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Birmingham buses

My husbands cousin Carol Partridge was a conductress at Lee Hall does anyone remember her?
 
RE buses

Lloyd.ta Lloyd wish.i had a penny for every time i passed that depot.nice pic,that 14 bus was a wierd looking bus when i saw it,pretty shure engine was at the rear,That was a long time ago.
 
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Haha, not quite! It was a Daimler demonstration bus, on hire from 23rd June to 22nd July 1958. Although it looked similar to the standard BCT bus, it was a bit longer and seated 19 more!
9 JML was a 71 seat AEC Bridgemaster which was loaned from February 1957 until being bought in November the same year, and it ran a full life for BCT.
2211 MK was also an AEC Bridgemaster, a 72 seater but with a forward entrance and despite being in BCT livery was only on loan from 14th June 1960 to 2nd May 1961.
Stratford blue was owned by Midland Red, but kept a separate identity, and livery, and with only two exceptions during the war never used Midland Red's 'home made' buses. They did run a couple of journeys on Midland Red routes, though, including a Saturday trip on the 159 Coventry route, which did confuse the passengers! Here's a nice pic of a Leyland decker at Stratford.GUE 244  38.jpg
 
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re buses

Lloyd. lovely jubbly.The times me and my dad went on the stratford blue to wooten wawen fishing.Some times on the way home it would lose speed getting up the hill.and slow right down.
 
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re buses

Lloyd. ok here is a question,were was the bus terminus before the bus station in the city center was built?
 
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City bus terminals

The Corporation buses mainly used the New St, Corporation St, Bull St, Colmore Row loop - at first before the one way ("Gyratory") system was introduced in the 30s, in either direction, alternate buses on each route going clockwise or anticlockwise round the loop (there was a board over the forward facing window on the platform and at the front of both saloons saying 'via New St' or 'via Colmore Row' to tell you which way that particular bus was going). When the buses replaced the Dudley Road tram services they used the same terminus as the trams had, Edmund St, between the two halves of the Council house, and the Bristol and Pershore Road services likewise used the old tram terminals in Navigation St. Some others used Dale End and Martineau St or Carrs Lane, or Station St (the whole of the station side of Station St seemed to be a glass-roofed shelter), and Old Square.
Midland Red buses came to the Bull Ring and circled St. Martins church, in fact there was a tea cabin for the crews built just inside the churchyard at the top of Digbeth. All of that area was lost with the original Bull ring redevelopment, in fact Spiceal St became just a public footpath, so the buses were given a station in the new shopping centre.
I've put a few pics on - the last-numbered trolleybus, no. 90, on an enthusiast's tour in Station St - A view of two-way traffic in New St in the 20's - a Midland Red decker leaving it's stop at the Worcester St end of Station St, which was another main terminal for them (and the site of the later Bull ring Bus Station) - and an early solid tyred bus loading at St. Martin's.Trolleybus 90  FOK 90 Station St.jpg New Street (3).jpg 3795  NHA 797 Station Street.JPG St Martins bus station.jpg
 
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Some lovely pics there, Lloyd. I'm trying to remember where the Midland Red buses turned round in Town in the 30s and 40s. There were certainly several places - as I remember, buses from the Coventry Road, Stratford Road and Warwick Roads used the Bull Ring, from the Pershore Road and Bristol Roads they used the top of Worcester St as in your pic of the MHA bus, and I think the Alcester Road buses terminated there too, coming via Moseley Village and Edgbaston Road, Cannon Hill. Birchfield Road, Lichfield Road and Washwood Heath Road buses looped from Corporation St via Bull St, High St, New Street (terminus), Corporation St and Steelhouse Lane. What I can'tr recall is how the Hagley Road buses turned. Was it via Edmund St, Congreve Street and Paradise St (terminus), or tuning left into Congreve St and right into Gt Charles St? - I think that was a late wartime economy measure, like when the Sutton and Walsall buses were cut short to terminate just off Loveday St in Lench Street. The other Midland Red terminus after September 1939 of course was in Edmund Street for the Dudley Road tramway replacements.
The dreadful underground bus station built for Midland Red in the early 1960s was off a part of what had been Edgbaston Street. I'm glad it's gone, as it was an awful place.
Peter
 
