MIDLAND RED ENGINEERING DRAWINGS
Several years ago, I was one of a small band of members sent to Carlyle Road to collect the engineering drawings donated to the Museum by Midland Red. These drawings filled many heavy cabinets and our responsibility was to get everything out as quick as possible and safely back to Wythall. Once at Wythall, a cursory inspection revealed thousands of drawings in various conditions, not filed in any particular order.
It was obviously going to be a major task to inspect, catalogue and organise them, and an even bigger problem was where to store them in the meantime, the cabinets taking up quite a lot of space and not being particularly easy to move.
For a few years, the cabinets were stored in the corner of the Shire hall amongst the engines and gearboxes making them virtually inaccessible. During this time, Bob Scott made a valiant effort to begin the cataloguing process but was ultimately thwarted by access to the cabinets.
When the corner space was required by Pete Murphy for work on the Tilling, the cabinets were moved to the railway carriages (thank God I was away that weekend). In this position, they became more accessible but it still remained a distant hope of fully cataloguing them.
Meanwhile, in my day job developing computer systems, I found myself involved in building a system to handle scanning and storing of engineering drawings. I also built a good relationship with a scanning bureau who could scan drawings up to A0 size onto CD. One of the projects I worked on involved over 30,000 drawings, and the cost worked out to around £1 per drawing.
During the winter, I formed a plan. If we could work through the drawings at say 100 at a time, maybe we could fully catalogue them, and get them scanned at £100 each batch. I started on one cabinet and it quickly became obvious that many of the drawings were in too poor a condition to be scanned. However, I contacted the scanning bureau and asked what the chances were of getting the drawings scanned. I estimated around 3,500. I also reminded them that they owed me a few favours, but I was more than a little surprised when the reply came back a few days later, they would scan them, they would do it for free on condition that we supplied the whole lot in one batch and they could scan them over a few months in their spare time.
This changed the emphasis entirely. After discussing the situation with Phil Ireland and Paul Gray, I decided to go through all the drawings, remove the good quality ones for scanning and leave the poor quality ones for later inspection. Once the good drawings are on CD, we can catalogue them on computer without having to refer to the originals.
So, in early March, I began the task and by Easter I had around 2,500 drawings ready for scanning, with probably the same number again still left in the cabinets as unsuitable.
Most of the drawings relate to the Donald Sinclair era with mechanical / chassis drawings far outweighing bodywork. There are four main types of drawings; original pencil drawings on cartridge type paper, originals on ‘tracing paper’, (both of which are generally in very poor condition, sometimes just fragments, often selotaped together), blue prints (presumably for duplication) and finally the good quality (mostly) drawings on ‘waxed’ paper or linen. It is the latter that made up the bulk of those sent for scanning.
Although I didn’t spend too much time on the poor quality stuff, whenever possible, I did look for anything ‘interesting’, and kept a separate batch to be scanned first which eventually came to around 40 drawings. So, what are the juicy bits?
Well, on day one I found a good quality drawing marked ‘Frame Data D4 Chassis’, dated October 1947. It showed an 8ft wide chassis with what everybody agreed was a very BMMO looking engine. With it were fragments of the original drawing, plus a few other fragments marked ‘Production DD with chassis lowered ¾ bodily”. We plan to compare the drawing with the D5 equivalents when the scans return, but it does look likely that the D4 chassis was just lowered by ¾” to become the D5.
Soon after, it was two drawings of the ‘Proposed DD’, which presumably eventually became the D9. Both show a front end looking like a cross between the LD8 and a Foden. The first drawing in December 1955 shows a 67 seater, 29ft long, by May 1956, this had turned into 30ft long 73 seater.
Next came a whole bunch of drawings relating to the REC chassis of BHA 1 and CHA 1-3, showing both the original configurations and the ‘conversions’ to S1-4. One of the drawings refers to the ‘REPE’ chassis, whilst another refers to the ‘Side Engine’ chassis. A further interesting one here was the heat exchange and ventilation system as fitted to BHA 1 when it had the ‘American’ front.
Some of the other drawings showed interesting ‘proposed conversions’:
- The fitting of a Ruston engine to the D5 chassis
- The fitting of an AEC engine to the S14
- The fitting of a Leyland engine to the S17 / 21-23
- C2 Coach with conversion to front entrance and 26 reclining seats
A strange one was the drawing marked ‘Radiator Top Tank for AEC Mark III’, perhaps the AD3 ?
The oldest drawing found so far is dated 2/12/1922 and is described as ‘Details of TS BMMO Air Cooled Cylinders’. This looks in too good a condition to be an original from 1922. I also found a drawing marked ‘Model Makers Use Only’, featuring the Standard SOS and various other vehicles through to the D5. Presumably this was for making the models that used to adorn the Bearwood Booking Office.
Meanwhile, Dave Parry had discovered a further interesting drawing, from Kirkstall Forge. Marked proposal for ‘Rear Axle for Rear Engine Drive’, it was dated 1966. Was a new rear engine chassis under consideration? No other details have been found.
Well, that’s the most surprising finds so far. There are many other interesting items amongst the main batch sent to the bureau and no doubt some more lurking still in the cabinets with the poor quality stuff.
The Committee and Trustees are now discussing what to do with the rest of the drawings.
Dave Taylor
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
