East Midland Motor Services
1949
AEC Regent III RT
Cravens H56R
You can almost smell the workshop in this view!
This ex-London Transport Regent RT came to East
Midland with the take-over of Wass, Mansfield in April 1958. D47 was gone in 1960 - to A1 Service,
Ardrossan.
Photograph and Copy contributed by Les Dickinson
26/05/13 - 10:31
Nice view, Les, and thank you for posting. I note that East Midland acquired
this vehicle as part of the deal in buying Wass, but what did London Transport deem to be so
"non standard" about Cravens and Saro bodies that they were sold out of the fleet so
quickly?
Pete Davies
27/05/13 - 07:00
Splendid picture, there’s something altogether fascinating about views of
buses undergoing repair or maintenance. Makes me want to go and brew a pot of extra strength
‘busman’s’ tea!
What a pity KGK 750 didn’t make it into the East Midland fleet until
after they’d switched over to the maroon livery, it would have looked a treat in the old biscuit,
chocolate and cream scheme.
Dave Careless
27/05/13 - 07:01
The Cravens RTs were totally non standard with 5 bay construction. Not only
were the body spares, particularly glass spares, non standard, the vehicles could not be processed
through Aldenham works where body and chassis swaps were the rule, unless they were swapped with
other Cravens bodied vehicles due to the way the bodies were mounted.
As this did not fit the,
by mid 1950s, maintenance regime the Cravens vehicles were sold off. In any event they had been a
stop gap to cover delivery delays at Park Royal and Weymann.
The SARO vehicles were much more
standard but there were enough differences to make them cuckoos in what was very much a Park
Royal/Weymann nest.
Phil Blinkhorn
27/05/13 - 07:02
The Cravens bodies were not to London Transport design but used the standard
Cravens shell with London Transport features. Most noticeably they were of five-bay construction
rather than four.
I wasn’t aware that the Saunders bodies were short-lived, and Ian’s Bus Stop
site www.countrybus.org/RT/RT3s.htm says they weren’t.
Peter Williamson
27/05/13 - 07:03
Five bay construction whilst all other RT family members were four bay,
perhaps?
Tony Martin
27/05/13 - 07:04
Pete, the Craven-bodied RT’s were merely Craven’s standard fare modified to
look something like standard RT bodies.
The fronts were flatter (I preferred them), they had
five-bays and the back curved, hunch-backed, above the rear platform window, itself less wide and
offset to the offside. The rear number plate was also further to the right. They were not jig-built
and useless for standard Aldernham overhauls. I’m not so sure that the SaRo versions had shorter
lives with LTE; they were entirely standard in all respects, to my knowledge.
Here’s a rear
offside three-quarter view of a Craven’s RT. The five bay layout made the downstairs windows finish
slightly further back than usual,although the side route number fitting was in the usual place.
Therefore the gap between the two was less. To the average passenger, it is unlikely they’d notice
the difference. Two survive, both with Ensign, one red and one green. www.flickr.com/photos/
Chris Hebbron
27/05/13 - 07:06
I’ve done a little more digging, Pete, about the SaRo bodies. They were strong
and fully compatible with RT bodies from the usual suppliers, although they had slight weakness with
the front bulkhead, corrected at first overhaul. The only reason they were withdrawn a little
earlier than others was because they had front roofboxes. Nevertheless, some lasted a full 20
years,albeit as learner vehciles latterly.
Chris Hebbron
27/05/13 - 09:02
Chris, were the SARO bodies exchanged in the normal way in the Aldenham
programme? As top box bodies were considered non standard from the mid 1950s I was under the
impression that they weren’t after first overhaul, to avoid non standard bodies being mated with the
newer chassis.
Phil Blinkhorn
27/05/13 - 09:03
Thanks for your responses, gents. I knew someone would be able to
clarify!
