Western National Omnibus Co Ltd
1948
Bristol L6A
Beadle C31F

H0D 30 is a Western National Royal Blue with fleet number 1228 dating from 1948. It’s a Bristol L6A with Beadle C31F body. It is fitted with a 7.7 litre AEC engine as specified by Royal Blue, the coachwork largely to Duple design, was contracted out to Beadles of Dartford as the coach building capacity during the post war recovery period was overstretched. It features staggered seating to allow a little more elbow room in the 7’6” width of the vehicle.
Withdrawn from service in 1960, HOD30 was one of a number of vehicles sold to a china clay company for staff transport which aided its survival until 1968 when it was finally withdrawn.
It had a number of owners between 1960 when it was taken out of service to when Greg Lawson acquired it in 1996. It is part of the growing number of Aire Valley heritage fleet vehicles
The picture was taken in 2011 at the Heaton Park rally

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones

14/06/13 – 07:47

I’m not sure just how correct Ken is in saying that Royal Blue "specified" the AEC engine. It is true that it is the basically the same engine as that specified in Royal Blue’s 1937 batch of AEC Regals, fleet nos 1050-1065, but the first post war batch of JUO registered Bristol Ls, (1200-1224) delivered in spring and summer 1948 were Bristol engined as were the later summer 1949 batch of HOD registered coaches 1230-1234 and 1240-1244. Those delivered very late in 1948 and early 1949, 1225-1229 and 1238/9 were the only 7 post war AEC engined Royal Blue Bristol Ls, and I suspect that a shortage of Bristol AVW engines may have created the necessity for this batch to be fitted with AEC engines.

John Grigg