• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Midland Red open-top double-decker 1928

Thylacine

master brummie
Here's a picture for Midland Red fans. It's fleet number 335 (registration HA2248 Tilling-Stevens FS chassis no 2725 with Carlyle KO22/29F body no BB282). New in 1923, withdrawn 1928. The scan isn't good enough to show it, but the destination board reads "Upton-on-Severn" and the service number is 358. Not exactly Birmingham but not too far away! The Tilling-Stevens FS was a forward control version of the petrol-electric TS3. These remarkable bus bodies were built by Midland Red at Carlyle Rd works. After these were withdrawn BMMO did without double-deckers until 1931 when the prototype REDD entered service.
 
More amazing was the fact that many of these double deckers had chassis that had originally been Army lorries in WW1. Midland Red bought a load of them, and were so short of vehicles at the time that they had to run some as 'Lorry-buses' (see picture). Later the chassis were rebuilt with the driving position alongside the engine instead of behind it to give more room for passengers to be carried.
The double deck body design was patented, and allowed for conversion to single deck if required. Some of the bodies were later converted to single deck and used to rebody former charabancs that had been replaced by newer ones.
 
Thanks again Lloyd for the information and the amazing picture. I've never seen a picture of a BMMO lorry bus before! I love the ornately decorated cab door. I wonder how the passengers enjoyed them? I presume access was via steps at the rear.

According to Peter Hardy's very useful BMMO Fleet History Part 1 (1961), this is Tilling-Stevens TS3 chassis number 915 ex War Department in 1920. The War Dept must have acquired it new in about 1918 judging by the chassis number. It ran as pictured from 1920 with registration OE7306 (hence the "bonnet number" 306). The next year its wheelbase was lengthened to 15 ft and it was fitted with a bus body (BRCW B29F number BB215), an experimental gearbox and registration OE3153. In 1926 it was fitted with a conventional gearbox (thus becoming type TS3B) and another bus body (BRCW B29F number BB219). It was finally broken up in 1930. The registration displayed in your picture (OE7306) was used in 1921 on a Ford T (one of two bought new) with an 11-seater charabanc body by T Pass (these only lasted until 1924 when sold). I don't suppose you have any pictures of these model T Fords, or of the 20 hp Garford "minibuses" purchased in 1922? I wouldn't dare ask but you keep coming up with the most amazing pictures. :)
 
Hi Thylacine (looked it up - fascinating animal - possibly not completely extinct, according to Wikipedia).

You obviously haven't got the enthusiast's 'bibles' on Midland Red, the two books produced by Messrs Grey, Seale and Keeley in 1978/9. Hundreds of photos, many never seen before or since, some from the company's glass plate negatives which subsequently went missing, presumed thrown away.

The books have been out of print for many years, and attract a high price when they do occasionally come on the second hand market.

Here's page 45 from part 1 (1904-1940) to whet your appetite.

 
Re the lorry-bus, enlarge the photo and you will see 'OE 3153' chalked on the chassis, as it was about to become.
The view is in Bearwood garage, which was also the chassis works of the time and it is about to be rebuilt as the history you have written out.
 
Garford HA 2331, which was the largest of the bus-bodied ones, the others being only 4 window bays, or 3 full and 2 small bays long.
 
Quite right Lloyd. I left the UK in 1964 and have only revived my interest in Midland Red in recent years. I will definitely try to get hold of those Grey, Seale & Keeley books (then I can stop badgering you!). The thylacine is almost certainly extinct but you do hear about the occasional sighting. They were wiped out due to a bounty placed on them by the government in the (mistaken) belief that they killed too many sheep! The last one died in Hobart zoo in the early 1930s. IF they are still living somewhere in the Tasmanian wilderness they are keeping very much to themselves! And now they've got foxes to worry about (which only arrived in Tasmania a few years ago). There's a movie of the thylacine taken at Hobart zoo but I doubt if it's on the internet. Happy to be proven wrong though! Strange to say, the locals in northwestern Tasmania (where the thylacine lasted longest in the wild) used to call them "hyenas". Tasmanias other famous marsupial (the so-called devil) is having trouble with a nasty contagious disease which causes facial tumours. Just recently some groups of immune devils have been discovered (again in the north-west) which is very hopeful. Thanks for your interest.
 
This has been an informative thread thanks to you Lloyd. I'm now going in search of the Grey, Seale & Keeley books.
 
I've just watched that remarkable thylacine video Lloyd. Perhaps I'm not extinct after all!

By the way those Garfords were the first Midland Red vehicles registered in Smethwick (HA2318-2331). I've found myself copies of Grey, Seale & Keeley volumes 1 & 2. Cost an arm and a leg but beggars can't be choosers! Soon I'll be able to ask you & the other forum experts much more intelligent questions.
 
Another great period picture Lloyd! When full they would have to be careful of low bridges! Why did no-one ever smile in these pictures? (Remember there's a war on).
 
I would think tree branches ripping the (canvas) bags was a greater risk, as was high winds - there are supposed instances of the bus and bag parting company in a gust, the bag either damaging property - or never to be seen again!
Personally, I'd be more worried about the thing catching fire, Hindenburg-style.
 
The two left hand buses, incidentally, carry bodies from the former Worcestershire Transport Company Leylands, where the chassis of the entire fleet was commandeered by the war department, closing the company overnight. It was another BET subsidary though, and Midland Red was brought in to take over the services and subsequently use the bodies on Tilling-Stevens chassis, which although the army used were not commandeered in the same way.
 
The fly-away gasbag might have reached Germany and their boffins would have wondered about the new English mini-blimp! All in all Midland Red did very well out of world War 1 didn't they? As well as the Worcestershire Transport Co they took over Leamington & Warwick and North Warwickshire.
 
Back
Top