Pete Davies
27/05/13 - 09:03
Although I’ve always been a fervent admirer of the wonderful standard RT (and
RTL/RTW), both as a passenger and as a driver, I have equal enthusiasm for the fascinating Cravens
version also. The five bay appearance fits in very well with the general handsome RT profile, and
the various other smaller differences add to the individual appeal of "The Cravens." As
far as I’m aware the only difference from standard in the appearance of the Saro bodies was the
position of the offside route stencil frame - oh and, once in a lifetime, the need to reduce the
tyre pressures/height in order to "escape" from Anglesey under the portals of the Menai
Straits bridge.
Chris Youhill
27/05/13 - 16:38
Since no-one has yet mentioned London Transport’s perennial disposal of
perfectly good buses at a ridiculously young age (Cravens RTs, RWs, DMSs etc), perhaps I should be
the one to set the cat amid the pigeons! The usual excuses given for these premature disposals
(standardisation, inability to cope with the London environment, and so on) are transparently so
much guff when one considers the loss of barely depreciated assets. In every case it would have been
cheaper to hang on to these perfectly good vehicles and send LT engineers out into the real world to
learn how to maintain them. I await the barrage of counter-arguments from LT apologists (or, as I
like to think of them, fetishists…)
Neville Mercer
27/05/13 - 16:38
It would be interesting to know which depot this was, I would say either
Mansfield or Worksop. Wass Brothers operated a busy service from Mansfield to Clipstone, Edwinstowe
and Ollerton, they bought three of these Craven RT’s in 1957, the others were JXC 219 and KGK 739,
their livery was half maroon and half dark red and it’s difficult to tell from the picture if East
Midland repainted them when Wass had only painted them a year earlier, or if they simply added a
cream band. The destination box was certainly altered by East Midland, Wass had retained the LT
style boxes and had painted their name in the bottom aperture. It seems a shame that these fine
vehicles were disposed of by East Midland after just two years when only eleven years old but by
1960 they were taking large numbers of Atlanteans.
Chris Barker
28/05/13 - 07:41
This photo was taken in the old fitting shops at Worksop depot. The three of
these ended their lives on Worksop town services. This was due to them being high bridge.
Ian Bennett
28/05/13 - 07:42
Bradford City Transport had 2 Saunders RTs in the batch of 25 bought from
Birds dealer in 1958 Numbered 411 and 421 they lasted until 1968 with the odd spell stored in the
TIN SHED at Thornbury.
Geoff S
28/05/13 - 07:43
I concur completely with your view of London Transport extravagance, Neville,
and have made similar comments on this forum in the past. I joined LT(CB&C) at Reigate in a clerical
capacity from school after ‘A’ Levels in August 1960, and was astounded at the curious
attitude that prevailed throughout the organisation at every level. It was like being on a different
planet, totally insulated from all outside influences. It was incapable of learning from others in
the bus industry since it believed that London operating conditions were unique - its own experience
therefore existed on a far higher plane than that of "provincial" people. Thus it made
expensive mistakes that could have been mitigated by contacts outside its own closed mentality. The
engineering system was typical of its centralised attitudes and slavish devotion to standardisation.
The RT family (once those nasty, interloping Cravens and Saunders machines were removed), the RFs
and the RMs were all designed, like Meccano, to be taken to pieces. Defective pieces could then be
removed at garages and sent to Chiswick or Aldenham, and reconditioned parts installed in
replacement. No proper analytical engineering expertise was required at garage level. The front line
mechanical operation was maintained by fitters, not by engineers. Whatever the fault, major or
minor, a replacement part was almost always seen as the solution. Another LT vehicle class that
epitomised the cavalier approach to costs was the RC and the allied EC of BEA that LT ‘looked
after’. Yes, the wet liner engines of the Reliance did give trouble, but swathes of British bus
operators ran them successfully for years. The LT/BEA fleets spent much of their time in store and
were disposed of after very short lives. Remarkably, the insular attitude of London’s public
transport "experts" remains today, as may be seen in Boris Johnson’s preposterous,
extravagant, ego inflating "Routemaster". After their inevitably limited life in London, I
don’t see many takers for those things on the secondhand market unless they are extremely cheap.
