Omnibus 162 - February 2005
TILLING TALES
Tilling Stevens O9926 has had its damaged bottom nearside lifeguard rail removed, repaired and repainted by Fred Withers and is now refitted. The nearside window frames and the front and rear main bodywork panels have been primed and undercoated, then the second topcoat was applied just after Christmas.
It is now intended to turn the bus round so that the offside can be completed. During the bodywork painting, Maurice Collignon has stripped the offside front wheel and painted it with red oxide.
Bob Williamson
CRUISING
Amongst the recent artefacts passed to us is a Midland Red Scottish coach cruise brochure. Now we have lots of tour brochures from the late fifties/early sixties but this is from a much earlier era and I do believe is the first of its type we have seen.
If it wasn't for the envelope, I would happily date the brochure to the 1937-9 seasons (the drawing is a 1937 SLR coach). It is definitely not postwar because the Traffic Manager shown is O.C.Power who passed away during the Second World War. Our understanding is that tours continued to be operated until the end of the 1939 season and were then suspended for the duration of the war. Some of the unemployed long-distance tour coaches were rebuilt as service buses in 1940-1. Yet here we have a tour brochure in a Midland Red envelope (splendid in its own right!) dated 19 June 1940. There is a business card from Kennedys' Royal Scotch Shortbread, Oban, which indicates the tour ran, unless such a thing was dropped into brochures sent out by Midland Red. Apart from the obvious possibility that a 1937-9 brochure was slipped into a slightly later envelope that happened to be the right size, has anyone any knowledge of tours operated in the grim year 1940?
Malcolm Keeley
DRIVER OF THE YEAR
Travel West Midlands driver Thaka Jassi was presented with the Road Operators' Safety Council's Driver Of The Year award by Stepehen Telling, President of the Confederation of Passenger Transport at this autumn's Coach & Bus Show, held at the NEC. Thaka Jassi began his career in the bus industry in 1961 when he began work as a conductor, and first got behind the wheel of a Wolverhampton Corporation bus in 1964. His forty years of driving have been accident free.
More than 40,000 drivers entered for the ROSCO awards. The annual contest to find the best driver is supported by insurers Belmont International and the trade magazine "Coach & Bus Week".
DESTINATIONS
A number of new blinds have been acquired over the past two months, the most interesting of which was a donation of early Birmingham City Transport wide (44-inch) ones. Several of these are the ones with service numbers whilst two are narrow ones with numbers including a Barford Street Garage printing. Also acquired through the efforts of Paul Gray is a batch of Midland Red 'traditional' style Uppers and Lowers which complete one or two sets for future use on tours etc. Visits to two friends in the London area during December produced a WMPTE side number blind as fitted to the nearside of the ex-London DMS Fleetlines and a quantity of rollers and spool ends, all of which become useful at one time or another. The other donation from London is a Wolverhampton C.T. trolleybus destination blind, which has now been fitted to the rear of 616. No sooner had this been done than an offer of another one was received and this is now being followed-up. Thank you to all those concerned with the donations of the blinds mentioned above. One final point is that BMMO S14 no.4255 now has a matching "lower" blind with 4-inch lettering which has replaced the one it has carried for years with the somewhat oversized 5½-inch lettering.
Bob Williamson
LETTERS TO OMNIBUS
Harking back to Omnibus no.156 (February 2004) and Adrian Rodgers' article "Leicester - A WMPTE Outpost?" this could equally apply to Doncaster. Yorkshire Traction has the following Metrobuses in regular use on Doncaster - Conisborough - Mexborough - Swinton services:- 2487, 2565, 2602 & 2649. The latter still sports a WM badge on the front grille panel. Last summer I also saw 2604 now an open topper in an overall Coca-Cola livery on the M180 near Sandtoft.
I also sampled ex-TWM Metrobuses for the first time in fifteen years at last year's Lincoln Christmas Fair. Many of these in the Road Car fleet were used as shuttle buses from the large parking area outside the town.
Yorkshire Traction could not believe its luck when it bought these vehicles at bargain prices, especially as they had been virtually rebuilt at Marshalls a few years before. The company has predicted keeping them for at least ten years from the date of purchase!
In Omnibus no.161 (September 2004) there were the two buses built at Brush in 1948, BCT Leyland and BMMO AEC Regent AD2. It crossed my mind that if the BMMO designed body had been fitted to the Leyland PD2 that this would have been a definite winner that would have stood the test of time. Instead, in the case of the Leyland, you had a modern chassis married to a 1930s body and in the case of the AD2 a modern body married to a 1930s chassis.
John Seale, Doncaster
There are at least a couple of former West Midlands Metrobuses in Leeds on schools contracts, and another with Dunn Line serving People's College, Nottingham.
Meanwhile, members of the 1685 Group should be assured that if ever an AD2 does turn up, there are no plans to perform a body swap!
Editor
MISS MARPLE
Bristol L5G KFM775 finally made its two appearances in the new ITV series Agatha Christie's Marple, televised in December and January. Its first appearance, in the second episode, was so fleeting that your writer did not have enough time to reach for the video remote let alone set it running. However, it was on screen for longer in the fourth and final episode 'A Murder is Announced'.
Malcolm Keeley
