• 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 Early Days

Thanks for that, Mike. I'm out of my "comfort zone" with these "modern" Midland Reds. No doubt someone out there can supply the identifications. Lovely Brum scenes though!
 
Pictures 1,3 and 5 have examples of the Leyland 'Leopard' / Plaxton 52 seat 'dual purpose' (can be used as both a coach or a bus) vehicles, picture 2 is a Daimler 'Fleetline' / Alexander 77 seat single door or 75 seat double door bus that typified the style of double deckers purchased after the compny ceased building buses to their own designs, and picture 4 is a Leyland 'National', the integral 'chassisless' design seen in almost every constituent company of the country's National Bus Company which was seen as a design to be used on amost all routes, replacing obsolete single - and double - deck vehicles. "One day all buses will be like this" ran one of the advertisements for the National - a promise thankfully broken.
It is difficult to see where the pictures are taken, this was a time when Birmingham had become "Modern", "Spacious" and "Vibrant" (i.e. they had bulldozed the old buildings we loved and appreciated, and replaced them with concrete and glass boxes) which the film is trying to portray, but picture 1 is Bristol Street (Horsefair) / Smallbrook Queensway traffic island, with Holloway Head behind the camera; and picture 2 looks like the Aston Expressway.
 
Perhaps we should remember that part of Midland Red's 1920s and '30s business was export - even if ony within this country!
SOS designs were from the first model supplied to other companies within the BET umbrella (and usually having OC Power on their board of directors as well!) until WW2. Unfortunately the company needed all of its production in the early post-war era to replace the worn out and time-expired fleet which prevented their ability to produce for others, but the idea was occasionally considered. S6, S8 and S14 types at least were lent to other companies on demonstration, but despite the approval and interest of the others and even the purchase of suitable premises to aid increased production in Pensnett, nothing came of it.

Here are two for Northern General, in the Tyneside area - a QLC open coach and a QL bus currently in restoration at the Beamish Museum, County Durham; and two for Trent Motor Traction of Derbyshire at the recently demolished 1930s art deco Derby Bus Station.
 
Good topic and great pictures (as usual), Lloyd. I've seen a picture somewhere of an S6 or S8 on approval to a company in South Wales. In different circumstances and with greater capitalization, Midland Red might have become a manufacturer to rival (say) AEC. They certainly had the innovative engineering designs, but lacked real mass-production facilities. What were the plans for the Pensnett site, and what caused their abandonment?

It might be of interest to post the statistics of SOS bus production for the various BET concerns (Midland Red included). If I create a table in Word and paste it as a Forum post, will it come out OK?
 
Testing!

Just pasting a Word table didn't work. Is there a (simple) way of posting tabular information? :rolleyes:[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
 
Try an Excel worksheet??? or copy and paste, then re-sort when it posts. I've tried with copies of census pages, but the formatting disappears - to do with preventing spam programmes being sent via the boards I think - necessary precaution, but difficult to work around when the need to show a table comes up.
 
hello thylacine how long you been in australa ive just got to 40 years lol from burmingham and was at sutton garage midland red from 1958 till 1970 hope you like tassie
ive never been there yet live in qld
Allen
 
Lloyd, thanks for the tip. I understand the need for caution.

Allen, good to hear from you again. I came to Australia in December 1964, so that means almost 46 years now (my how time flies!). And 26 years in Tasmania (my two children grew up here). With winter fast approaching, I look at Queensland with envy (but the summers are too hot for me up there). In Sutton in the early 1960s I would have travelled on buses driven by you (the 107 between New Oscott and Sutton). That's a long time ago now! I used to deliver newspapers morning and evening six days a week AND Sunday mornings, all for the princely sum of 15 shillings (which WAS a lot in those days).
 
From the days when a coach cruise was as exciting as a seagoing one!
The old Lands End Hotel is a bit posher now, with newer porch and conservatories built on the front - no Trent charabanc parties, though! This view from about the same angle, but a bit further away.
 
Amazing comparison photo Lloyd, thanks for that one and straying slightly off thread I couldn't resist adding this photo of the opposite end of the country - John O Groats in 1920 albeit not with a BMMO but a Leyland charabanc belonging to a Mr Alexander who on this trip was himself the driver.

...and now back to all things Midland Red connected.
 
Young Motorman?

Another good one, Mike. You know how I adore charabancs! I presume that the boy standing at the back is your good self!?!? :D
 
Steady on young Thylacine, I am burning a good few candles every birthday now but I don't go back quite that far! This is what entered service with Midland Red the year I was born, to give you a clue;)
Mike
 
Only joking, Mike! We are both children of the "forties". :)

That's a fine picture of Midland Red fleet number A2441 (reg GHA795 AEC Regent chassis number 06617199 with Brush H31/28R body number BB3089). "Unfrozen" by the Ministry of War Transport (but built to pre-war standards, not "utility" style), this bus was originally intended for Coventry Corporation but came new to Midland Red in 1942 (all is revealed now, Mike!). The body was rebuilt by Aero & Engineering (Merseyside) Ltd (Hooton Park, Cheshire) in 1951 and the bus lasted until 1954. It is seen on service 261 to Wall Heath via Kingswinford. Several of these World War 2 buses saw further service with other operators, but I have no information about this one.

I haven't seen that picture before: keep 'em coming Mike!
 
It's That Bus Again!
2441 in original as delivered 1942 condition complete with masked headlamps and white edged mudguards en route from Brum to Stafford. Note the Birmingham City Transport Inner Circle 8 (Daimler COG5 ?) in the background.
 
