Lloyd
master brummie
Re:Surviving REDD
The surviving REDD was one of the last 3 of its class withdrawn (in 1945), having operated from Leicester most if not all of its life. It was bought by a Birmingham coal merchant who, knowing of the post-war scarcity of coal thought that timber would be a suitable alternative and bought a wood not far from Moreton in Marsh and had the bus converted into an office downstairs and living accommodation above. He soon built a bungalow nearby and the bus, once disused was just abandoned on the site, hidden from roads and a nearby footpath by overgrowth until discovered and rescued in (I think) the 1980s.
Unlike the FEDDs, they retained their petrol engines until withdrawal, as the starting handle on similar HA 8044 at Leicester shows.
The engine that was in the surviving bus has been dismantled and is in store, the one currently sitting in the chassis is a spare that a local enthusiast 'just happened' to have lying about, having discovered it in a scrapyard decades earlier!
The surviving REDD was one of the last 3 of its class withdrawn (in 1945), having operated from Leicester most if not all of its life. It was bought by a Birmingham coal merchant who, knowing of the post-war scarcity of coal thought that timber would be a suitable alternative and bought a wood not far from Moreton in Marsh and had the bus converted into an office downstairs and living accommodation above. He soon built a bungalow nearby and the bus, once disused was just abandoned on the site, hidden from roads and a nearby footpath by overgrowth until discovered and rescued in (I think) the 1980s.
Unlike the FEDDs, they retained their petrol engines until withdrawal, as the starting handle on similar HA 8044 at Leicester shows.
The engine that was in the surviving bus has been dismantled and is in store, the one currently sitting in the chassis is a spare that a local enthusiast 'just happened' to have lying about, having discovered it in a scrapyard decades earlier!