Roger Cox
28/05/13 - 07:44
The destination looks like Langold, which I think was a mining village near
Worksop.
Geoff Kerr
28/05/13 - 07:45
As for your comment, Neville, about LTE’s disposal policy, I’m the first one
to wonder why! Firstly, this policy did not extend across the whole of LTE. Non-standard
trolleybuses, and there were several of them, led almost full lives alongside their compatratriots
and I recall, when living in London, several Tube and sub- surface stock ‘non-standard’ carriages
also with their ‘standard’ compatriots. The bus division certainly disliked non-standard vehicles
and I even recall a very-sloping front-ended STL which, late in life, was rebuilt, all for the sake
of four seats! A whole lot of already non-standard lowbridge green ST’s were tweaked such that not
one of them looked the same in the end. TF1, with non-standard body, was altered to look marginally
like its compatriots, then disposed of in 1946, along with various other non-standard types, like
the double-deck Q’s at the very time when it was obvious they were needed! However, with the RT
family of buses, peak passenger numbers were in 1949, although the dwindling numbers were slow to
start with. Typically, LTE definitely over-ordered them to the point where the last 400 went into
store for about four years and many of them had ex-SRT bodies draped on them until they eventually
went into service. LPTB/LTE achieved some remarkable things in its short life, especially pre-war,
but it was quite barmy in some ways and you won’t find me an apologist for it! And Chris Y, I never
realised they had to lower the RT’s tyre pressures to get them off Anglesey, presumably after that
first accident!
I can’t answer your query about the transfer of SaRo bodies at Aldenham, Phil,
save to say that their incompatibility with RTL chassis meant, unlike regular RT bodies, they were
not put onto RTL chassis because they, too, were non-standard and disposed of earlier. Incidentally,
there was nothing odder than seeing a roofbox-bodied RTL - //tinyurl.com/p5dgkls
Chris Hebbron
28/05/13 - 08:53
Chris H - some most interesting insights into LPTB/LTE policy and practice. I
hope I wasn’t imagining the necessity to lower the Saro RTs for their journey from the factory, but
I’m sure that I read it somewhere reliable. I’d never considered the feature of roof route number
boxes on RTLs but having looked at these pictures I’ve quickly decided that I liked them, and on the
RTs too. I think they gave just a little "look of determination" to the otherwise
curvaceous and attractive fronts. On a practical level too I’m sure that the all important route
number was more easily seen by intending passengers in heavy traffic - perhaps though there were
risks of damage and leakage from incidents in mechanical washing machines, although none seems
evident in photographs.
Chris Youhill
28/05/13 - 08:59
Well, Chris, Neville, Roger and Chris. Been away and just read your theses on
London Transport. Can add little other than whole hearted agreement. Look no further than the
premature withdrawals all having longer (happy) lives with a second (major) operator than with LT -
including the not particularly happy Swift/Merlin fleet in Malta. As a Sheffielder, I will always
have a soft spot for the Cravens.
David Oldfield
28/05/13 - 11:13
Chris H, my first visit to London from up North was as an 8 year old in 1955.
The roof box fascinated me and, over the years and on many visits into the 1960s, I managed a few
rides on roof box RTLs.
Chris Y, you aren’t suffering from excess imagination as the reduction in tyre
pressures has been documented in a few publications over many years. Given the longevity of the tale
and the fact |I’ve never seen it contradicted, it may well be true.
Phil Blinkhorn
28/05/13 - 11:14
Just to finish our deviation, there were a few body oddities with LPTB I never
mentioned. Several ‘pre-war’ RT’s were fitted, post-war, with quarter opening front windows, for an
experiment, I assume. One of them had its front roofbox altered for them by an errant tree, the
former never being replaced. This reminds me that LPTB, in 1942, were authorised to build some
semi-austerity bodies to STL style, to be fitted to unfrozen Regent I chassis. In the event, only
three were so fitted, the rest going onto used chassis. The highbridge versions all had the roofbox
fronts, but minus the roofboxes. The rest of the highbridges had a mix of ‘float’ boxes some back to
1932. They all had crash boxes and sensibly went to hilly parts of Country Area. These highly
non-standard, semi-austerity vehicles lasted until the very end of STL operation, me catching my
only ever glimpse of one (re-painted green by then) as a garage ‘hack’, in mid-1955, within days of
withdrawal. So, sometimes, non-standard was valued!
