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Midland Red Early Days

Thylacine said:
...
Garfords did come in various sizes, according to the fascinating catalogue discovered by Aidan (post #1012).
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Although not reliable, there is a pencilled-in date of 1925 on the top LHS of page2 - so not too far removed as I first thought
 
Welcome (and Apologies) Mikey!

I suspect from your Forum name, mikeya, that you are Mikey Ashworth. In which case I had better quickly confess that I have already posted your "Map of Midland Red Routes" picture here, as an "advertisement" for your wonderful collection. I hope you will forgive my impertinence! :rolleyes:

Any of your pictures of Midland Red memorabilia will be welcome on this thread (the older the better! ;)).
 
Re: Welcome (and Apologies) Mikey!

Thylacine said:
I suspect from your Forum name, mikeya, that you are Mikey Ashworth. In which case I had better quickly confess that I have already posted your "Map of Midland Red Routes" picture here, as an "advertisement" for your wonderful collection. I hope you will forgive my impertinence! :rolleyes:

Any of your pictures of Midland Red memorabilia will be welcome on this thread (the older the better! ;)).
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I've been rumbled! Yes, I am one and the same - and there's no problem linking to the sets as that is the general idea! I'm glad you enjoyed them - and I'll try sorting some other stuff and post them here and Flickr!
 
Nice one, Mikey! Thanks for your blessing, and "keep 'em coming!". ;)

I would be interested to know when the "Day Anywhere" ticket was first introduced. Peter Hardy (in BMMO Volume 1) states:
Day "Anywhere" tickets, costing five shillings and valid for unlimited travel over the Company's system, were issued between the wars, and on 10 May 1958 these were reintroduced, but the cost is now [1961] ten shillings.​
So they must have started in 1918 or later. Does anyone know the exact date? I certainly made use of them in the early 1960s for "bus spotting" expeditions (picture [1] below). And we see them advertised at Tamworth Aldergate garage in this fine 1932 staff photograph (picture [2]; close-up picture [3]).
 
Let's hear it for the FEDD 1933-1960.

[The poor MRED thread has become a bit of a "sleepy hollow" these days (too many distractions elsewhere!). Here's something that might revive it for a while. As usual, corrections, additions and comments are welcome.]

The Midland Red SOS FEDD ("Front Entrance Double Decker") was the last of the pre-World War 2 double deckers. It was manufactured in the seven year period 1933-1939, and was in service for a remarkable 28 years (1933-1960). Until 1936 it was officially known as the DD(FE).

The prototype appeared in 1933 (fleet number A1448; registered HA9000; chassis number 1727; Carlyle H26/26F body number BB2113; withdrawn 1947; broken up 1949). This bus was remarkable in appearance: the upper deck did not extend over the driver's cab.

There were five production batches of FEDDs, all with H30/26F bodies (except A1801 which was H28/26F; it was built with an AEC oil engine). Over the years, there were many variations in mechanical details and appearance:

Batch 1 (50) 1934: A1536-1585 (registered HA9401-9450; chassis numbers 1876-1925; Short Brothers bodies numbered BB2225-2274; withdrawn 1948-1953).
Batch 2 (135) 1935-1936: A1742-1876 (registered BHA301-400, BHA801-835; chassis numbers 2134-2140, 2142-2150, 2152-2160, 2163-2167, 2172, 2180-2233, 2280-2329; Metro-Cammell all metal bodies numbered BB2450-2534, BB2550-2599; withdrawn 1953-1957).
Batch 3 (50) 1938: A2119-2168 (registered EHA251-300; chassis numbers 2548-2597; Brush bodies numbered BB2791-2840; withdrawn 1956-1960).
Batch 4 (50) 1938-1939: A2219-2268 (registered FHA200-221, FHA223-250; chassis numbers 2648-2697; Brush bodies numbered BB2892-2941; withdrawn 1956-1960). [Midland Red missed out somehow on registration FHA222, so bonnet number "222" appeared with registration FHA200.]
Batch 5 (50) 1939: A2332-2381 (registered FHA836-885; chassis numbers 2779-2828; Brush bodies numbered BB2980-3029; withdrawn 1957-1960).

Midland Red Volume 1 devotes 13 pages to the FEDD, with numerous mouth-watering pictures. Seen below is a lovely example that looks brand new. The registration is not visible, so I am unable to identify it. Can anyone determine the vehicle, the date and the place? [I can't remember where I half-inched this picture from. ;)]

[I will always have a soft spot for the FEDD, as it was the only pre-WW2 Midland Red vehicle that survived in service into my "bus spotting" years, and I well remember riding on them and relishing their "antique" flavour. I'm looking forward to people's FEDD pictures, memories and anecdotes.]
 
