Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

West Yorkshire Road Car Company
1948
Bedford OB
Beadle B30F

West Yorkshire needed a few small buses for certain routes to replace there pre-war Leyland and Dennis small buses. Bristol who were the main supplier of buses to West Yorkshire as they were controlled by the B.T.C. were not producing any small lightweight buses at the time so they ordered four Bedford OBs has the photo above.

FWX 547    Initially numbered 614 -       renumbered SP1 in April 1954

FWX 548                                 615 -                           SP2

FWX 549                               K616 -                         KSP3

FWX 550                               K617 -                         KSP4

The first two were based at Harrogate and were for the Cornwall Road route which is the destination of the bus in the photo, other local services were also undertaken in Harrogate by the two Bedfords. The other two Bedfords were based at Keighley (the "K" prefix was for Keighley-West Yorkshire) and were used on the Riddlesden service which had a weak wood canal swing bridge.
West Yorkshire also had a Bedford OB coach with a Duple C26F body built in 1947 registration FWW 596 fleet number CP1 it was based in York and was used for summer city tours. I think it was the only one based at York but if you know different please leave a comment.

Copy contributed by Chris Youhill

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You may be right in thinking CP1 was the only one of the little Bedford OBs based at York Chris. It was one of two OB coaches supplied to West Yorkshire in 1947 (646/7: FWW596/7). A further two arrived the following year (648/9: FWW598/9), all had Duple C26F coachwork and the batch was renumbered CP1-4 in 1954. CP1 was given an overhaul in 1957 at Central Works, and alterations to the coachwork included fitting of cantrail windows and perspex roof panels for its new role as the York city tour coach. It was withdrawn in 1968, being replaced by none other than CF1 (8848 WY), one of the two Ford Thames/Duple coaches taken over with the Samuel Ledgard business.

Brendan Smith

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CP1 is now fully restored and in the Aire Valley Transport Group collection

Chris Hough

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Bedford OBs are just like a big car don’t you think, and the crash gearbox wine was just a great sound.

Anonymous

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With respect Anonymous I can’t agree there – the OBs were incredible commercial passenger chassis with "hearts of oak." The amount of heavy service work that they could reliably perform with their modest 28 hp petrol engines was just phenomenal. I’ve had the pleasure, thrill even, of steadily ascending some very long forbidding hills with full loads – for example Norwood Edge from Farnley in West Yorkshire. The wartime service OWBs put in even more incredible performances than their peacetime luxury coach kin. I agree though that the melodious howl of the gearboxes in the first three ratios, followed by the "silent calm after the storm" in top was just wonderful.

Chris Youhill

Photograph by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

West Yorkshire Road Car Company
1952
Bristol LWL6B
ECW B39R

Here we have a pair of Bristol Ls the one on the left is a 30ft long by 8ft wide version with a Bristol 8.1 litre 6 cylinder engine. The one on the right is a 1947 L5G registration EWY 431 fleet number SG115 this bus differs from the LWL6B by being a B35R 26ft long by 7ft 6in wide and having a Gardner 7.0 litre 5 cylinder engine. To say there is an age difference of 5 years between them there is not many changes body wise, but at that time just after the war all that was required were buses and as many of them as possible.

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The reason for the very minor changes in these bodies, other than size and capacity, throughout their production run is a simple and exemplary one. They were an absolutely superb design, and the quality of the construction and of all the fittings was the best. Personally I also believe that they were the finest looking single deckers of the "front engined" era and also they combined the high quality and good looks with superb passenger flow, visibility and luggage space. A particularly appealing variant was the 31 seat coach, many examples of which were mounted,in addition to the Bristol majority, on Leyland PS1 chassis which made for another different but most attractive combination.

Chris Youhill

Photo by ‘unknown’ if you took this photo please go to the copyright page.

West Yorkshire Road Car Company 
1951
Bristol LWL5G
ECW B39R

The LL was just a longer version of the L with a body width of 7’ 6” it was the LW that had a body width of 8’ 0” and the LWL was the longer 8ft wide version. This bus went into service at West Yorkshires Harrogate depot in 1951 with a fleet number of 418, it was in 1954 when the new different fleet numbering system came into being and 418 became SGW 1.

A full list of Bristol abbreviations can be seen here

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By looking closely at the wheels of SGW1, it can be seen that they are inboard of the mudguards by quite a distance. This is due to it having an 8ft wide ECW body on a 7ft 6ins wide Bristol LL5G chassis. Quite a few of the ‘Tilling’ fleets operated such vehicles, as it was a way of utilising supplies of the outgoing narrower chassis, whilst taking advantage of the increase in overall vehicle width then recently introduced. The 8ft wide version of this body could be identified by its split rear window – which had a pillar down the centre – as opposed to the single piece version on the narrower body. Still a handsome looking bus though isn’t it?

Brendan Smith

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As I’ve written elsewhere Brendan, in my opinion this design of body, in all its versions, was the finest looking and most practical of any in the "front engined" era – and constructed to the usual high ECW quality as well.

Chris Youhill