Any Routemaster fans/drivers/mechanics on here?

[simon the viking]

Did drive an RF single decker once...

Now if you had started driving a double decker and ended with a single decker that would be a story! James managed it

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwXNvMyZd8

 

[Sharky]

Less is Moore

 

[sheddy]

Saw a privately owned one, top deck converted to allow a massive scalextric circuit.
But may not have been a Routemaster.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Saw a privately owned one, top deck converted allow a massive scalextric circuit.
But may not have been a Routemaster.

Now that is cool.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

My dad was a conductor, then driver, and finally driver/conductor on Greater Manchester Transport buses, I can't quite remember them having rear loading buses but I know they had Leyland Titans when he started.

As I got to an age where I could go to work with him at the depot it was then Leyland Atlanteans.

Apologies for the digression from Routemasters, but bus threads don't come along so often in these parts.

 

[simon the viking]

I've finished the first draft of the article in question just waiting for feedback from the Routemaster owner I interrogated interviewed before I polish it and and send it to the magazine.... does anyone want to read the draft? complete with a few photos I took.... PM me with email address

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

. I want to check out the fact that wikipedia claim that a bus could come in a 9.00 am and leave at night... original fully refurbished chassis fitted with different engine and body but same bus.

It didn't work quite like that. What happened is that the overhaul programme was planned and each vehicle in the fleet was due to have it's visit to the works every 4 years or so. On the date a particular vehicle was due in, a driver would collect it from whichever garage it was based at and take it to the works. At the same time, another newly-overhauled bus of the same type already in the works, would assume the identity of the incoming vehicle, so there was no break in the licensing. Anyone standing outside the gates to the works, would indeed see the "same" vehicle entering and leaving on the same day - except it wasn't the same vehicle at all. Most Routemasters, technically are "ringers", that is their true identity is not the what it's registration plate and bonnet number would suggest. Only a very small number of them have a kosher ID, because they were non-mainstream in some respect (such as the first and last ones built) and were overhauled as one-offs without body, sub-frame or identity swapping.
To facilitate this system, at any one time there would be maybe a dozen bodies and a dozen sets of mechanical units sitting as work in progress within the works. These parts came from the first batch of vehicles that were taken into the works at the start of an overhaul cycle, and were not dispatched from the works until the completion of that cycle, which could be several years later. These identities were delicensed for the duration and disappeared from London's streets for years, until they became the last ones left in at the end of the cycle, when they were sent out again. Very few if any of them would carry any of their original mechanical or body parts, the originals having been long since sent out carrying a different identity!
The system was known as the Works Float and is a subject in it's own right. It all came to an end around 1985/86 when Routemaster overhauls were scaled down as they had started to withdraw them, then the works closed and the facility to lift and swap bodies freely no longer existed. The GPO also operated a similar system , but without the in/out same day aspect, where vehicles were dismantled into their component parts then newly overhauled ones reassembled from kits of parts.

 

[simon the viking]

It didn't work quite like that. What happened is that the overhaul programme was planned and each vehicle in the fleet was due to have it's visit to the works every 4 years or so. On the date a particular vehicle was due in, a driver would collect it from whichever garage it was based at and take it to the works. At the same time, another newly-overhauled bus of the same type already in the works, would assume the identity of the incoming vehicle, so there was no break in the licensing. Anyone standing outside the gates to the works, would indeed see the "same" vehicle entering and leaving on the same day - except it wasn't the same vehicle at all. Most Routemasters, technically are "ringers", that is their true identity is not the what it's registration plate and bonnet number would suggest. Only a very small number of them have a kosher ID, because they were non-mainstream in some respect (such as the first and last ones built) and were overhauled as one-offs without body, sub-frame or identity swapping.
To facilitate this system, at any one time there would be maybe a dozen bodies and a dozen sets of mechanical units sitting as work in progress within the works. These parts came from the first batch of vehicles that were taken into the works at the start of an overhaul cycle, and were not dispatched from the works until the completion of that cycle, which could be several years later. These identities were delicensed for the duration and disappeared from London's streets for years, until they became the last ones left in at the end of the cycle, when they were sent out again. Very few if any of them would carry any of their original mechanical or body parts, the originals having been long since sent out carrying a different identity!
The system was known as the Works Float and is a subject in it's own right. It all came to an end around 1985/86 when Routemaster overhauls were scaled down as they had started to withdraw them, then the works closed and the facility to lift and swap bodies freely no longer existed. The GPO also operated a similar system , but without the in/out same day aspect, where vehicles were dismantled into their component parts then newly overhauled ones reassembled from kits of parts.