Chris Hebbron
28/05/13 - 17:03
An interesting aside to Les’s posting is that Wass Brothers were an apparently
well respected independent and although it is now fifty five years since they sold out to East
Midland, their garage and premises on Westfield Lane, Mansfield survive to this day in their
entirety and are now used by another well known independent, Johnson Bros/Redfern Travel.
Chris Barker
29/05/13 - 06:57
Just wondered if anyone has any details of the years of Wass ownership re the
Ex Lincoln Corporation Leyland Titan TD4. Did they have two? Presumably the RTs replaced them, Any
info will be most welcome.
Steve Milner
29/05/13 - 10:03
Wass Bros Mansfield. Regarding the depot comment by Chris Barker. I wonder
Chris, perhaps you are mixing up the locations here? I live in the district and I’m frustrated at
how little history from the 20’s to the 70’s was recorded.
As such I’m not saying you’re
mistaken but my understanding is that the Wass Bros depot was about half a mile further up Westfield
Lane, at the junction with Redgate Street. They (WB) did have an ‘office/house/HQ’ on Welbeck
Street in Mansfield but I’ve no evidence that they occupied the Lindley Street Garage used by
Redferns for some 30 odd years.
Research suggests that The Lindley Street depot was a late
20’s extension to the original Neville & Sons Motor Garage on Westfield Lane. George Neville was a
pre WWI Mail Carrier and operated the first omnibuses in Mansfield, his business expanded into wagon
building and adaptations and moved to a larger site just before WWII. The body building company
still exists in the town today, although owned by some foreign multi-national.
The Westfield
Lane/Lindley St site then seems to have passed to existing Lindley Street haulier Tom Eason, who
must have been attracted to the bigger garage just down his street! He rapidly developed his
business into specialist carrier, Westfield Transport Ltd. They moved to a purpose built site in
1958 before being taken over by Pickfords in 1964.
The Garages were then occupied by another
haulier, W.T.Kemp, by the 70’s his sons were operating the site as a Saab and DAF cars dealership.
Redferns moved into the Lindley Street Garage in 1975.
It was 5 years before the Wass Bros
depot site was re-developed with the building of a pub known the The Redgates.
I’ve never seen
any picture taken in or around the depot so if anyone would care to share? I do however have a
picture of JXC 219, still in Wass 2 tone red but with East Midland decals. It is photographed with
serious front dome damage, seemingly having tried to pass under a bridge some 3 or 4 inches too low.
Amazingly none of the glass in the upper deck looks to have failed, well built those Cravens bodies?
There does seem to have been 2 ex-Lincoln TD4’s in the fleet, VL 8847-8. Listed with Wass from
June 1952 till April 1956.
Berisford Jones
29/05/13 - 18:13
Berisford, I’m sure you’re correct in what you say. I do have one or two
pictures of Wass vehicles which I took with me to Mansfield a few years ago to try and identify the
site, which I thought I had but unfortunately I didn’t know about the premises further up Westfield
lane. Oh well, at least some of the other operators sites, Trumans, Ebor, Red Bus and Naylors are
still recognisable!
With regard to the ex-Lincoln TD4’s, there was also an ex-Chesterfield
TD5, HNU 818 and it made me wonder if the three RT’s replaced the three Titans but the RT’s didn’t
arrive until 1957 so were there any more second hand double deckers?
Chris Barker
29/05/13 - 18:14
Thanks for that Berisford - most welcome ta
Steve Milner
30/05/13 - 06:00
I have the first 2 RT’s listed as arriving in May 56 as the 2 TD4’s leave and
the 3rd RT looks to have entered service with Wass in November 56 as the Chesterfield HNU818
departs?
