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Acocks Green AEC Regents

tomcruiser

proper brummie kid
In the very early sixties i worked in Hay Mills. I used to get the No.8 bus in Victoria Street, Bordesley Green, get off top of Muntz Street and round the corner to get a 58 or 60 to Hay Mills. Some mornings i used to get a AEC Regent running up to the Swan Yardley then it used to go to Acocks Green Garage. If i caught this bus sometimes the conducter used to moan about me boarding his bus as really it was just working back to AG. This was a real treat for me as Coventry Rd. garage only used Daimlers at the time! Anybody remember this working ?:p
 
In the very early sixties i worked in Hay Mills. I used to get the No.8 bus in Victoria Street, Bordesley Green, get off top of Muntz Street and round the corner to get a 58 or 60 to Hay Mills. Some mornings i used to get a AEC Regent running up to the Swan Yardley then it used to go to Acocks Green Garage. If i caught this bus sometimes the conducter used to moan about me boarding his bus as really it was just working back to AG. This was a real treat for me as Coventry Rd. garage only used Daimlers at the time! Anybody remember this working ?:p

Talking about Regents many many years ago Lloyd, myself and few fellow nutters (sorry enthusiast) collected/saved the piano front Regent from over Bewdley way, were the bus had been used as a holliday home for a number of years the top deck had been taken off and was laid? next to the lower deck so they had a small bungalow for want of a better description, the first day went well the sun shone down on us we had to demolish a wall reinflate the tryes and much more just to clear the bus on the second day it was very wet,

we (lloyd) borrowed a Midland Red? ambulance it was a device so that front of the bus rested on the ambulance, it was a solid tyre job if my memory is correct and this developed a blister but that is another story,
the upshot is that we used a Matador to move the bus for the first time in many a year but because the ground had become a bog we had to link up a JCB? caterpiller to the front of the Matador, so that we could move the bus and we did it twice because the Matador could not get up the slope

and if my memory is correct someone had to go back to collect the roof I was not involved in that the roof now sit on the back of a Midland Red D7? converted lorry the problem is I cannot remember the year over to you Lloyd were he will give the year and correct me on any misstakes in the above

I must dig out the photos that I took of the on the day


Ignore all above as I have got the wrong bus it was Morris Commercial that we rescued and not a Regent put it down to age
 
...and in case anyone wonders what a Morris Commercial double decker looked like in service, it was quite a handsome beast!
 
There were fifteen AEC Regent buses that the thread refers to: GOE631 - GOE645 (1631 - 1645). They were based on the London RT type after a demonstration of a London bus in the early part of WW2. They arrived in 1947, had powerful engines but were unusual in style being somewhat of an amalgam of the London and Birmingham styles. The obvious difference being their window style and the raked driver cab window. There were a few more less obvious differences to the casual observer.
They were always allocated to Acocks Green garage, except for a couple of years three (1643 - 1645) were at Barford Street it appears. Apparently they became test beds for braking, cooling, exhaust and gearboxes. The main duties, from my memories (up until early 1954), were that they were principally used on services 1A, 30, 31A, 32, 44, 44A but seemed to be rare on Hall Green 29, 29A, 37, 46 and Outer Circle 11.
I travelled on them a few times on service 1A when travelling to and from relatives in the Moseley area.
The London bus the Birmingham was based upon and the Birmingham version.
images
upload_2017-6-27_19-1-48.jpeg
 
In the very early sixties i worked in Hay Mills. I used to get the No.8 bus in Victoria Street, Bordesley Green, get off top of Muntz Street and round the corner to get a 58 or 60 to Hay Mills. Some mornings i used to get a AEC Regent running up to the Swan Yardley then it used to go to Acocks Green Garage. If i caught this bus sometimes the conducter used to moan about me boarding his bus as really it was just working back to AG. This was a real treat for me as Coventry Rd. garage only used Daimlers at the time! Anybody remember this working ?:p

It sounds as though this was probably a works service returning to the garage.

Could it have been something to do with a local company, eg: BSA or Rootes?
 
The post-war AEC Regents had the same chassis as the London RT, but a totally different body more to the Birmingham Corporation specifications. Only 4 main windows per side, but much deeper than on other buses in the fleet, and with more white paint inside gave them a very light, airy appearance. They certainly stood out from the "standard" Birmingham bus, even to the unequally levelled headlights!


1631  GOE 631.jpg 1631  GOE 631.jpg1634  GOE 634.jpg 1631 lower deck rear.jpg 1631 Lower deck.jpg 1631 Top deck front.jpg 1631 Top deck  rear.jpg
 
The post-war AEC Regents had the same chassis as the London RT, but a totally different body more to the Birmingham Corporation specifications. Only 4 main windows per side, but much deeper than on other buses in the fleet, and with more white paint inside gave them a very light, airy appearance. They certainly stood out from the "standard" Birmingham bus, even to the unequally levelled headlights!


View attachment 115636 View attachment 115636View attachment 115642 View attachment 115638 View attachment 115639 View attachment 115640 View attachment 115641
Excellent pictures Lloyd, I think this is the first time I have seen such complete interior pictures and I have almost every BCT book ever written and also I had forgotten about the match strikers on the backs of the seats, when you looked at the picture of the upper saloon, you could almost smell the fug of stale tobacco on a wet day with the steamed up windows. National bus company Bristols with ECW bodies had 'stubbers' on the back of the seats....oh happy pre PC days. The thing about these buses were they spent most of their lives serving the Moseley/Acocks Green routes and we never saw them on the side of Birmingham served by Perry Barr, Birchfield, Miller Street garages, I don't think I even ever saw one working a Villa Park football special and in the late forties early fifties you could get some real strangers turn up in Trinity Road, the 'piano front' AECs of the early thirties and of course the FOP Guys and Daimlers as well as up to the fifties a surprising selection of trams.
Bob
 
As kids we used to loosen the screws on the strikers, just for fun.
When they started using Phillips head screws we thought that it was to thwart us, how self centered can kids be?
 
I remember the AEC Regents well although I lived very much in Yardley Wood, Highgate Road and Perry Barr Garage territory. On the 29a, we'd see mainly Daimlers and Guys.

The thing I always noticed about the AEC Regents was the wonderful exhaust sound they made. It was quite different from any other bus around. Little did I know that later in life I would visit the AEC facory in Southall many times when I was working with Leyland Trucks. AEC were producing just one type of truck and one engine by this time (late 70's) and I was shown the 'long shop' where buses had been produced in considerable numbers.
 
As a young child I liked going to the front downstairs because the window was lower than other buses, so I could see out over the bonnet.
It's a shame that not one of these has been preserved - they were always my favourites on the No 1 route.
 
That is an interesting photo Stitcher. I saw another recently, probably around the same era, of the view looking from behind the tram and bus. It makes a more complete picture for me.
 
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