Thank you for your reply, I did get to the bottom of it in the end by speaking to a garage who owns 3, I included a brief description of the process that does match your post, so thanks for the confirmation! The 1600 word article has been accepted by the magazine and will be published in the new year!

 

[weareHKR]

It didn't work quite like that. What happened is that the overhaul programme was planned and each vehicle in the fleet was due to have it's visit to the works every 4 years or so. On the date a particular vehicle was due in, a driver would collect it from whichever garage it was based at and take it to the works. At the same time, another newly-overhauled bus of the same type already in the works, would assume the identity of the incoming vehicle, so there was no break in the licensing. Anyone standing outside the gates to the works, would indeed see the "same" vehicle entering and leaving on the same day - except it wasn't the same vehicle at all. Most Routemasters, technically are "ringers", that is their true identity is not the what it's registration plate and bonnet number would suggest. Only a very small number of them have a kosher ID, because they were non-mainstream in some respect (such as the first and last ones built) and were overhauled as one-offs without body, sub-frame or identity swapping.
To facilitate this system, at any one time there would be maybe a dozen bodies and a dozen sets of mechanical units sitting as work in progress within the works. These parts came from the first batch of vehicles that were taken into the works at the start of an overhaul cycle, and were not dispatched from the works until the completion of that cycle, which could be several years later. These identities were delicensed for the duration and disappeared from London's streets for years, until they became the last ones left in at the end of the cycle, when they were sent out again. Very few if any of them would carry any of their original mechanical or body parts, the originals having been long since sent out carrying a different identity!
The system was known as the Works Float and is a subject in it's own right. It all came to an end around 1985/86 when Routemaster overhauls were scaled down as they had started to withdraw them, then the works closed and the facility to lift and swap bodies freely no longer existed. The GPO also operated a similar system , but without the in/out same day aspect, where vehicles were dismantled into their component parts then newly overhauled ones reassembled from kits of parts.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing...

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Holy thread resurrection Batman, but I had nowhere else to put this.... (sorry Simon!)

I've just become the happy owner of an Almex A ticket machine, as used by my Dad (and me, when he let me) in the 70s. I've been looking for a good example for a long time and finally this came up and at a decent price. To at least tie it in to the OP, I gather these were used by London Transport conductors in the 70s too.

 

[Eric Olthwaite]

It was a childhood joy to get onto the exit platform shortly before my stop, hook my arm around the vertical pole, and swing out a little as the bus went round a corner.

 

[simon the viking]

what a great peice of history you've got there!

my article was published in Febs edition of Best of British Magazine... its gone off the shelves now but is still available on Readly the magazine app if anyone wants to read it

 

[Mark Grant]

When I was doing my Vehicle Mechanic training in the REME in '83/4 part of the course involved a Saracen (I think) armoured vehicle. We were told it had a Wilson pre-select gearbox which the Routemaster also used.

 

[fossyant]

My dad was a conductor, then driver, and finally driver/conductor on Greater Manchester Transport buses, I can't quite remember them having rear loading buses but I know they had Leyland Titans when he started.
View attachment 539983

As I got to an age where I could go to work with him at the depot it was then Leyland Atlanteans.

View attachment 539987

Apologies for the digression from Routemasters, but bus threads don't come along so often in these parts.

My dad was a mechanic for GM Busses (Hyde Road and Stockport Charles St). Some of my 'marbles' were old bearings ! I also have a couple of Atlantean name plates somewhere.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

My dad was a mechanic for GM Busses (Hyde Road and Stockport Charles St). Some of my 'marbles' were old bearings ! I also have a couple of Atlantean name plates somewhere.

That's wonderful! My dad worked out of Hyde Road depot, I remember the skid pan there and the dramatic demonstrations of what a double decker skid looked like!