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Birmingham Steam Buses 1824-1910.

I sit corrected! (Where do you get all this stuff, Molesworth? ;) Time for a glass of Scottish distilled steam ...)
 
I meant Shire horses (ahem, a little bit too much "Raising of the Steam" methinks?). The French equivalent of Draught Horse is the Percheron which is a little smaller on average. Am I on the right thread? Perhaps I should start a horsepower thread? Perhaps I need a drink (soon, soon)...
 
Of coarshe! I knew that. Ish that your cat, Moleshworth? Hic! (Shinging ... "Show me the way to go home ..." :Dancedancer07:).
 
Well you are burning the midnight oil (or something...). As Francis Quarles wrote in Emblemes, 1635:

Wee spend our mid-day sweat, or mid-night oyle;
Wee tyre the night in thought; the day in toyle.

Certainly "elucubrating". I fear you may have moved from your usual draught to the "green fairy" of Absinthe (such is the lure of Kylie, her force must be stronger in your hemisphere, as is the level of thujone)....
 
Well, the old steambus thread has certainly gone off at a tangent since the klass took to the bottle and once again it's Molesworth's musings at the heart of it. More power to your elbow Aiden Molesworth, I couldn't follow this thread before and I am totally flummuxed now but am still enjoying the pictures - especially the green gurl!
I must also point out to you all that I am totally English:georgecrossflag: and only European according Sir's geog lessons and to that end shall offer this fine English built Cheshire registered Foden steam wagon giving yeoman service as a London bendibus during the General Strike of 1926. Note the conductor in Skippers Pilchards oilskins presumeably to protect him from fallout from the chimney, there being no canopy over the passenger area.
 
Good moaning, class ("Oh my aching head!" :headhit:).

The Thylacine never got a cent in royalties from Cascade Breweries for those beer labels! Just because they think I'm extinct. My cousin the Tassie Devil was amply rewarded for his Holywood escapade. (Not that I'm jealous! :dft005:). As for the "green fairy", that picture of me with me mouth stuck wide open was taken after a particularly poisonous night with me mates on the "essence of wormwood". ("Never again!" :explode:).

[The Wikipedia article on absinthe is very interesting, with some excellent illustrations! But "don't try this at home folks!" (at least read the warning labels first).]

Thanks, Motorman, for bringing us back to Earth (and real steam)! :cool: That's a lovely picture of a Foden steam lorry-bendi-bus seen in 1926. I'd love to know more about this episode of the General Strike (which rates a big mention in all the history books, but about the public transport aspects of which information is quite scarce, especially as regards the Midlands).
 
Caught like a Treen in a disabled spacecraft - 100 lines "i will focus in class and not abuse the beak or confuse others"

That is a very clear photo Motorman for the time - do we assume it was agricultural and just drafted in?
 
motorman-mike said:
... this fine English built Cheshire registered Foden steam wagon giving yeoman service as a London bendibus during the General Strike of 1926 ...
Click to expand...

William Hampton Ltd, haulage contractors of Fairfield Street, Wandsworth, London. Founded by William Hampton (d'uh! :stare:) at some time in the 19th century, though the founder died in 1911. That's about all I could discover. What was he doing with a Cheshire-registered steamer?
 
Nice ones! The "tay kettle" on the right operates on the Newtonian "jet propelled" principle! (That's what I need, a noice cooppa tay! See yer later ...)
 
motorman-mike said:
I must also point out to you all that I am totally English:georgecrossflag: and only European according Sir's geog lessons and to that end shall offer this fine English built Cheshire registered Foden steam wagon giving yeoman service as a London bendibus during the General Strike of 1926. Note the conductor in Skippers Pilchards oilskins presumeably to protect him from fallout from the chimney, there being no canopy over the passenger area.
Click to expand...

Foden's continued making steam lorries long after 1933 when Edwin Richard Foden left the firm in protest to concentrate on making diesel lorries under the name of ERF
 
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Very interesting, David. There were also Foden buses, but were they steam buses? Story and pictures needed, please, class.

Which reminds me, it's time to decide on the closest that an SGSB ("Second Generation Steam Bus") came to Birmingham. I think it has to be the GWR Clarksons of 1904 which operated Bridgnorth - Wolverhampton (about 12 miles from Brum), if only for about a month. See post #226 et seq. Anyone who disagrees has to provide some kind of evidence. Molesworth posted a picture of one of these GWR Clarkson steam buses somewhere, but I can't find it. The BSB thread has become corpulent and unwieldy (like The Thylacine!) and desperately needs a sleek, streamlined, steam-powered INDEX. [Mad rush for the exit ...] Hello? ... :rolleyes:
 
For photo and information on Foden buses see

https://www.bammot.org.uk/vehicles/vfdm724.asp

Sorry I don't see a chimney on top of the bus in the photo, However it is known that some transport contractors in the 1920s/30s had demountable bodies on their lorries and put char a banc bodies on at weekend and ran excursions so who knows, there may have been Foden steam coaches!
 
