More Memories of Leicester City Transport c.1972 - 1973
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13.
14.
13. Leyland Atlantean PDRA no114, at the new Rushey Mead terminus, just a few weeks before I finished conducting. The difference in colour between these two photos is in part due to the camera, film, etc, but not entirely. When these Atlanteans were delivered, the pale cream had become a stronger, almost butter-yellow, colour.
14. PD3A/12 no17 is here at the Melton Road (42) terminus, on what proved to be my very last conducting duty of all, an evening on The Park, with my last regular driver, Mick Mason. I passed my test the next day, and that was that. Goodbye ticket machine, fares and stages, heavy cash bags and 4 years of running up and down stairs. No wonder I was a lanky streak of bacon and as thin as a waif then. I started to get fatter directly after this. I couldn't climb out of a cab window and slide down the bonnet now, as Mick had done here.
15.
16.
15. My very first turn on the road as a driver . . Aug 24th, 1972. Two days after passing my test, they let me loose on the unsuspecting public o Evington. Here, I've just finished cleaning and adjusting my mirrors before setting the blinds up to run out to Evington to do an early morning service 69 from The Dove. My supervising driver took the photo.
16. Bus 52 in APR, alongside 78 sporting its new Willowbrook roof following its decapitation under Lancaster Road bridge. No, it weren't me that did it ! The driver that did do it was the first to regain his PSV and work again as a driver for LCT. Prior to that, decapitating a bus was curtains .. forever.
17.
18.
17. A front-entrance AEC Renown, No189, just in from Nether Hall (route 61) and bound for Braunstone on a cross-city working. We only had 3 of these front-entrance versions, and so, like other 'minority vehicles', were highly unpopular. They had a perspex roof upstairs, just visible here, which in effect made them suitable for ripening tomatoes in summer .. temperatures could get well into the 90'sF, if not over the 100F, and we called them Sweatboxes with good reason. As far as the cab was concerned, they were the same as the other Renowns, 36-45, apart from the lever-type handle to operate the platform door. I once caught a dog by the neck on its lead in one of these .. unintentionally, of course. That's what came of not operating strictly to 'the bell' and relying on a turn of the head to see if the doors were clear .. we couldn't see down to the road, except in the mirror. That's when I saw the dog, a fluffy poodle, dancing alongside the bus on its hind legs, but I was already putting the engine into 2nd gear by then. It didn't half jump a good height when I stopped and opened the door, right up into its lady owner's arms. I suppose it was pleased to see her.
I thought I'd seen the last of these when I left Leicester. . but no ! East Yorkshire Motor Services had half a fleet of 'em . . older than this and real pigs to drive.
18. Leyland Atlantean PDR/A1 . . no185. The back of this photo says, "The Love Bus" . . probably a reference to the fact that Val and myself did a good deal of our "courting" on this vehicle. With the gentle conivance of my driver, Greg Duric, of course . . a true romantic from Yugoslavia who knew the importance of young love. It was amazing how many times on late turns that we'd go to a barrier to take over the next bus for our last bit of duty, and it would be 185. I got to drive it a few times later, as well. Seen here about to do an 87 to Eyres Monsell from Bowling Green Street.
19.
19. LCT had already got quite a few Metro-Scanias when this one, 225, arrived.
It was the first of the 'quieter engines' . . the legend down the side says
"METRO-SCANIA QUIET BUS". It was a little quieter, but all the Scanias had a
distinctive note, and got progressively noisier as they got older. In those days, noise was considered a bigger problem than polution. Low sulpher diesel was but a pipe dream . . the Green Brigade but sparkles in their fathers' eyes. These Scanias could
shift, n' all. Slipping along the cobbbles through Knighton Lane East tunnel on the Outer Circle
at 10.30pm on a wet winter's night could be quite an experience at about 40mph with some of our drivers 'of eastern origin' at the wheel. I vividly remember the 'bounce' of the suspension as the bus hit the cobbles and bottomed out for the run
through the tunnel, with a noise like crossing a 300-foot cattle grid. I'd love to have tried it for myself, but alas, I never got to drive one of these in Leicester. I managed it a few years later on the double-deck Scanias on Hull City Transport, but alas, we didn't have a cobbled tunnel under 6 tracks of mainline railway there.
20.
20. And so to another classic that I never got to drive .. the highly unpopular Daimler. I conducted them all, 179 - 184, (there were only 5 of them), at various times, and most memories are of life in a freezer. But, I will say they were light, airey and spacious in summer. Just slow, painfully slow. Cyclists used to overtake us. Milkfloats used to race us. But, in this shot, a smart bus when new and resplendant in the old livery of LMS coach-maroon and cream. This was a type, like the Bridgemaster, that the newer, 'modern' livery of reversed colours just didn't seem to suit. This photo has been heavily 'doctored' from the b&w to give some idea of how smart they were. This chocolate colour is not so far from reality, and gives a reasonable impression. Impressive when the paintwork was still glossy .. not quite so when it was worn thin after umpteen leatherings going through the bus wash. A bit more like a pale, sanded undercoat then, as if the topcoat had been of water-based emulsion, and washed off as easy.
Early Bus Memories
This link takes you to a separate page of text, memories of
Midland Red and LCT operations in the mid-50s,
and then to memories of the
Corporation Driving & Conducting School at Abbey Park Road in 1968.
