British Classic Buses in Australia  -  Page 1

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Last updated 3 November 2006

These pages form a scrapbook of material about British buses in Australia. The other pages are Australian Buses Page 2, Australian Buses Page 3 and a page about Melbourne (MTT) OPS4/1 Tigers .

Please feel free to send any suitable items and I will be happy to post them.

There are some Australian bus links at the foot of this page;.

A PERTH GUY ARAB LIVES ON - CAN YOU HELP ?

Ric Francis would like to get in touch by email with someone who is restoring (or has restored) a Guy Arab. He is restoring a Tramway Guy Arab from Perth. He has a Parts Manual but not a Workshop Manual, so he's looking for a little help on information.  He sent me the following photos;

WAGT Arab No.97

Above is a picture of No.97 when in still in service..............

WAGT Arab No.99

...and here is his bus (No.99) as it is now.

If you can help with some info then please email Ric here.

MORE BRITISH BUSES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

I have received even more images from Nicholas Pusenjak in Perth, Western Australia. Nicholas is a founder member of the Bus Museum of Western Australia, and more of his pictures can be found on the other 'Australian' pages. This time he has sent the following;

AEC Regal

"Western Australian Government Railways AEC Regal III at Bunbury railway station in the late 1950's. This bus was rebodied in the mid to late 50's."

AEC Regal

"WAGR AEC Regal III no A22. This was the original appearance of the WAGR Regals which were later rebodied as per the first photo above. They were used on country services and the poor state of our rural roads in the late 1940's and 1950's literally caused the wooden framed bodies to shake to pieces. Also, in an era of increasing car ownership, their dated appearance wasn't conducive to attracting passengers and there were no funds for new vehicles, hence the rebodying programme."

Daimler

" WAGT Daimler CVG6 no 22 when new. This had a body by Charles Hope of Queensland. I have included this shot to show how many of the vertically engined chassis were bodied in Australia. The Daimlers had exposed radiators, whereas many "full fronts" had a tin grille."

Thanks again Nicholas for some great pictures.

OLD SYDNEY BUSES NEVER DIE.......

Rob Bender has kindly sent me the following pictures and information;

"In 1983 when I was about 15 years old, I used to scour the outskirts of the suburbs of south-west Sydney looking for wrecks of any description to draw. Most of these places which were market gardens and paddocks, are now built-up areas and housing estates. One day I chanced upon this group of ex Government buses and some old trucks. As I approached from behind the bush at the rear of the photo I saw the brown roof of a double decker towering slightly over the treeline, and had to investigate.

As I emerged from the brush I was amazed at the sight of five old double deckers strewn across the paddock With the land owner's permission I took photos and later did drawings and watercolours of this rare and amazing sight, as normally only the odd one or two are found in some of the older wrecking yards. I was told that they had been in storage for the Tempe Truck and Bus Museum, and some have since been restored.

The buses were Albion Venturers, Leyland Titans and AEC Regents, all (I think) with Clyde H33/28R bodies. There was also an AEC Regal and a Leyland Cub truck from a brewery.

The best preserved of the double deckers.

Thanks Rob for sending the pictures. Anthony Christie has kindly sent me some details about this paddock and some of the buses in it. He writes;

"This paddock was a storage yard for members of the Historic Commercial Vehicle Association, which have a museum at Tempe, Sydney. The AEC Regent in the last picture is ex Department of Government Transport 2499. The green underfloor-engined bus in the top picture with two sets of sliding windows is ex D.G.T. 3499, and the orange double decker without a radiator in the centre image is ex D.G.T. Albion Venturer SPCXW19 1860."

Thanks for that Anthony.

PRESERVED METRO BUSES LEYLAND TIGER No.81

Colin Davison of the Bus Museum of Western Australia has kindly sent me this picture of the Museum's 1949 Leyland OPS4/1.

He tells me it has a 40-seat front-door body built by Boltons Pty Ltd of West Perth to a design by Sydney based Commonwealth Engineering. It was new to Metro Buses, the biggest of the private fleets in Perth, entering service from 19 October 1949 registered 31.981. It saw service on the busy Perth - Fremantle services, and on the interurban Fremantle - Rockingham route.

From 31 August 1958 (by which time it had been re-registered 45.681), it passed to the newly formed Metropolitan (Perth) Passenger Transport Trust, more commonly referred to as the MTT. It saw regular service, latterly from the Armadale Depot and with two further registrations, until withdrawal on 19 May 1972, following which it passed to the Bus Museum's predecessor organisation for preservation.

It has now spent a longer time in preservation than it did in service, but is one of the easiest starting, sweetest running vehicles in their little 'fleet'. It received some minor refurbishing and a full repaint in 1995, in connection with the launch that February of the trading name "MetroBus" for the heavily revamped MTT. Colin says that the shade of green around the windows is not quite right, despite their efforts to find the right one.

The photo was taken in October 1997 at Whiteman Park, where the Museum is based. Thank you very much Colin for the photo and the information. Anybody in the Perth area should definitely pay the Museum a visit.

PRE-WAR LONDON 'T' FOUND IN AUSTRALIA

In 1997 AEC Regal T499 (Green Line 10T10 class) was discovered on a farm near Perth. Here, specially written for this website, is the story from Ian Kerr.