Berisford Jones
30/05/13 - 06:00
That’s interesting, Chris, regarding ex-Chesterfield Titan HNU 818. Sisters
HNU 817/9/20 went to Rotherham Corporation in 1956, as a stop gap measure until three lowbridge
Daimlers that the corporation had ordered could be delivered the following year. I was only young,
but I recall riding on one of them one evening, on its way into town from Dinnington, and it left a
lasting impression, as it was such a raucous machine.
Dave Careless
30/05/13 - 06:00
Oh dear, I feel the imminent onset of the famous "egg on the face."
I’ve just looked in Ken Blacker’s splendid book about the RTs and there is a photo of a long line of
the Saunders buses on the Menai Straits bridge - a portal is visible and there appears to be plenty
of headroom, so I don’t know what to make of the tale about reducing tyre pressures - perhaps
someone once made a "tongue in cheek remark" ??
Chris Youhill
30/05/13 - 08:31
Chris, don’t be embarrassed. As I said before, that tale about tyre pressures
has been around a long time. I remember having first read it whilst still at school, and I left
school in 1965.
Phil Blinkhorn
30/05/13 - 12:26
Wass’s service was a busy one which needed quite a bit of duplication and it
would seem that there were six double deckers in the fleet at any one time, three bought new, a
PD1/Burlingham, a Crossley/Willowbrook and an all Leyland PD2. The second hand ones as detailed,
three pre-war Titans replaced by the three RT’s. The ones purchased new were all lowbridge and yet
the service didn’t appear to require lowbridge buses. There was also a nice Willowbrook bodied PS1
saloon.
Chris Barker
31/05/13 - 06:23
Beresford the comments on Wass Bros depot on Newgate Lane. I have seen photos
of No 12 (D48) in the yard this was a single deck building at the side, The photo is one of R H G
Simpson collection. Don’t know if they are still available. The other gent on about tyre. London
fitted 36×8 tyres and wheels to gain bridge clearance, I Know We fitted a High bridge bus and
found it suitable. The out come was it Took a Long time for Sheffield to catch on.
Ian Bennett
31/05/13 - 06:24
Just wondered also which dealer supplied the Wass Cravens RTs ? I thought
these were withdrawn by LT in 1954 or am I wrong ?
Steve Milner
31/05/13 - 17:47
Steve, according to the PSV Circle fleet history of East Midland, the RT’s
were acquired by Wass via Bird’s of Stratford-on-Avon in 1957.
Chris Barker
01/06/13 - 06:18
Thank you Chris ! Appreciate this.
Steve Milner
01/06/13 - 06:19
The wholesale withdrawal by London Transport of the Craven RTs occurred
between the summer of 1955 and the early part of 1956. Yet another indicator of LT profligacy was
the repainting in 1956 of no less than 21 of these buses from Central red into green Country livery,
only for them to be finally withdrawn into store after only one to six months of subsequent
operation. The full story can be found here on Ian’s Bus Stop
website
Roger Cox
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
01/06/13 - 15:27
Chris Barker, I wonder, have you got an erroneous/alternative copy of the East
Midland PSV fleet list? My edition of PE13 and ‘Ians Bus Stop’ site clearly show the RT’s as
acquired in 1956, with the PE13 even showing, with the help of local authority licence date, the May
& November 1956 dates for the Wass Bros double decker in-out/swap overs!
Berisford Jones
02/06/13 - 06:34
Ian’s Bus Stop shows KGK 750, RT 1491, being acquired by Wass in November
1956. RT 1456, JXC 219, and RT 1480, KGK 739, are also listed as arriving with Wass in 1956, but the
actual month in both cases is uncertain.
Roger Cox
02/06/13 - 06:34
Berisford, my copy of the East Midland fleet history is undated but bears the
number PB1, current until 1963 with addenda for 1966 and 1968 so perhaps it is a little erroneous! I
have had a look on the ‘Ian’s Bus Stop’ site which I didn’t know about and I agree with you
that the dates are obviously correct and account for the withdrawal of the Titans.
Chris Barker
Vehicle reminder shot for this posting
