The London DMS
The London DMS

Author: Matthew Wharmby

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 602

ISBN-13: 1473869463

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 After enormous expenditure, the first DMSs began to be withdrawn before the final RTs came out of service, and between 1979 and 1983 all but the B20s were sold as is widely known, the DMSs proved perfectly adequate with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

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 LS
The London LS

Author: Matthew Wharmby

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2018-03-30

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1473862299

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dissatisfied with the reliability of its AEC Merlin and Swift single-deck buses, London Transport in 1973 purchased six Leyland Nationals for evaluation. Liking what it saw of this ultimate standard product, where even the paint swatch was of Leylands choice, LT took up an option to buy fifty more from a canceled export order and then bought further batches of 110, 30 and 140 to bring the LS class to 437 members by the middle of 1980. A year later the last MBAs and SMSs were replaced on Red Arrow services by sixty-nine new Leyland National 2s.Straightforward but reliable, the LS satisfied London Transports single-deck needs for a decade and a half, often standing in for double-deckers when needed, and then going on to help hold the fort during the tough years of early tendering, during which some innovative LS operations introduced several new liveries and identities. The type served the ten years expected out of it with few worries, only starting to disappear when minibuses came on strength at the end of the 1980s. Although the LS was formally retired by 1992, refurbishment programs gave survivors an extended lease of life, bringing us the National Greenway, the ultimate development of the Leyland National. Most of the Red Arrow National 2s thus became GLSs, and lasted until 2002.Matthew Wharmby is an author, photographer and editor specializing in London bus history. His published books include London Transports Last Buses: Leyland Olympians L 1-263, Routemaster Requiem and Routemaster Retrospective (with Geoff Rixon), London Transport 1970-1984 (with R. C. Riley), The London Titan and The London Metrobus. He has also written many articles for Buses, Bus & Coach Preservation, Classic Bus and London Bus Magazine.

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

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

The London Dennis Dart & Dart SLF
The London Dennis Dart & Dart SLF

Author: David Beddall

Publisher: Pen and Sword Transport

Published: 2022-12-29

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1399095218

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Introduced in 1989, the Dennis Dart became one of the most successful midibuses in the UK. Bodywork was supplied by Carlyle, Wrightbus, Reeve Burgess, Plaxton, Alexander and Wadham Stringer. A large number were taken into stock by London operators, replacing many of the smaller midibuses. A low-floor version, the Dart SLF, was introduced in 1995, and like the step-entrance Dart this model also became popular with operators around the United Kingdom, as well as Hong Kong. In 2001 Transbus took over production, only to revert to the Alexander Dennis name in 2005. The last Darts entered service in London during 2007, after which time the Enviro 200 took over. London Dart and Dart SLF provides a history of this popular London single-decker, from its introduction to its demise.

Canada's Greatest Wartime Muddle
Canada's Greatest Wartime Muddle

Author: Michael D. Stevenson

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9780773522633

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

These case studies show that mobilization officials achieved only a limited number of their regulatory goals and that Ottawa's attempt to organize and allocate the nation's military and civilian human resources on a rational, orderly, and efficient scale was largely ineffective."--BOOK JACKET.

Worlds Before Adam
Worlds Before Adam

Author: Martin J. S. Rudwick

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-04-05

Total Pages: 639

ISBN-13: 0226731308

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, scientists reconstructed the immensely long history of the earth—and the relatively recent arrival of human life. The geologists of the period, many of whom were devout believers, agreed about this vast timescale. But despite this apparent harmony between geology and Genesis, these scientists still debated a great many questions: Had the earth cooled from its origin as a fiery ball in space, or had it always been the same kind of place as it is now? Was prehuman life marked by mass extinctions, or had fauna and flora changed slowly over time? The first detailed account of the reconstruction of prehuman geohistory, Martin J. S. Rudwick’s Worlds Before Adam picks up where his celebrated Bursting the Limits of Time leaves off. Here, Rudwick takes readers from the post-Napoleonic Restoration in Europe to the early years of Britain’s Victorian age, chronicling the staggering discoveries geologists made during the period: the unearthing of the first dinosaur fossils, the glacial theory of the last ice age, and the meaning of igneous rocks, among others. Ultimately, Rudwick reveals geology to be the first of the sciences to investigate the historical dimension of nature, a model that Charles Darwin used in developing his evolutionary theory. Featuring an international cast of colorful characters, with Georges Cuvier and Charles Lyell playing major roles and Darwin appearing as a young geologist, Worlds Before Adam is a worthy successor to Rudwick’s magisterial first volume. Completing the highly readable narrative of one of the most momentous changes in human understanding of our place in the natural world, Worlds Before Adam is a capstone to the career of one of the world’s leading historians of science.