.e. 11351/1R etc.  By now the final part of the code was omitted but /SC was added to indicate the "Suburban Coach" variant with coach style seats such as the later Green Line SNCs or Alder Valley "white tops".

 

In 1975 the "Phase 2" version was introduced - not to be confused with the later Mk2 - identified by the shorter, taller roof pod.

 

1976 saw the launch of the simpler, cheaper B series with the original model becoming the A series.  Codes then became 10351B/1R or 11351A/1R etc.  By 1978 the codes had changed again to the format 113510A/1R etc.

 

The Mk2 version - identified by its forward mounted radiator and thrust forward dash - introduced an new system of coding in line with that used on other Leyland buses of the period.

A typical example would be NL116L11A/1R.  This translates as: NationaL 11.6m (Mk2s were 300mm longer than Mk1s) L11 engine (which replaced the troublesome 510) A or B series, then single door, right hand drive as before.  A few Mk2s were built with Gardner engines in which case L11 was replaced by LXB.

 

 

[Moxy]

An excellent choice of subject.  Leyland Nationals played a large part in my childhood.  Both of my parents worked for Ribble buses, and we lived in a house owned by Ribble, right next door to the paint shop & staff car park until I was 21.

 

So it would have to be Mk1 in Poppy Red for me please.

 

8 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

Crosville even had one freak National - one that had been adapted from a Ribble bus towing a trailer full of batteries powering an electric motor and was used for a while on the Runcorn Busway.  So battery powered buses are nothing new!

 

I remember that bus, Ribble used it on a circular route in Skelmersdale before it went to Crosville.  The batteries were in a heavy 6 wheel trailer IIRC.

 

It turned up one evening at the works in Preston, after the working day had ended and it needed to go into the paint shop.  The paint shop was a big building with centre door, where you drove in, then reversed into one of the bays down either side of the building.  Having a trailer, reversing this bus was like reversing an HGV, which of course none of the bus drivers were familiar with.

 

As my dad worked there, I was allowed to stand at the door and watch.  It must have taken them a good half hour to get that bus in the paint shop bay, because the battery trailer kept jacknifing!   I believe that was also the reason why it was kept on a circular route, and probably why no more were built.

[HKG Steve]

Thanks wombatofludham and Mike_Walker, 

I thought the numbers related to the length somehow, and now all is clear for the rest of the codes - now to fill in the Rapido questionnaire.

Used to use the Crosville Nationals regularly in the early '80s when working as the Saturday boy in basement of the Arts and Crafts Studio in Chester. I vaguely recall that smoking was allowed in the rear 4 rows of seats on the raised section at the back - in which case I hope Rapido do a suitably stained interior decoration!!!