I believe that to be the one-off English Electric body for a FEDD, BB 2600, new in 1936 and fitted as a second body to A1567 (HA 9432) whose original body, Short Bros no BB 2256 became a spare "float" body (I'm sure it was reused later but I can't immediately drop on that info at the moment).
I certainly remember FEDDs running in the late 50s and 1960, when the last one was (supposedly) withdrawn, but I also know I saw them in Stafford early in 1961 too.
I used to be taken to Stourport on the 133 route, and loved riding upstairs either on the 4-seater seat at the front, in front of the staircase, or standing in the same location chewing the plastic ("Doverite") covered handrail that ran across the front windows, until one day the driver had to stop suddenly and I knocked one of my front teeth out on that rail! (You can just make out the rail in the enlargement of the photo above).
A few lingered on as trainer buses, but soon they were all gone, and the ride to Stourport was never the same on a D7 or LD8.

EHA 251 in its last days as a "trainee vehicle" in Easy Row, Birmingham, having just turned right from Broad Street (Baskerville House is in the left background) c.1960-1-2. Very sadly none have survived into preservation.
 
Yes the long front seat in front of the staircase with the side entrance was a great place to ride. Stourport would have included Mucklows Hill would it not. Those old busses used to grind a bit up there and some steam from the rad might have been seen.
 
Lloyd said:
I believe that to be the one-off English Electric body for a FEDD, BB 2600, new in 1936 and fitted as a second body to A1567 (HA 9432) whose original body, Short Bros no BB 2256 became a spare "float" body (I'm sure it was reused later but I can't immediately drop on that info at the moment) ... but I also know I saw them in Stafford early in 1961 too ... Very sadly none have survived into preservation.
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Thanks, Lloyd for those interesting notes and great picture of trainer EHA251! [There are some nice cars in that shot too.]

It's fascinating that English Electric went to the trouble of building a one-off FEDD body. They probably hoped for a big order, which didn't eventuate. HA9432's original body BB2256 was in 1937 mounted on another of the same batch (HA9408), according to my Midland Red body lists (ex-Hardy).

It is interesting that you remember FEDDs in service at Stafford in early 1961. I started at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School (Sutton Coldfield) in mid-1961, and I used to commute between New Oscott and Sutton on the 107. I'm pretty sure that there was a FEDD on the service once or twice (but alas the memory plays tricks, does it not?).

We have discussed the near-preservation of Trent Motor Traction Co Ltd FEDD fleet number 1011 (registered RC3333) early on this thread (posts #49-52). As you say, sadly this was not to be. :(

Colin Gittins (whose picture of RC3333 I linked to) has a couple of pages of FEDD pictures starting here.
 
Rupert said:
Yes the long front seat in front of the staircase with the side entrance was a great place to ride. Stourport would have included Mucklows Hill would it not. Those old busses used to grind a bit up there and some steam from the rad might have been seen.
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Good to hear from another FEDD fan, Rupert! You might remember the "attractive brown, yellow and gold pattern moquette" used on the seats and elsewhere in the Metro-Camell bodied FEDDs of 1935-1936. This "art deco" design really brightened up the interior of these work-horses, as can be seen in Midland Red Volume 1 (page 121). Does anyone know of a colour picture of this unusual interior design?
 
Yes nice material on the seats. I seem to remember leather seat corner trim also. It was all a bit old by the fifties but still in decent shape. It's funny but just thinking about it brings back aroma memory...could it be the aroma that one used to experience in an older leather seated car. You got on the bus through a door just behind the engine and straight ahead was the staircase, under the slope of which was the lugage rack. Usually filled with fishing creels when we used these busses. I seem to remember thinking that our creel would tip off that rack and fall out onto the road but the door was shut in motion. There is a picture of such a bus with a sliding door on here but my memory recalls a concertina one. It's a while ago though. It was such a delight to motor through the pre-highway road system on those old busses...with the hedges at the side and the cast round red mailboxes with shallow rounded tops, here and there. We did not know it but it was the end of an era when mindless immediacy was not important and snailmail was ok. I think we write more now but not better and not with as much thought for feelings and when everything is so fast...then nothing is of much value.
 
On the "DD" theme, there is a REDD albeit in a terrible state at the Black Country Museum. Still fited with a petrol engine. It is in a terrible state and the Museum , as far as I know, has no plans to restore it. In fact I would not be at all suprised to see it eventually end up at Wythall. It is not on general display but tucked up in a corner of the workshop area.
 
