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School buses of your youth
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Ellis



Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1382
Location: Betws y Coed, North Wales

PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:18 pm    Post subject: School buses of your youth Reply with quote

Monday the 6th of September 1965 was a very big day for me - I was about to start in Form One in Llanrwst Grammar School in the nearest town.
Yes, I'm one of the Eleven Plus generation and I used to think even then whether it was fair to determine a child's future at 11 years of age for those failed the examination.

That's not for discussion here but that morning armed with my blue pasteboard bus pass I stood with others outside the railway station here to wait for the bus at 8.30am. Short trousers, new school uniform including compulsory cap and nervous.

We were conveyed to school in one of these :

[img]

A late 1950s AEC double decker operated, as were all school buses here then, by Crosville. Mr Hughes was the conductor and we were all afraid of him, he used to scowl a lot. In "civilian life" he was one of the nicest men you could meet.
When the holiday season was at an end after October we were bussed in a later model, one with cloth seats :

[/img]

As pupils we had a choice in fact, the slow double decker or the quicker but ancient single decker. One of these :

[img]

A Bristol driven by "mad" Mr Tommy Nurse who used to drive it flat out, it's ancient diesel engine making conversation impossible. I even remember the registration number EFM 878.
The most unpopular bus for us was another Bristol in later years :

[/img]

Hard riding, draughty with hard plastic seats, we used to wince when it turned up.
Crosville lost the contract for providing school bus services from 1969 and the last Crosville bus I travelled on as a schoolboy was one of these :

[img]

I don't know the make of this one.

What type of bus conveyed you to school in your tender years?[/img]
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Penman



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4751
Location: Swindon, Wilts.

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi
Do I spy an sct61 contributor or reader here?
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I either walked or cycled to school, but on occasion we'd have school trips, and in my final year at Primary school, we'd have weekly swimming lessons for which a coach was required. From memory it was a Plaxton-bodied Bedford (?) similar to this one, operated by Bullock's in Cheadle (Cheshire).



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MikeEdwards



Joined: 25 May 2011
Posts: 2463
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:19 am    Post subject: Re: School buses of your youth Reply with quote

Ellis wrote:
We were conveyed to school in one of these :



A late 1950s AEC double decker operated, as were all school buses here then, by Crosville.


I think I'm correct in saying that's not an AEC, it's a Bristol Lodekka. A chap local to me has recently bought one because it was similar to one he used to go to school one, if not the same one. It was at Llangollen Classic Transport Weekend last year.

Ellis wrote:
Crosville lost the contract for providing school bus services from 1969 and the last Crosville bus I travelled on as a schoolboy was one of these :



I don't know the make of this one.


That's a Bristol MW6G - the G denoting a Gardner engine. A later version of the one above it.

I didn't go to school on a bus, as it was only a mile away. For me it was either walking, or on my bike, or sometimes when walking a mate's Dad would give me a lift. Our school trips, and swimming lessons, were run usually by Aytons Coaches as they were quite local, but they had a poor reputation. Longer trips (I went to Germany on a school trip) tended to be with Bostocks from Congleton.
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roverdriver



Joined: 18 Oct 2008
Posts: 1210
Location: 100 miles from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In rural Victoria (Australia) the school buses were sometimes 'retired' machines from a major operator that had been bought by owner-operators. The one that I rode in the most was a 1949 Bedford, but I can't find a photo of that.

Some time ago I posted about a semi-trailer bus used by the Portsea Passenger Service and pressed into school transport use-
http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17008&sid=5cd8f455882d633d187111dfe65f5006
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Ellis



Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1382
Location: Betws y Coed, North Wales

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Penman wrote:
Hi
Do I spy an sct61 contributor or reader here?


We all have our secrets, you know. Very Happy

I'll take the Fifth Amendment on my interest in steam railway locomotives.
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Dipster



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 408
Location: UK, France and Portugal - unless I am travelling....

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I did not live far enough on the bus route to qualify for a bus pass. The minimum bus ride to qualify was, I think, 3 miles. So I had to walk about one and a half miles to the bus stop where I had to pay to board a London Transport double decker for the almost but not quite not quite 3 mile trip to school.
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norustplease



Joined: 11 Apr 2011
Posts: 779
Location: Lancashire

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A Chesterfield Corporation Guy Arab was standard fare in my early years but these were eventually phased out by Leyland PD2/20's and single deck Leyland Panthers.
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emmerson



Joined: 30 Sep 2008
Posts: 1268
Location: South East Wales

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sixty years ago, school buses were any old cr*p they could find!
I can't remember any specific makes, but they were operated by Cumberland Motor Services, and I think they kept all their scrappers for the school runs.
Strangely though, we only had dedicated buses home. We used the service bus to get to school.
At that time (early 50s) they were building Sellafield and the contractors used old ex-service buses for their staff. They made our school buses look new!
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Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

emmerson wrote:
Sixty years ago, school buses were any old cr*p they could find!


Isn't that still the case, with the smaller operators at least - or has regulation finally put a stop to it?

It always makes me chuckle to see knackered old coaches full of horrible brats belching clouds of diesel smoke all over the place that have "EXECUTIVE TRAVEL" across the back. I doubt they've ever had an executive on board... Laughing Laughing Laughing
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Mikey77



Joined: 10 Jun 2014
Posts: 45
Location: Limoges

PostPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 11:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I, too, spent several years being conveyed to school in Bristol Lodekkas of various generations including the occasional very ancient one with a 5 cylinder Gardner engine. How my heart used to fall when I heard the sound of one of those labouring over the hill towards my stop! The later LD6s and FLFs were like limousines in comparison.
The primary school where I lived in West Somerset was served by one operator with a Bedford OB, inevitably. But another local operator, as well as an SB, had all sorts of interesting stuff including (at various times) a Commer, a Tilling Stevens, a Crossley and a Foden with a raucous 2-stroke diesel and a big fin on the back.
I've always been a bit of a closet bus-spotter...
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