Lancaster Corporation
1952
Daimler CVG5
Northern Counties B35F

NTF 466 is a Daimler CVG5 with Northern Counties B35F body, built for Lancaster City Transport in 1952. There were three of them, but 467 and 468 were withdrawn in 1958. They had B32R bodies [with door!] when new and 466 was converted in the operator’s workshops to forward entrance layout in 1958. Now restored to her original livery, she carried Trafalgar Blue and White for a time after the ‘shotgun marriage’ of Lancaster and the adjacent Borough Of Morecambe & Heysham in 1974. [The other three Councils involved - Carnforth Urban District, Lancaster Rural District and Lunesdale Rural District - didn’t seem to object anywhere near so much, but Lancaster and Morecambe & Heysham had never ‘got on’.] She was retained for so long after her sisters for a very simple reason. Her 7ft 6in body was narrow enough to fit through the gateway of Lancaster Castle. Most of the place had been used as a prison for many years and this was the last vehicle in the fleet capable of taking the inmates to the prison’s farms. She is seen in the museum in St Helens on 15 August 2012, and the adjacent information board tells us she was known - for fairly obvious reasons - as ‘the prison bus’.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Pete Davies

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10/05/15 - 16:28

A beauty, looking good. Would have loved the big old CAV headlamps (if indeed she once had them) but you can’t have everything! I can’t spot the date she actually retired- was it a record?
Am I right to wonder if she also got one of those neck-cricking OMO "squint" windows to the cab when the door was moved?

Joe

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10/05/15 - 16:49

I believe it was withdrawn in 1977 but kept as a keepsake until the end of LCT in 1993

Paul Turner

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11/05/15 - 07:12

I quote from a former employee of LCT, Richard Allen, who supplied me with much information about the company which enabled me to provide a fleet list for this site: "NTF 466 was new as B36R just like NTF 467/8. It was rebuilt to B32F for OPO from 01/58 and in 06/1970 it was upseated to 35 in connection with the prison contract which it worked. It was considered too slow and laborious for OPO when underfloor engined buses were arriving, so 467/8 were never considered for conversion and were sold at the end of 1958".
It doesn’t answer your question, Joe, about windows, but if it did acquire something different it doesn’t sound like it was used for very long!

Dave Towers

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11/05/15 - 07:12

Am I right in thinking that Trafalgar blue wasn’t the first choice of the "transport department" - didn’t they plump for a maroon colour with "City of Lancaster" fleetname to start with? I think the blue livery/Lancaster City Council fleetname was the result of a decision to adopt a "house-style" across the Council.

Philip Rushworth

W Alexander & Sons (Fife) Ltd
1961
Leyland Tiger Cub PSUC1/2
Alexander C41F

RMS 714 is a Leyland Tiger Cub PSUC1/2 with Alexander body and was new to W Alexander & Sons (Fife) Ltd in 1961 arriving just as the Alexander empire was split into three separate companies. It was delivered in Alexander’s blue and cream livery but later received the new Fife livery of Ayres Red and cream. It worked initially from Dunfermline depot, moving to Newburgh in 1964. It was withdrawn and sold in 1977, becoming a stock car transporter.
By the time it was purchased for preservation around 1998 it had been re-registered JVS 541. It was restored at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum in Fife and was again re-registered OSC 711. By 2008 the then owner had managed to re-acquire the original registration RMS 714. It passed to an operator in Somerset in 2011, but was returned to Scotland by its present owner in 2013.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Ken Jones

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07/05/15 - 10:50

Nice view, Ken. I’ll cross this vehicle off my list of possible future submissions. Just a small point, but isn’t the fleet number prefixed F for Fife?

Pete Davies

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07/05/15 - 10:54

I found the fleet number on BLotW checked with BBF Scottish Bus Group and you are correct it should be FPD thanks for that Pete.

Peter

Crosville Motor Services
1951
Bristol LWL6B
ECW B39R

Quite a number of Crosville’s L-types have survived in preservation, and this year two of them have changed ownership after many years in the same homes. This example is KW 229, later numbered SLB 229, registration LFM 810. This superb vehicle was owned by the late John Prince for forty years, but has recently been purchased by Mr. Clive Myers.
KW 229 was used on the 18th April 2015 by the Crosville Enthusiasts Club for a tour of the former network of rural Crosville bus routes in the Vale of Clwyd. Just over twenty of us had an excellent day out in beautiful scenery, in this real classic vehicle. Wherever we went, heads were turning and passers by took photographs of the bus! Here it is seen at Penycefn, on the long abandoned service M59.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Don McKeown

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04/05/15 - 08:00

Nice, Don! Thanks for posting. Most of my experience with vehicles in Tilling livery had them in red (Cumberland and West Yorkshire) before I moved south, with very rare views of Crosville. Down here in the "Sunny south" - swilling down as I type this! - it was the other way, mainly Hants & Dorset in green with the occasional Wilts & Dorset.

Pete Davies

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04/05/15 - 08:01

If ever there was a truly classic bus then this Bristol/ECW combination must surely be it!

Larry B

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05/05/15 - 07:29

Beautiful! Brings back schoolboy memories of Hants & Dorset’s 73 and 73A, as well as the very short-lived 73B (Lee-on-Solent to Fareham direct, missing out Stubbington).

David Wragg