London Transport Buses in the 1960s
London Transport Buses in the 1960s

Author: Jim Blake

Publisher: Pen and Sword Transport

Published: 2022-10-21

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1473867886

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Just as life in Britain generally changed dramatically during the 1960s, so did London Transport's buses and their operations. Most striking was the abandonment of London's trolleybuses, once the world's biggest system, and their replacement by motorbuses. Begun in 1959 using surplus RT-types, it was completed by May 1962 using new Routemasters, designed specifically to replace them. They then continued to replace RT types, too. Traffic congestion and staff shortages played havoc with London Transport's buses and Green Line coaches during the 1960s, one-man operation was seen as a remedy for the latter, shortening routes in the Central Area for the former. Thus the ill-fated "Reshaping Plan" was born, introducing new O.M.O. bus types. These entered trial service in 1965, and after much delay the plan was implemented from September 1968 onwards. Sadly, new MB-types, also introduced in the Country Area, soon proved a disaster! Unfortunately, owing to a government diktat, Routemaster production ended at the start of 1968, forcing LT to buy "off-the-peg" vehicles unsuited to London operation and their in-house overhaul procedures. The decade ended with the loss of LT's Country Area buses and Green Line coaches to the National Bus Company. Photographer Jim Blake began photographing London's buses towards the end of the trolleybus conversion program in 1961 and continued dealing with the changing scene throughout the decade. He dealt very thoroughly with the "Reshaping" changes, and many of the photographs featured herein show rare and unusual scenes which have never been published before.

East London Buses: 1970s-1980s
East London Buses: 1970s-1980s

Author: Malcolm Batten

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2018-03-15

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 144568022X

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A terrific range of previously unpublished images of East London buses, including Routemasters, during the 1970s-1980s.

BET Buses in the 1960s
BET Buses in the 1960s

Author: Gavin Booth

Publisher:

Published: 2011-07-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780711034648

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BET was founded as in 1895 as British Electric Traction Co. Ltd. It was involved in the electrification of tramways in British towns and cities. From operating trams, BET moved on to manufacturing them with the purchase of Brush Electrical Engineering in 1901. In 1905 a subsidiary was formed to operate motorbuses, which became increasingly important to the group as many municipalities were compulsorily acquiring company-owned tram networks in their areas. From 1949 until 1967 BET continued to be one of the two major bus groups in the UK, alongside the state-owned Tilling Group.

East London Buses: 1990s
East London Buses: 1990s

Author: Malcolm Batten

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

Published: 2018-09-15

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1445680408

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Malcolm Batten offers a highly illustrated range of photographs looking at East London buses in the 1990s.

The London DMS Bus
The London DMS Bus

Author: Matthew (Matt) Wharmby

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1783831731

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Vilified as the great failure of all London Transport bus classes, the DMS family of Daimler Fleetline was more like an unlucky victim of straitened times. Desperate to match staff shortages with falling demand for its services during the late 1960s, London Transport was just one organization to see nationwide possibilities and savings in legislation that was about to permit double-deck one-man-operation and partially fund purpose-built vehicles. However, prohibited by circumstances from developing its own rear-engined Routemaster (FRM) concept, LT instituted comparative trials between contemporary Leyland Atlanteans and Daimler Fleetlines.The latter came out on top, and massive orders followed. The first DMSs entering service on 2 January 1971. In service, however, problems quickly manifested. Sophisticated safety features served only to burn out gearboxes and gulp fuel. The passengers, meanwhile, did not appreciate being funnelled through the DMS's recalcitrant automatic fare-collection machinery only to have to stand for lack of seating. Boarding speeds thus slowed to a crawl, to the extent that the savings made by laying off conductors had to be negated by adding more DMSs to converted routes! Second thoughts caused the ongoing order to be amended to include crew-operated Fleetlines (DMs), noise concerns prompted the development of the B20 ‘quiet bus’ variety, and brave attempts were made to fit the buses into the time-honored system of overhauling at Aldenham Works, but finally the problems proved too much. After enormous expenditure, the first DMSs began to be withdrawn before the final RTs came out of service, and between 1979 and 1983 all but the B20s were sold – as is widely known, the DMSs proved perfectly adequate with provincial operators once their London features had been removed. OPO was to become fashionable again in the 1980s as the politicians turned on London Transport itself, breaking it into pieces in order to sell it off. Not only did the B20 DMSs survive to something approaching a normal lifespan, but the new cheap operators awakening with the onset of tendering made use of the type to undercut LT, and it was not until 1993 that the last DMS operated.

