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Birmingham buses

Buses and roundabouts ...
MOF 18 going to Harborne ...
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MOF 192 on Brook Lane island ...
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MOF 18 was a Guy with Gardner engine one of a batch which entered service 1953/4 and built at Saltley. MOF 102 was a Daimler batch with the same Gardner engine entering service again 1953/4 but built by Crossley, Manchester.
 
Radiorails said:
MOF 18 was a Guy with Gardner engine one of a batch which entered service 1953/4 and built at Saltley. MOF 102 was a Daimler batch with the same Gardner engine entering service again 1953/4 but built by Crossley, Manchester.
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Would MOF18 have had a 30 in front of the 18 number on the bus, would be great if it did, will explain if it did.Barester
 
It certainly did barester. BCT usually got their fleet numbers in line with the registrations one three letter registrations occurred in 1934. Whereas Midland Red waited until postwar JHA series to achieve it.
 
I mentioned Crossley as a builder in Post 1235.
On another tack bus 1235 FOF235 was one of a batch 1140 - 1236 FOF140-236 of Daimler buses, with Gardner engines, delivered in 1939 and had bodies built by MCCW (that was Saltley). Some were rebodied at Smethwick in 1949 by BRCW. However, 1235 was rebodied by Brush (Loughborough) also in 1949 and was the prototype for the newer post WW2 fleet - with half cabs rather than the new look front. One peculiarity with 1235 was the higher than usual rear destination box which was difficult to change by those of short stature. I was not perpetuated in the new orders. This type of bodywork was considered a great success with a longer than usual working life than some of the city's fleet so much so that 100 Leyland buses, with a more powerful engine than the Gardners, were ordered with body work of this same style by the Brush company. These were the famous bouncy (as I remember them if you sat in the upstairs rear bench style back seat - particularly when running down Robin Hood Lane, Hall Green. :D
1236 did not arrive until January 1940 and had some internal body differences. The body was by prototype by English Electric Co.
Addendum: I noticed buses 1235 and 1236 were in the post and the post is number 1237!
 
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Bloody awful busses. The 17a stopped right outside out house on Moat Lane Yardley. I think Mrs Eggleston, who lived next door, spent her whole life looking out the window, at the people that got off and on. In the 1940s and 1950s when I took the bus to school at Moseley School of art I always sat downstairs on the bus, The men and the smokers sat up, awful place to sit. But they did the job done, got millions of people around the city daily cheaply and more or less on time
 
Radiorails said:
It certainly did barester. BCT usually got their fleet numbers in line with the registrations one three letter registrations occurred in 1934. Whereas Midland Red waited until postwar JHA series to achieve it.
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Thanks for that, it,s strange but true. I took this bus to town with my mom the day I got married, always remembered the number. Sat upstairs and had a smoke, nervous as hell, Barester.
 
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Although I did about ten years bus driving, Midland red mainly and a shorter time on West Mids, I do not recall ever being in close proximity to one of these vehicles.
 
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.
 
Radiorails said:
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.
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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?).
 
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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maypolebaz said:
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?).
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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.
 
Stitcher said:
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Not 100% about Birmingham but very interesting.
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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.
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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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