Sheffield Corporation
1960
AEC Regent V 2D3RA
Alexander H37/28R

This photo was taken just after lunch but as you can see this Regent V has the interior lights on, what a miserable day that was. I know this is not a very good shot but it is worth posting due to the fact that most Alexander bodied Regent Vs were delivered north of the border with the majority of them being to Glasgow Corporation. I think this vehicle one of a batch of 20 delivered to the Sheffield “A” fleet were the only ones delivered new to an English operator, if I am incorrect I am sure someone will let me know.

Sheffield like quite a few municipalities had separate fleets wholly or jointly owned within the overall operation.

Sheffield had three fleets A, B and C and were owned as follows.

“A” fleet Corporation owned (fleet numbers 1-999 in 1965)

“B” fleet Jointly owned by the Corporation and British Railways (fleet numbers 1251-1400 in 1965)

“C” fleet British Railways owned (fleet numbers 1150-1250 in 1965)

If you want to know the full specification for the Regent V 2D3RA you can look it up under the Regent V abbreviations here.

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The only operator of this style of Alexander outside Scotland to predate them was Cardiff – definitely not England.

861 – 880 were the precursors of many Alexander bodies for STD, SYPTE and then Mainline. They looked good, and being AECs were good and sounded good. For some reason, the numbers didn’t add up. The Weymann and Roe 2D3RAs were all H39/30R(D – Roe) with bags of leg room. The Alexanders were H37/32R and whilst lack of legroom downstairs was understandable, what wasn’t was the distinct lack of room with fewer seats upstairs.

I have an unsubstantiated theory about the design – can anyone confirm, or squash it? Many 1940/50s Alexander deckers were built on Weymann (pre Orion) frames before this design emerged. Is it too fanciful to suggest that it was based on the same design and frames as the Rochdale Regent Vs and Sheffield Regent IIIs and Titan PD2s? [Curved domes and side windows?]

This Regent is on route 92 Manor Park – very close to the City Centre and would normally have had City on the blind. The photograph looks as if it was taken very close to the new Supertram depot and Park and Ride site which was not a regular haunt for these Regents. When new they could be seen on the 95 and 75 tram replacement routes and also drifted onto 60 and 38. Was this taken late in its life? The Alexanders and Roes were divided between Leadmill and East Bank garages, the Weymanns were all, I think, at East Bank.

874 was immaculately restored some years ago and is a regular on the northern rally circuit. But (trivia time), why did the last one (880) have a different type and style of rear number plate? I don’t know! If you know please leave a comment.

David Oldfield

Sheffield Corporation
1953
AEC Regent III
Roe H33/25R

Here we have two Sheffield Corporation work horses photographed on a very wet grey day. The Leyland is a Titan PD2/30 built 5 years later than the Regent it had a Weymann H31/28R body registration 4494 WB fleet number 494. It also had a concealed radiator which was nicknamed a ‘Tin Front’ this style of radiator first appeared on Titans when in 1952/3 100 special Titan PD2/12s were built for Midland Red and had a similar style radiator to the B.M.M.O. D7. From 1954 and with a slight modifications the Midland Red look unfortunately became the style of concealed radiator for Titans until 1960 when the ‘scalloped’ bonnet as it was called with horizontal slats came along, thank goodness. I’m afraid a sheet of tin with some slots cut in it does absolutely nothing for me, they even left space for the Midland Red badge to go in at the top which Sheffield made use of for displaying the fleet number. I personally don’t think you can beat the AEC Routmaster for the best looking concealed radiator design, if you disagree or have another suggestion please leave a comment.

Sheffield Corporation
1959
AEC Bridgemaster
Park Royal H45/31R

Here we have a shot of one of Sheffield Corporations rear entrance AEC Bridgemaster. There was a shot of a Sheffield front entrance earlier this year (link here) and we had 2 comments disputing information, so I have done a bit of research and come up with the following.
There was six rear entrance Bridgemasters fleet no 519 – 524, 519 was delivered January 1959 and the remaining 5 were delivered in February 1959. Incidentally there was only two other production chassis built before the Sheffield six one for each Walsall no 825 and Belfast no 550, there was five other chassis but they were for AEC themselves demonstrators and test vehicles I suspect. The chassis numbers for the six were 007 – 012, it is not until April 1961 and chassis number 104 that the one and only front entrance Bridgemaster for Sheffield was built making seven in total.
So I hope that this sorts out the query into the number of Sheffield Bridgemasters, (unless you know different), my thanks to Bus lists on the Web (see credits) for most of the information.

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“519-524 were rear entrance with a row of five rear facing seats, Lodekka style, at the front of the saloon. This covered the gearbox/differential housing – which can be seen at the front of the saloon of all traditional half-cabs. On Bridgemasters, this was extra large – hence the reason on the front entrance version for the doors to be set further back and the strange small window.”

David Oldfield