London Buses in the 1970s
London Buses in the 1970s

Author: Jim Blake

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1473887224

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Using photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the turbulent period in the history of London's buses immediately after London Transport lost its Country Buses and Green Line Coaches to the recently-formed National Bus Company, under their new subsidiary company, London Country Bus Services Ltd.The new entity inherited a largely elderly fleet of buses from London Transport, notably almost 500 RT-class AEC Regent double-deckers, of which replacement was already under way in the shape of new AEC MB and SM class Swift single-deckers.London Transport itself was in the throes of replacing a much larger fleet of these. At the time of the split, it was already apparent that the 36ft-long MB class single-deckers were not suitable for London conditions, particularly in negotiating suburban streets cluttered with cars, and were also mechanically unreliable. The shorter SM class superseded them but they were equally unreliable. January 1971 saw the appearance of London Transport's first purpose-built one-man operated double-decker, the DMS class. All manner of problems plagued these, too.Both operators were also plagued with a shortage of spare parts for their vehicles, made worse by the three-day week imposed by the Heath regime in 1973-4. London Transport and London Country were still closely related, with the latter's buses continuing to be overhauled at LT's Aldenham Works. Such were the problems with the MB, SM, and DMS types that LT not only had to resurrect elderly RTs to keep services going, but even repurchased some from London Country! In turn, the latter operator hired a number of MB-types from LT, now abandoned as useless, from 1974 onwards in an effort to cover their own vehicle shortages. Things looked bleak for both operators in the mid-1970s.This book contains a variety of interesting and often unusual photographs illustrating all of this, most of which have never been published before.

The London MB and SM Buses - A London Bus Disappointment
The London MB and SM Buses - A London Bus Disappointment

Author: Jim Blake

Publisher: Pen and Sword Transport

Published: 2024-07-30

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1399034812

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PURCHASED to replace London Transport's ageing RT-type fleet, and also to ease staff shortages by extending one-man operation, the MB-types were not only a disappointment, but an unmitigated disaster! Their successors, the SM-types, were if anything worse, being underpowered as well as equally unsuitable for London operation. In this new volume of his photos, Jim Blake takes a critical look at what were therefore some of the most unsuccessful buses ever operated by London Transport, operating only between 1966 and 1981, most of them however achieving only six or seven years' service - if that. Most of the pictures featured have never been published before and many show rare and unusual scenes, several inside LT's garages and Aldenham Works, now themselves no longer in existence. In addition to the buses themselves, Jim also catches glimpses of London life spanning the period from the "swinging 'sixties" to the harsh first years of the Thatcher regime. The MB and SM family of vehicles also saw service with London Country, the latter being delivered new to them - but they fared just as badly in the outlying countryside around London as in Central London. They brought to a sad end London Transport's long association with A.E.C. buses, and could not have been more different from the legendary, long-lived RT, RF and Routemaster classes produced by that manufacturer!

London's New Routemaster
London's New Routemaster

Author: Tony Lewin

Publisher:

Published: 2014-05-12

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781858946245

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Few things are as synonomous with London as its famous red buses, thousands of which carry millions of passengers a year on hundreds of separate routes. Yet since the withdrawl from service of the much loved Routemaster in the mid-2000s, noe of its replacements has succeeded in generating the same kind of affection among the travelling public. Now, however, the stylish, Thomas Hetherwick-designed New Routemaster looks set to recapture the imagination of Londoners and visitors alike. This book tells the story of the New Routemaster.