13.
14.
13. Leyland Atlantean PDRA no114, at the new Rushey Mead terminus, just a few weeks before I finished conducting. The difference in colour between these two photos is in part due to the camera, film, etc, but not entirely. When these Atlanteans were delivered, the pale cream had become a stronger, almost butter-yellow, colour.
14. PD3A/12 no17 is here at the Melton Road (42) terminus, on what proved to be my very last conducting duty of all, an evening on The Park, with my last regular driver, Mick Mason. I passed my test the next day, and that was that. Goodbye ticket machine, fares and stages, heavy cash bags and 4 years of running up and down stairs. No wonder I was a lanky streak of bacon and as thin as a waif then. I started to get fatter directly after this. I couldn't climb out of a cab window and slide down the bonnet now, as Mick had done here.
15.
16.
15. My very first turn on the road as a driver . . Aug 24th, 1972. Two days after passing my test, they let me loose on the unsuspecting public o Evington. Here, I've just finished cleaning and adjusting my mirrors before setting the blinds up to run out to Evington to do an early morning service 69 from The Dove. My supervising driver took the photo.
16. Bus 52 in APR, alongside 78 sporting its new Willowbrook roof following its decapitation under Lancaster Road bridge. No, it weren't me that did it ! The driver that did do it was the first to regain his PSV and work again as a driver for LCT. Prior to that, decapitating a bus was curtains .. forever.
17.
18.
17. A front-entrance AEC Renown, No189, just in from Nether Hall (route 61) and bound for Braunstone on a cross-city working. We only had 3 of these front-entrance versions, and so, like other 'minority vehicles', were highly unpopular. They had a perspex roof upstairs, just visible here, which in effect made them suitable for ripening tomatoes in summer .. temperatures could get well into the 90'sF, if not over the 100F, and we called them Sweatboxes with good reason. As far as the cab was concerned, they were the same as the other Renowns, 36-45, apart from the lever-type handle to operate the platform door. I once caught a dog by the neck on its lead in one of these .. unintentionally, of course. That's what came of not operating strictly to 'the bell' and relying on a turn of the head to see if the doors were clear .. we couldn't see down to the road, except in the mirror. That's when I saw the dog, a fluffy poodle, dancing alongside the bus on its hind legs, but I was already putting the engine into 2nd gear by then. It didn't half jump a good height when I stopped and opened the door, right up into its lady owner's arms. I suppose it was pleased to see her.
I thought I'd seen the last of these when I left Leicester. . but no ! East Yorkshire Motor Services had half a fleet of 'em . . older than this and real pigs to drive.
18. Leyland Atlantean PDR/A1 . . no185. The back of this photo says, "The Love Bus" . . probably a reference to the fact that Val and myself did a good deal of our "courting" on this vehicle. With the gentle conivance of my driver, Greg Duric, of course . . a true romantic from Yugoslavia who knew the importance of young love. It was amazing how many times on late turns that we'd go to a barrier to take over the next bus for our last bit of duty, and it would be 185. I got to drive it a few times later, as well. Seen here about to do an 87 to Eyres Monsell from Bowling Green Street.
19.
19. LCT had already got quite a few Metro-Scanias when this one, 225, arrived.
It was the first of the 'quieter engines' . . the legend down the side says
"METRO-SCANIA QUIET BUS". It was a little quieter, but all the Scanias had a
distinctive note, and got progressively noisier as they got older. In those days, noise was considered a bigger problem than polution. Low sulpher diesel was but a pipe dream . . the Green Brigade but sparkles in their fathers' eyes. These Scanias could
shift, n' all. Slipping along the cobbbles through Knighton Lane East tunnel on the Outer Circle
at 10.30pm on a wet winter's night could be quite an experience at about 40mph with some of our drivers 'of eastern origin' at the wheel. I vividly remember the 'bounce' of the suspension as the bus hit the cobbles and bottomed out for the run
through the tunnel, with a noise like crossing a 300-foot cattle grid. I'd love to have tried it for myself, but alas, I never got to drive one of these in Leicester. I managed it a few years later on the double-deck Scanias on Hull City Transport, but alas, we didn't have a cobbled tunnel under 6 tracks of mainline railway there.
20.
20. And so to another classic that I never got to drive .. the highly unpopular Daimler. I conducted them all, 179 - 184, (there were only 5 of them), at various times, and most memories are of life in a freezer. But, I will say they were light, airey and spacious in summer. Just slow, painfully slow. Cyclists used to overtake us. Milkfloats used to race us. But, in this shot, a smart bus when new and resplendant in the old livery of LMS coach-maroon and cream. This was a type, like the Bridgemaster, that the newer, 'modern' livery of reversed colours just didn't seem to suit. This photo has been heavily 'doctored' from the b&w to give some idea of how smart they were. This chocolate colour is not so far from reality, and gives a reasonable impression. Impressive when the paintwork was still glossy .. not quite so when it was worn thin after umpteen leatherings going through the bus wash. A bit more like a pale, sanded undercoat then, as if the topcoat had been of water-based emulsion, and washed off as easy.
Early Bus Memories
This link takes you to a separate page of text, memories of
Midland Red and LCT operations in the mid-50s,
and then to memories of the
Corporation Driving & Conducting School at Abbey Park Road in 1968.