Hagley Road and western area City buses used the New St - Corporation St - Bull St - Colmore Row loop, I lived on Hagley Rd and used the 9. There was another Hagley Rd bus, 34, which worked cross-city with some of the peak time 33s, but was only a rush hour service when I knew it.
The Bull Ring bus station was much criticised, but at the time it opened it gave a covered area to interchange buses or go to and from the shopping centre and was a great improvement over waiting on cold wet pavements blocking the way of passers by. Unfortunately the facilities soon wore out, the fume extraction plant gave up for months at a time and the decor wasn't kept up as it should have been. Do you remember that when it opened, a penny went on the (Midland Red) fares to pay for it?
I worked there in the late 80s and early 90s, and it was a devil of a job keeping it useable. The premises were rented from the city, but they weren't interested in doing repairs. Where Smallbrook Queensway ran over the top, rain water was for ever pouring in, and extra support piers had to be installed to keep the roadway from collapsing in (see the pic I'm going to provide). The wiring was in atrocious condition and we were amazed that the lights stayed on (we daren't turn them off at night, did so once and only about a third of them came back on next day!)
We did all we could to keep it decent, drivers would come in on rest days (paid of course) and over a few months painted all the pillars and walls to brighten it up, but we were fighting a losing battle against the elements, decaying concrete, litter louts and druggies who would soil the place in ways you couldn't dream of. We had to keep the toilets locked in the end because of what went on in them.
I walked round whilst the rag market was temporarily re-sited in there during the rebuilding, the stallholders all moaned about the water leaking in, even on dry days!
The picture shows the place after we'd closed it. All the route information boards are down from the stands, lanes 2 and 3 are barriered off in the distance and scaffolding erected where the roadway leaking, and the water corroding the concrete and its steel reinforcing. But with public and buses missing, our white painted walls and pillars, and most of the lights working, it doesn't look too bad.bullring bus station at the end.jpg
 
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Theyre great painting/drawings Winston , the one what
caught my eye was the 1st ......... the gritting truck
when roads were gritted manually .
ragga :)
 
Theyre great painting/drawings Winston , the one what
caught my eye was the 1st ......... the gritting truck
when roads were gritted manually .
ragga :)

That really captures a memory for me, I remember those old bus-lorries out towing in breakdowns and gritting. Again, one survives! Seen here at a rally a few years ago, this one is now in a private collection "near Birmingham".

638 AOG 638 Lorry.jpg
 
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Thank you alf and ragga
takes me back in time to see all the old vehicles of yesterday.everything was taken in it's stride.not like now.everyone dashing about.
seen one today at the watering hole island.i was waiting to turn left up garrison lane.car in front wanted to get past a juggernaut from denmark.which was in the middle lane at the roundabout.the car crept forward.then the juggernaut started pulling out .back end scraped all along the side off the car.the car pulled quickly up the pavement.and he had words with the juggernaut driver .the car driver got out to look at the damage.i was shocked to see he was a copper in uniform.:Aah:
 
Ragga,
What a great picture! Would I be right in thinking that those buses are on New Street?
 
Re Buses

RAGGA.I used to see my gran in derby,were they had trolly buses.wierd looking things that run on cables like a tram did,now and again the bus would drive off the cable and the driver/conductor would have to put the arm back on the cable.what happends if the bus went behond reach of the cable? pete
 
I remember the Stratford Blue's. My dad and I would take the Midland Red from St. Martin's to Stratford and catch the Stratford Blue from there to Welford to go fishing. The terminous in Stratford was behind a pub if I recall and the picture looks a little like it. Some times though, we would catch a Stratford Blue outside St. Martins to go to Stratford. The Stratford Blues were always Leylands as I recall and seemed to be more utilitarian than the nicer Midland Reds.
I remember the terminous in Station Street...maybe on a slight hill down from the rear of the Market Hall was it not. I have been trying to think where we caught the bus when we went to Worcester to fish at Bevere. I think it must have been there. Worcester Street would have been there then. This brings back a lot of memories. Thankyou.
 
bham buses

Rupert.great stuff i too went on the blue fishing,to wilmcote and wooten wowen with my dad.we got it outside the church in brum,or we got the no8 and got on it on the stratfotd rd, tight lines, picture thanks too Lloyd pete.
 
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Cable Trolley Buses.

Peter. I remember those buses that ran on overhead cables, never rode on one but I guess they were more comfortable than a tram with running on tyres. I remember them around by the Beehive and Cars Lane I believe.
 
Peter can't enlarge your photo:)


Ger22Van

Trolly buses I remember riding on them along Coventry Road from the Swan:)
 
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