Rupert said:
Yes the long front seat in front of the staircase with the side entrance was a great place to ride. Stourport would have included Mucklows Hill would it not. Those old busses used to grind a bit up there and some steam from the rad might have been seen.
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Yes Mucklows Hill and Hagley Hill, both quite long - and then the short but equally steep hill of Coventry Street, Kidderminster. Lovely first gear grinds while heading home!
 
Thylacine said:
It's fascinating that English Electric went to the trouble of building a one-off FEDD body. They probably hoped for a big order, which didn't eventuate. HA9432's original body BB2256 was in 1937 mounted on another of the same batch (HA9408), according to my Midland Red body lists (ex-Hardy).
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I suspect that it was Midland Red trying EE out, rather than a speculative build. Its body number immediately precedes the 65 EE bodies for SON chassis (A1877-1941, CHA 501-565).

The 15 Trent identical versions of the BHA FEDD had chassis numbers sprinkled between the Midland Red ones in the BHA 316-332 range, although their body numbers (BB2535-2549) were together. It has been suggested that Trent was in urgent need of these buses, and took a batch from the bodymaker as soon as possible rather than wait. The chassis of the final 15 of the Midland Red batch, BHA 820-835, were effectively the Trent - ordered chassis.
Had RC 3333 been secured, it would probably have been restored as Midland Red BHA 343, the number that chassis would have carried if the Trent ones had come together at the end of the batch.

Midland Red had 'tried out' Metro Cammell with 1932 body BB1952, a B34F body for IM4 A1344, HA 8295. This left that chassis' intended body, Brush BB1951 as a spare, which went on A1366 (HA 8291) in 1934, releasing BB1947 which went onto A1363 (HA 8288) in 1936, similarly releasing BB1944 which went onto A1346 (HA 8270) in 1940. (Etc, etc).

Metro Cammell DID build a speculative "FEDD" body though, in 1935, having 'improved' the BMMO design to include four rather than five bay construction, and a forward-sloping rear end. Midland Red must have been uninterested in this project though, for it was mounted on a Daimler COG5 chassis and finished to the specifications of the time for Birmingham Corporation, who subsequently bought the bus as their 94 (BOP 94). [The '90' series fleet numbers being used by demonstration and experimental vehicles]
 
Bill Parker said:
On the "DD" theme, there is a REDD albeit in a terrible state at the Black Country Museum. Still fited with a petrol engine. It is in a terrible state and the Museum , as far as I know, has no plans to restore it. In fact I would not be at all suprised to see it eventually end up at Wythall. It is not on general display but tucked up in a corner of the workshop area.
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Thanks for reminding us, Bill, of the worthy REDD restoration project (HA8047). See posts #325-328 and #331-333 for further details (and pictures). We must be patient, but I would dearly love to see this bus restored to its former glory!
 
Rupert said:
... It's funny but just thinking about it brings back aroma memory...could it be the aroma that one used to experience in an older leather seated car ... There is a picture of such a bus with a sliding door on here but my memory recalls a concertina one ... It was such a delight to motor through the pre-highway road system on those old busses...with the hedges at the side and the cast round red mailboxes with shallow rounded tops, here and there. We did not know it but it was the end of an era when mindless immediacy was not important and snailmail was ok. I think we write more now but not better and not with as much thought for feelings and when everything is so fast...then nothing is of much value.
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, Rupert, I remember that lovely FEDD smell!

Midland Red Volume 1 confirms your memory of "concertina" doors: "The composite 56-seat bodywork by Brush had a new outline with a single folding 'jack-knife' door in a recessed entrance replacing the sliding door of the previous versions".

And thanks for your astute reflections on the "FEDD era", to which some of us still belong, in spirit at least! ;)
 
Lloyd, thanks for those interesting notes, which explain (inter alia) the strange gaps in the chassis number list for the BHA-registered FEDDs. And thanks for that weird and wonderful picture of the BCT "FEDD"! :thumbsup:
 
Lloyd said:
... This left that chassis' intended body, Brush BB1951 as a spare, which went on A1366 (HA 8291) in 1934, releasing BB1947 which went onto A1363 (HA 8288) in 1936, similarly releasing BB1944 which went onto A1346 (HA 8270) in 1940. (Etc, etc) ...
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This trail of body, fleet and registration numbers reminds us how commonly bodies used to move from chassis to chassis in the early days of Midland Red. This practice peaked in the 1920s and had almost died out by the "FEDD era". Just for the "records" here are my contenders for the "Body on the Most Chassis" and "Chassis With the Most Bodies" stakes:

Body BB194 was built for Midland Red by Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co Ltd (BRCW) of Smethwick in 1920. The B29F body was designed for the 15 ft wheelbase Tilling-Stevens TS3 petrol-electric chassis. BB194 is recorded as being mounted on eight different chassis during its ten year life: A166 (OE6195) in 1920; A155 (OE6184) in 1922; A169 (OH1198) in 1922; A131 (OE6160) in 1925; A163 (OE6192) in 1925; A132 (OE6161) in 1926; A150 (OE6179) 1926; and finally, ex- War Department A279 (O9939) in 1926, on which it remained until sold or broken up in 1930.

