British Classic Buses
in Australia - Page 3
British Classic Buses
in Australia - Page 3
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Last updated 12 November 2010
ANCIENT TITAN DOWN THE MURRAY RIVER
Steve Aitkenhead sent this photo of a bus (converted to living accommodation) that he took in 2004 while on a houseboat holiday on the Murray River, downstream from Mildura.
Thanks to Dave Urquhart and others, we are pretty sure it's a Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) Leyland Titan TD5c from around 1940. Peter Guttridge wrotes "Yes it is a Melbourne Titan even though the front has been panelled to look like a trolleybus. I saw a one, also in use as a caravan, in Mt.Gambier in 1960."
It seems some were bodied by Leyland, and some bodied locally in the same style. I wonder exactly which one this is ? Are there any other survivors, or is this unique? If you have any comments please Email me with your thoughts.
And that's exactly what David Wilson did - he tells me; "The bus on the website is ex MMTB 222 which had previously been in use by Wentworth Shire Council as a workman's van. It was stripped of its motor about 30 years ago and sold by the Council . Others survive - 211 at St Arnaud VIC (with engine), 245 at Colleambally NSW, while 207 and 226 are preserved in VIC ,but not restored. They are now extremely rare buses."
Thanks David. Meanwhile John Dixon kindly sent me some more background info;
"A little bit of additional information for you. They were used as replacements for the cable tramway in Bourke Street, Melbourne (North Fitzroy and East Preston routes) which were, in turn, ousted by electric trams by 1956. There were 45, fleet Nos 201-245 and matching registration numbers of AT201-245."
"Bodywork was by Cheetham & Borwick (201-230, 241, 242), Lawton (231-240); Martin & King (243, 244); and Leyland (245). 245 was H30/26R the remainder H30/24R. So examples of three bodybuilders survive. All were withdrawn by Jan 1954."
Thank you John.
1950 W.A.G.T. TIGER TURNS UP
Rob Smith from Kalgoorlie sent me this picture of a mobile caravan he has bought;
We've identified it as one of four OPS4 Tigers bought new in 1950 by Western Australia Government Tramways (WAGT). Will Plumridge has very kindly sent much background information, so here's the story. WAGT introduced the four Tigers in December 1950, numbered 78 to 81 (rego 10.803, 10.802, 10.805, 10.807, and c/n 483912, 491907, 491906 and 491904 respectively). They all subsequently passed to MTT, who substantially rebuilt the original ComEng B42FR bodies to B45F in 1965-67, and renumbered them as 359-362. For a picture of 362 with MTT see this page.
Rob's bus is No.360, and No.361 now apparently survives at the Bus Museum of Western Australia, Whiteman Park. Thanks to Rob for telling us about it and sending the picture.
BRITISH BUSES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
I have received some 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;
"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."
"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."
" 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.
For more details of the 10T10 class, see Ian Smith's excellent page here.
BRITISH BUSES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
I was pleased to receive some mail from Nicholas Pusenjak in Perth, Western Australia. Nicholas is a founder member of the Bus Museum of Western Australia which has quite an interesting collection. It includes several Leyland OPS4's, a Leyland Royal Tiger, a modern Leyland Lion and a Panther (we won't talk about them !), and a Guy Arab III (see photo below).
Also in the museum is ex London Transport RTL 547 ( ** SEE NOTE AT THE FOOT OF THIS ITEM **) in full LT livery (not one of the RTLs I recorded seeing in my youth), and a Regal III. The Regal was delivered new to the Fremantle Municipal Tramways, an avid AEC user which ran Regals before the war, and ended up with a fleet of Regal IV's prior to their takeover by the Perth Metropolitan Transport Trust around 1958. Nicholas thinks that the Regal had already departed from the fleet by this time, but went instead to Kalgoorlie, the gold mining town some 375 miles to the east.
It had been converted to a caravan when acquired for preservation. The Museum managed to get it started some time ago, despite it not having run for many years and the wiring having been vandalised. Nevertheless, with a couple of batteries and some jury-wiring, the engine turned over half a turn, then fired on a couple of cylinders, and then within seconds was idling nicely with that lovely AEC beat.
In true form, the engine rocked gently on its mountings and the vibration was accompanied by the sounds of tinkling glass as broken windows fell from their frames. The air valves were missing from the compressor so they couldn't get air to the brakes or gears, and the radiator hose fitting to the engine was corroded away, so they couldn't run it for long. Subsequently, with a radiator and air, the bus appeared to run well. The body is a timber-frame half-cab, which Nicholas describes as "quite English looking in some respects - well, nothing like the Regals in Montevideo". It has a front entrance with folding doors.
Here are some more images from Nicholas, the first of which is No.515, an AEC Regal that had been rebodied in the mid 1960's.
Below is a Leyland Tiger OPS4 (No.283) originally supplied to the Melbourne Metropolitan Tramways Board and sold to Western Australia in 1959. This bus is still around. For more details see my MTT webpage here.
Next is Guy Arab III No.328, one of 50 in service, taken around 1973. British enthusiasts would probably not have recognised it as a Guy at all !
Lastly, we have another Guy Arab, No.325, which is preserved at the Bus Museum of Western Australia. It was donated to the Museum by the local transport undertaking in 1974/75, and is a very appropriate exhibit as Perth used to have a large fleet of half-cab Guy Arabs.
Nicholas says that progress with restoration has been very slow because there are only about 50 enthusiasts in Perth out of 1.5 million people. However the Guy is coming to the top of the list, and they hope it will be operational soon.
Many thanks to Nicholas for all this material.
** RTL 547 (KYY 640). In 2004 ex London Transport RTL 547 (believed to be the only RTL in Australia) was sold by the Bus Museum of Western Australia, as it was felt that it did not fit their policy of preserving local vehicles, despite the fact that it had been in the area since 1969. There has been some discussion in enthusiast circles as to whether that was a good move or not, but in any case the bus has now transferred into the hands of a private owner in Sydney. When spotted later in the year it seemed to be in good condition and roadworthy. It is now registered TV-3147 and is available for private hire.
Thanks to Dave Urquhart for this update, and thanks also to Derek Cheng for permission to use his photo (below) of RTL 547 taken at the Tempe Bus & Truck Museum on 5 December 2004. See Derek's website here, for many more fine photos.
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