Ex-London Transport AEC RT on Guernsey

Looking back in my family archives I came across this photo of ex-London Transport AEC Regent III, RT 1377 when operating with Guernseybus in the 1990s.

The bus has been on the island of Malta since 2008 and the BusWeb site carries this snippet of information about it: “Originally London Transport RT1377 (KXW 476), this AEC Regent III operated for many years as an open-topper on the island of Guernsey, first with Guernseybus and then with Island FM as a publicity vehicle. It arrived on Malta in 2008 and is pictured in March 2009 in as acquired condition. The intention was to use it on sightseeing tours, but it never entered service and is now with the Malta Historic Vehicle Trust.

The young chap in the driver’s seat in the photo above is my eldest son, who shares my interest in historic transport. He’s grown up with his own family now but last year sampled the cab of a Crosville Bristol L5G when I passed through his neck of the woods last year.

What is it about Dads? We feel constrained to put our young children in the driver’s seat of any old bus we come across! I did the same with the old RT on Guernsey. In the back of my mind I was trying to re-create the photo my Dad took of me in the cab of a Lodekka when I was about 4. How could I turn down the opportunity to do the same?!
So here’s young son Peter in the cab of RT1377.

If you have been following this blog for some time you will have seen evidence that Peter joins me sometimes as bus conductor. I’m delighted that, although he never saw half-cab buses in service, he’s developed an affinity for the old days and is more than happy to don a Tilling uniform and run the platform on special occasions.

YDL318 on a return visit to Goathurst

Crosville heritage drivers are becoming experts at taking double deck buses down country lanes. Not only that, but squeezing them through the narrowest of gaps in tiny village streets. All without touching the sides!

My latest foray into the Somerset countryside took me to Goathurst, near Bridgwater. Southern Vectis 573 (YDL318) has made this journey at least twice before but I hadn’t so I sought advice from a fellow driver (and blog reader) who had done the trip before. I had an inkling of what lay ahead when he said “breathe in!”

As is my custom, I researched the route I would take (following advice from my mate Dave) and did a ‘dry run’ with Google Street View. This time, just for fun, I tried out the Sat Nav function on my smartphone.

It wasn’t very successful. Although it showed the route that I had saved the day before, it kept trying to turn me around and go the other way. I think I must have set the route in the opposite direction when I saved it. I tried it again coming back from the destination later in the day and, while the screen showed me all the right data, I couldn’t get any voice directions through my bluetooth earpiece. I know it works because I’d tried it out one day on my way into work. Oh well, I’d better stick to memorising the route the old fashioned way!

My bus was already outside in the sunshine, fuelled up and ready to go when I arrived to pick it up. So, having checked the fluid levels and done my walkaround checks, I managed to set off earlier than I’d planned. As it turned out, that was very fortuitous.

Leaving on the A371 via Bleadon, I joined the A38 near Brent Knoll and immediately met a huge traffic jam. I had no option but to mingle with the nose to tail holiday traffic. After about 20 minutes spent crawling along at walking pace I discovered the reason for the tailback. A car had broken down right at the entry to the roundabout which serves the M5 junction. Once past it, I was able to proceed at my normal rate.

Turning the clock back with a Morris Minor

Those who know me well realise that a lot of the time I live with one foot in the past. So I had the perfect opportunity to do just that last weekend.

The occasion was the 150th anniversary of Upton Vale Baptist Church, of which we are members. The large building, opposite Torquay’s Town Hall, was first opened in April 1832 and our celebrations are spanning three weekends. Taking the theme from a Bible verse: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), last Sunday we celebrated the ‘yesterday’ part of our history and everyone was encouraged to dress up in costume, representing some part of the building’s timeline.

We tried to create the ‘Mr & Mrs 1967′ look, to suit the age of our Morris Minor, but actually we look more like ‘Mr & Mrs 1940′, particularly the spiv on the right with his trilby set at a jaunty angle.

As you can imagine, we thoroughly enjoyed getting into the yesteryear mood and a few cheap ebay purchases (such as fake NHS glasses for me and a repro antique handbag for Mrs Busmanjohn) completed the illusion. Many other folk joined the fun, with all sorts of excellent costumes worn. In other departures from the norm, we dispensed with our usual worship band, in which we sing and play, and formed a traditional choir instead.

If you’re on Facebook, there’s a great set of photos taken by photographer Paul Eaton which sum up the day very well.

My next outing with a bus, correctly attired in a Tilling bus uniform of course, will be next Saturday when I’m off to Bath with (very appropriately) a Bath Services Bristol Lodekka.

The day I nearly died at the wheel

Although this story is all about driving, it doesn’t involve a bus.

This photo shows a Ford 6600 tractor when fairly new. In fact I was the one that collected it from the dealer. At the time I was working at Moortown Farm near Chulmleigh, mid-Devon during the summer holidays when I was a student at Art College. That summer’s exploits could be the subject of several blog posts!

Anyway, the farm had four tractors at the time and my duties included spraying pig slurry on the fields (which was what I was doing when I took this picture), taking grain down the road to the corn mill and, later on, ploughing and cultivating the fields once the crops had been harvested.

One of the tractors, another Ford with four-wheel-drive, was still in use but was due to be replaced by the one shown above. It had a reputation for being a gutless wonder and the farmer for whom I worked often used to say that “it couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding!” and I can say from experience that he was right! However, it got the job done eventually. You just had to take your time.

Theoretically it had brakes too, but they were nearly as ineffective at making the machine stop as the engine was at making it go. The brakes only worked on the rear wheels and were purely mechanical, no power assistance. I had to press really hard with my booted feet to arrest its progress!

Using the gears, on all the tractors, was not easy. As an 18 year old student who had only recently learned to drive, I found that I could change up reasonably well but not down. He didn’t explain it very well, but the farmer told me that tractors don’t have gearboxes like cars and that, if you wanted a lower gear, you had to stop to select it. If I had known then what I know now, I would have realised that double de-clutching would have been the key to downchanges on the move.

Sorry mate, we’re full up!

I just had to post this photo of an elephant trying to board the No 31 to Earls Court Station. You may have seen it before: it appears on popular greetings cards and was scanned from one that my wife received last year.

According to lists on the web, AEC Routemaster 227CLT (RM1227) was scrapped in 1983 after being withdrawn from London Transport’s Aldenham depot. Sister vehicle 214CLT (RM1214) is preserved. I can’t helping wondering if, had RM1227 survived, it’s current custodians might have had to carry out major structural repairs to the rear platform.