Off the road

[Bill Parker]

Hello, hope you have all had a good Christmas and I wish you all a prosperous and healthy new year, when it arrives.

I have not posted much lately so i thought I would jog a few memories with this question?..........back in the either late 60s or ealry 70s Midland Red had a shortage of fitters I seem to remember it might have been something to do with the far better pay and conditions available at BL or something like that.

Whatever the reason the result was a shortage of buses as, presumably, repairs and servicing got well behind schedule and the result was the hiring of vehicles from other sorces.

if my memory serves me correctly I do remember seeing on Saturday evening, a Bedford Coach awaiting at the Brandhall terminus of the 203 service to Smethwick and aroung the same time traveling home on the same route on a superbly presented Midland Red tourer, one of the Duple Commander bodied leopards. Needless to say this provoked several comments from the assembled passengers as it swept into lewishham road on the extended 203 works service, one comment mentioning an excursion to blackpool, and it was interesting to see the look on the faces of those intending passengers expecting the usual D7 to arrive!

So I wonder if anyone else can recall any unusual working at around this time,I think this lack of rolling stock was the reason why a number of ex Sheffield Tiger Cubs found themselves in the fleet.

 

[Lloyd]

Hello Bill, sorry I missed this post first time round.
Yes I remember the staff and vehicle shortages, a trip from Walsall to Birmingham on the 118 was one, on a hired Black and White of Cheltenham centre doorway coach. The crew seemed to like it, as no-one at the stops realized it was the bus they wanted, so there were few stops en route!
I also remember seeing an extremely old Crossley double decker painted all over silver coming along Sandon Rd on its way to Oldbury. The ex-Sheffield 'semi-coaches' were strange beasts, the door being operated by what appeared to be a second handbrake lever alongside the driver. They had short lives with the 'Red', ending up with others of the same batch owned by a Derbyshire independent operator.