Last edited:
Remarkably quickly after the war Midland Red put 100 underfloor engined single deck buses on the road, the S6 type. Other manufacturers were still considering the idea, only Sentinel in Shrewsbury were offering the new thought to other operators with mixed success. The simlar (but slightly wider) S 8,9,10,11 and 12 types followed before designs changed again.
Then the 'Red' looked at ways of saving money by making buses lighter - chassisless (integral) construction with Fibreglass panels, disc instead of drum brakes and even single rear wheels in place of the normal doubles, were features of the mid-50s S 14 type.
Here component manufacturers use the Midland Red's respected name to show that their products were being used in the cutting-edge designs built by the well-respected Birmingham company.
 
S14's cutting edge they may have been but they could be treacherous little devils to drive on wet and icy roads, especially on hills, not to mention Birmingham's cobbles e.g. Pershore Street as was.
 
Last edited:
Midland Red SOS Vehicle Production 1923-1940.

2010-05-30 09:26:45

In an earlier post (#454), Lloyd raised the subject of Midland Red "exports" of SOS vehicles to other BET operators. I though it might be interesting to readers of this thread to give the statistics of Midland Red production for the years 1923-1940. I have wasted some time trying to show the information in tabular form, without much success. This is the best I can achieve. :rolleyes:

The BET operators are abbreviated as follows:

BMMO (Midland Red); LCC (Llandudno Coaching & Carriage Co Ltd "Royal Blue"); NGT (Northern General Transport Co Ltd); OM (Ortona Motor Co Ltd); PbET (Peterborough Electric Traction Co Ltd); PE/MT (Potteries Electric/Motor Traction Co Ltd); SDO (Sunderland District Omnibus Co Ltd); TMT (Trent Motor Traction Co Ltd); TDT (Tynemouth & District Transport Co Ltd); WM (Wakefield's Motors Ltd).

Year BMMO LCC NGT OM PbET PE/MT SDO TMT TDT WM Total %BMMO
1923 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22 100.0
1924 39 4 1 0 6 12 0 0 0 0 62 62.9
1925 116 2 50 3 6 31 0 2 0 0 210 55.0
1926 87 4 10 4 3 2 0 30 6 0 146 59.6
1927 123 7 25 7 8 10 0 30 11 0 221 55.7
1928 187 18 75 0 5 50 0 41 5 0 381 49.1
1929 168 6 41 5 12 25 0 30 0 0 287 58.5
1930 103 2 10 0 0 23 0 20 0 0 158 65.2
1931 74 0 20 0 0 10 4 28 0 0 136 54.4
1932 128 0 10 0 0 10 0 25 10 2 185 69.1
1933 52 0 0 0 0 0 0 25 0 0 77 67.5
1934 91 0 12 0 0 16 10 12 0 2 143 63.6
 1935 236 0 0 0 0 0 0 51 0 0 287 82.2
1936 118 0 0 0 0 0 0 46 0 0 164 72.0
1937 200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 200 100.0
1938 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 100.0
1939 163 0 0 0 0 0 0 18 0 0 181 90.1
1940 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 0 0 14 0.0
Total 2,007 43 254 19 40 189 14 372 32 4 2,974 67.5
 
Highly Recommended!

I've just discovered Peter W's "Roads to Birmingham" thread, with contributions by Lloyd and others. Highly recommended to all our readers! Something should be done to prevent threads of this quality from becoming "buried". :rolleyes:
 
Thanks Aidan and Astonite!

Thanks for pointing us to Astonite's pictures, Aidan. ;)

The picture on the left is quite well known (but full of interest). It depicts a 1904 Milnes-Daimler motor bus (registered O269), one of the very earliest Midland Red vehicles, originally owned by Birmingham Motor Express Co Ltd. Also seen are passengers boarding a horse bus (showing that ladies by this time were quite happy to travel on the upper deck without fear of revealing their ankles!). A horse and cart and a "basket carriage" complete the Hagley Road scene.

The New Street picture on the right is new to me, but also very interesting. It seems to be earlier in time than the other one, and shows some fascinating horse-drawn vehicles of the time (including buses!), plus pedestrians and a cyclist. Can any of our forensic picture specialists give us further details? What do you think, Lloyd?
 
I'd think it was just after the turn of the last century, the time that the first motors were starting to appear - although none are visible in the photo. The horse bus nearest to us is of the later 'garden seat' type, i.e. having 2 rows of double forward facing seats on the upper deck as we know buses of today have (the earlier 'knifeboard' type had a domed roof with long back-to-back seats facing outward on the dome - which gave the headroom for the aisle of the lower saloon). New Street is recogniseable to us who remember it as with dirty sooty buildings, many of which have gone but some still remain in todays road, which is mostly reserved for pedestrians.
 
S15s on Approval to BET Companies in the Late 1950s.

2010-06-02 16:41:21

With reference to Lloyd's posts above (#454 and #468) on Midland Red "exports" and post World War 2 production, Midland Red Volume 2 has a picture (page 77 bottom right) of 4645 (S15 registered 645AHA) on loan to Northern General Transport Co Ltd (at Grindon, Sunderland, on service 15 to Consett, County Durham). The caption states: "A number of BET companies expressed interest in the S14 and S15 saloons, and one wonders whether BMMO was considering producing buses for associated companies again? If BMMO had become well entrenched within BET, the entire history of British bus manufacture might have changed. Today's [1979] NBC buses might have come from Birmingham instead of an entirely new [Leyland National] factory in Cumberland — quite a few Midland Red men will quietly murmur that the National designers could have learned a few tips from BMMO!" Here is another picture of the same bus with NGT.

On the same topic, here is a rear view of 4644 (S15 registered 644AHA) at Brunswick St depot, Swansea, South Wales, in 1957. Do you know which BET company this is, Lloyd? Is it South Wales Transport Co Ltd?

[Not very early days, but over fifty years ago now! :cool:]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top