  Photo: Colin Davison

"One of our retired members, who is also a member of a group who travel around the state giving tree seedlings to farmers in an effort to overcome soil degradation, came across this `old bus' on a farm about 370 kilometres south of Perth. He took a few photographs and reported the find at a Bus Museum meeting (at which I wasn't present). Apparently he talked the farmer into donating the bus to the museum but the committee declined the offer as it doesn't fit the aims of preserving buses of Western Australian heritage."

"Sometime later I heard about the find of this "I think it's a T type", and decided the opportunity was too good to let pass. I went down to the farm with a friend (another pom who has this strange leaning towards buses of Birmingham Corporation origin) to have a look at the condition of the bus and decided to take it for myself. I always wanted my own bus and to be honest had already made up my mind to have it before going! My friend offered to go halves and, much as I would have liked to go it alone, with thoughts of the restoration costs involved, I accepted."

"The bus appeared to be remarkably intact considering it's age, but was missing the two front wheels, the battery box panel and all the interior seats. Both destination boxes had also been removed and panelled over. It had been painted in a yellow and green livery at some stage, but the Australian sun had taken its toll of this, as it could be picked off in large chunks revealing a shiny aluminium beneath. I was able to identify the bus as T499 from the brass plate still attached to the dumb iron."

"Home again and I dug out all the information I could find on the 10T10 from my books. I even found a photograph of the actual bus (in 'Green Line 1930-1980', a London Country Publication) taken during the war when it was converted to an ambulance. I'm becoming an expert on all the detail differences of the 10T10 ! Why did some have that odd offside front mudguard?"

"A few weeks later, armed with a can of WD40, a tool box and a couple of spare wheels, saw the two of us back at the farm getting T499 ready for transporting back to Perth. One of the wheels was a spare from the Museum's Leyland trolleybus of the same vintage and looks very similar to the 10T10's originals. The other, the only other wheel we had available, was from a later model Leyland. This fouled the steering linkage and couldn't be tightened up, so we used one of the rear duals."

"Air was pumped into the flat rear tyres and then the moment of truth - would it move?. A quick pull with a chain and tractor proved that someone had had the sense to park the bus with the handbrake off all those years ago!! The opportunity was taken on this second visit to have a closer look at the condition of the bus. The bodywork was not as sound as first thought, as most of the wood in the framework has rotted away, the beading strips being all that was holding the panels on in some places. The interior was full of junk on our first visit but had now been cleaned out and it appears that most of the trims are still fitted - some windows could even be wound up and down."

"The bus arrived at the Bus Museum's premises on Monday 24 November on a low loader. A couple of panels had come away from the body on the journey to Perth, including the two lower rear corners and the one under the rear emergency exit which came away completely as one unit. The bus is now waiting to be placed in a corner somewhere ready for work to start. But where to start??!!"

"The wife of the farmer where T499 was found managed to contact the wife of the original Australian owner (her husband died 6 years ago), and passed her phone number on to me. This lady has a son who lives in Perth and we have arranged to meet when she next comes up for a visit. She did tell me they bought the bus from North's in Leeds in 1954 to replace an old `box on wheels' they had at the time on their school bus run. They paid 250 Pounds Sterling for it, a further 500 Australian Pounds to ship it out, plus 500 Australian Pounds import duty. She and her husband had asked her father in England to send out a 7.7 litre engined bus, and that's what they thought they had until the engine failed. Only when the wrong parts arrived from England did they realise that T499 had an 8.8."

"Eventually, and this is the bit I find most disappointing since finding the bus, they changed the engine for a 7.7. She did say she would do a phone around to see if she can trace the original engine. More on the history at a later date."

"The next step now is to draw up a plan of restoration including parts required etc. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who may have drawing of the body we could copy or buy, especially of the destination boxes. As for the livery - it's too early days yet to decide what colour to restore it to. It doesn't appear to have been painted red as I can't find any traces of the colour on the body. I quite like the look of the early black and white shots of 10T10's in what looks like three tone green, as in the photo of the lineup of six of these buses when new in 1938 outside of Hemel Hempstead Garage."

"I would have much preferred finding an ex-Liverpool Corporation Orion bodied Regent V (well I think it's a classic!), or Weymann Regent III but I don't think that's likely - there again, who would have thought a 10T10 would turn up on a farm in the south west of Western Australia? I've always had a soft spot for London Transport products, especially the RT/RTL & RM, so how could I turn down the offer of such a rare find."

My thanks to Ian for that news.

However the update now is that the vehicle has been repatriated to the UK for restoration and display at the new museum being set up by Ensignbus in Purfleet. It arrived in December 2004, and the massive task of restoration is now underway. Do visit their website for the latest pictures and news. Well done Ensignbus! In the meantime, here's a picture kindly sent by Scott Mitchell, who visited the Ensignbus works during 2006. Thanks Scott.

T499 under restoration at Ensignbus 2006

For more details of the 10T10 class, see Ian Smith's excellent page here.

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Some Australian bus links;

To Australian Buses Page 2   To Australian Buses Page 3   To Melbourne OPS4/1 Tigers

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SB