Well, David, I never new that Wythall had a Foden bus, so thanks for that (even if it is oil-engined!). My picture below is :offtopic: too, but I couldn't resist it, as it is such a rare one. (And it's a Birmingham bus, so "two out of three ain't bad"!)
 
Thylacine said:
Well, David, I never new that Wythall had a Foden bus, so thanks for that (even if it is oil-engined!). My picture below is :offtopic: too, but I couldn't resist it, as it is such a rare one. (And it's a Birmingham bus, so "two out of three ain't bad"!)
Click to expand...

OK we are off topic but just to say that only 7 Foden-NC buses were built between 1975-78. ROC300R acquired by West Midlands PTE is apparently one of two still surviving in 2008 owned by Aintree Coaches of Liverpool.
 
Thylacine said:
... the closest that an SGSB ("Second Generation Steam Bus") came to Birmingham ...
Click to expand...

Here's one of the winning steamers, courtesy of Chris Warn. Not a very good picture, but I couldn't find another one. The caption reads:
The first motorised bus service in Shropshire began on 7 November 1904 between Bridgnorth and Wolverhampton via Worfield and Shipley run by the GWR. Three 18 seat Clarkson single decker steam buses were pressed into service on this hilly route during autumn weather conditions. These steam buses, registered DA 80 to DA 82, had abysmal hill climbing capabilities, and it was quite normal for passengers to have to disembark at the bottom of inclines such as Hermitage Hill and walk up. Sometimes they even had to help push the bus up. If the bus stalled, the conductor had to put wooden chocks behind the wheels because the brakes were not good enough to secure the vehicle. After a month of this mayhem the Clarksons were withdrawn in December 1904.​
 
To add a morsel to post 559. Have just found that i have a copy of the picture which states the "bendibus" is carrying city workers past the Bank of England. They must have been a particular target of the strikers
 
I think there is a lot of steam busery on the early Midland Red thread - perhaps we ought to ask for it to be moved across (or inc on the index :shifty: )
 
DavidGrain said:
OK we are off topic but just to say that only 7 Foden-NC buses were built between 1975-78. ROC300R acquired by West Midlands PTE is apparently one of two still surviving in 2008 owned by Aintree Coaches of Liverpool.
Click to expand...

Thanks, David! Yes this non-steam material strictly belongs over on the "Birmingham buses" thread, but I don't mind stealing some of their thunder (or steam! ;)). Here are some links to pictures of the rare WMPTE Foden-NC, some of which are well-annotated and tell the interesting story:

[1] At Liverpool Street garage in August 1977 when new (by "Lady Wulfrun").
[2] Another early picture (by "Sou'wester"), in colour this time.
[3] In Birmingham, 1981 (by "aecregent"). Probably the only picture of 6300 in service with WMPTE.
[4] With Goldsmith's Coaches (Sicklesmere, Suffolk) in the late 1980s, languishing (by "Lady Wulfrun").
[5] With Aintree Coaches on 18 May 2006, saved for preservation (by "MrVRman").

And here is a picture (again by "Lady Wulfrun") of a Foden-NC "test bed" seen at Foden's works at Sandbach, Cheshire. Incidentally, the fact that Foden was based in Cheshire probably explains the registration on the Hampton steamer pictured in Motorman-Mike's post #559.
 
mikejee said:
To add a morsel to post 559. Have just found that i have a copy of the picture which states the "bendibus" is carrying city workers past the Bank of England. They must have been a particular target of the strikers
Click to expand...

Thanks for that extra detail, Mike. Do you just have the picture, or is it part of a longer article?
 
Aidan said:
I think there is a lot of steam busery on the early Midland Red thread - perhaps we ought to ask for it to be moved across (or inc on the index :shifty: )
Click to expand...

Yes indeed, Molesworth (or perhaps "steam abusery"). It's probably just as easy to link from here to the important MRED items, rather than impose on the busy BHF webmasters. At least until the BSB INDEX gets steam up and goes on the road. :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for that extra detail, Mike. Do you just have the picture, or is it part of a longer article?
Click to expand...
Its a book of pictures with short captions called "The picture story of fifty years 1900-1950" Before you ask , there are none of Birmingham or steam buses. I was just checking, which is how I saw the picture concerned.
Mike
 
Re: Sentinel Steamers.

Thylacine said:
The Wikipedia Sentinel Waggon Works page is a pretty good place to start (though there's no mention of steam buses). I had to steam to the Czech Republic for pictures (here and here) of a ŠKODA-Sentinel steam bus of 1925.
Click to expand...
The caption reads "Skoda Sentinel steam omnibus, Act No.: 209500 / 83, finished seventh October 1925."

Re earlier, many Foden wagons were 'factory registered', although whether this indicated they were built before sale as stock items or registration was one of the services offered by the firm, I don't know. Anyway, to illustrate my point here is M 4848, a 5 ton 'Colonial' model.
 
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