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Birmingham buses

BCT had two of these AEC Matador recovery vehicles, which I believe were ex RAF. The registration WXG 416 is that required by its new owner as during BCT and WMPTE dates it used trade plates.
 
BCT had two of these AEC Matador recovery vehicles, which I believe were ex RAF. The registration WXG 416 is that required by its new owner as during BCT and WMPTE dates it used trade plates.
The Matador was an Artillery tractor during the war and in the late 50s, in my Regiment there were few of them still in use as ammunition trucks, the 5.5in Medium guns by then being towed by Leyland (Martians?).
 
The were very much sought when the MOD put some up for sale it seems. Birds, the Stratford-upon-Avon scrap dealer who purchased a large percentage of the redundant corporation buses used them to good advantage.
 
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The Matador was an Artillery tractor during the war and in the late 50s, in my Regiment there were few of them still in use as ammunition trucks, the 5.5in Medium guns by then being towed by Leyland (Martians?).
They were highly capable - pull anything I loved my rig at RAF Lichfield 1955-57 (see pic) and the one in your picture is in safe hands and was recently seen at Wythall
 
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If 19AE99 was seen recently at Wythall then there is good reason to believe that it is the present WXG 416 featured in previous posts.
 
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Not 100% about Birmingham but very interesting.

Very interesting article on the Lex conversions. Ronald Edgley Cox was of course the general manager of Walsall Corporation Transport before his role in WMPTE and it was he who specified the short Daimler Fleetlines among other unique and often odd looking purchases. The finished product from Lex looked rather bizarre at the front end especially over the windscreens and was a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder!

Simon
 
Thanks Stitcher for the photo of the Bull Ring Bus Station in WMPTE days. Brought me nostalgia for the Midland Red days but still an important point in the history of the buses in Birmingham
 
Curiously there are far more pictures on the Forum showing Corporation buses that there are for Midland Red. Maybe that was because the Red had fewer routes in the city other than those which ran principally along main roads and out beyond the city boundary.
 
When I was a young child most of my bus journeys started on a No 188 Midland Red FEDD just like this one, I might have even travelled on it at sometime. The bus is turning out of Thornbridge Avenue into Beeches Road by the Cottage Stores which used to be the old terminus. The photo was taken late August 1957 and in the distance can be seen houses in Sandy Lane. The M6 motorway would block the view today.
188_ThornbridgeAve.JPG
 
My brother Allen drove Midland Reds from Sutton Coldfield depot then worked on them as a mechanic from the mid 1950s until 1970 when he emigrated with his family to Oz.
For a while out there he worked for British Leyland until that went belly up then drove buses for Brisbane City transport until retiring at over 70.
 
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