1920 Tilling-Stevens TS3 A178 (OH1207) had seven different bodies during its eleven year life: BB239 (Strachan and Brown B29F) in 1920; BB228 (S & B B29F) in 1922; BB237 (S & B B29F) in 1922; BB184 (BRCW B29F) in 1923; BB231 (S & B B29F) in 1925; BB225 (S & B B29F) in 1925; BB430 (Carlyle B32F) in 1930, which remained until the chassis was broken up in 1931.
 
I suppose in todays age of integrally-constructed vehicles and maintenance of an 'only when it breaks' variety, the idea of body interchangeability seems strange but in those early days it was often necessary to get at certain components or repair accident damage. London Transport famously designed their vehicles and overhaul proceedures around this principle, seperating bodies and chassis as the first stage of almost totally dismantling a vehicle at the Aldenham Overhaul Works. It was often said that a London bus was as old (or new) as its last overhaul date, which is borne out by the fact that ex-LTE vehicles regularly went on to longer lives with subsequent owners than they had given in the capital.
Bodies often took longer to repair and overhaul than chassis, so with a spare body available a bus could be out doing its job (earning money) far more quickly, the savings over the cost of a spare bus covering the cost of the extra body during its life.
Even whan there were no 'spare' bodies deliberately purchased, one good could be made from two worn vehicles later in their lives, or even rebodying perfectly good chassis with newer styled bodies, as with the Midland Red ODD class, where new United B26F bodies were fitted to selected original SOS 'S' type chassis (see picture), the displaced bodies going to older Tilling Stevens TS3 chassis which had been rebuilt to SOS standard with gearbox transmissions and pneumatic tyres.
The SOS 'FS' charabacs were rebodied with the (heavily) rebuilt single deck bodies that had previously been open-top double deckers on the TS3FS chassis, again recycling equipment that was not required in its original state, but not totally worn out.
There is far more information available on the body swaps that Midland Red did, than just the year as listed by Hardy in the PSV circle history - monthly, to the extent of being able to accurately track a body's history, or a chassis' list of bodies, and even how long a body was not in use (presumably due to the severity of the repairs it needed). Sadly there is insufficient volume of interest to make it worthwhile to re-document this in an updated version of the fleet history, as the cost of such work would make the price of the resulting volume prohibitive.
 
Thanks for those interesting notes, Lloyd, and that lovely picture of a very smart-looking (if elderly) ODD HA2424. And there's a BHA FEDD in the background on service 144!

Presumably the Midland Red body records you mention are safely archived somewhere (Wythall?). Hopefully one day all will be revealed. A website would possibly be the way to go rather than a printed book, but of course it would be a lot of work for the benefit of a very small number of dedicated Midland Red anoraks. I would certainly be a subscriber and helper! ;)

Which raises the interesting question: what does remain of Midland Red paperwork, what state is it in, and where is it archived? I'm aware that Wythall has quite a collection, and presumably there is some material in the private collections of enthusiasts.
 
There is a fair amount of early paperwork, mainly released after the late John Birks, former director of the National Bus Co. (and earlier with Midland Red) was comissioned by NBC to write a definative (728 page!) history of the NBC on its demise in 1988. He was allowed access to all documents, and what was not required back by the then extant companies was given to a historical transport archive currently held in Droitwich, manned by a few volunteers who administer the archive.
 
I know that the 144 was the Birmingham to Malvern bus. Would the last picture be at Great Malvern or Worcester. It does not look like Station Street in Brum.
 
Nice Great Malvern view, Lloyd!

[Bit of a long shot, but there's no harm in asking: I don't suppose Wythall Museum would be interested in a Maglev rail car (1984 vintage) that's languishing at Birmingham Airport? :rolleyes:]
 
A very long shot. I'll ask the relevant people is all I can offer. 'Interest' isn't the problem - 'cost', not only of movement (initially and at any future time) but also of restoration and upkeep, to a volunteer-dependant and donation-funded organisation such as The Transport Museum has to be a prime consideration - as does space. Anyone who has visited the museum on a major open day will know that the site is not large enough to cater for the parking needs of all its visitors, and other sites nearby have to be used with the necessity (and cost) of running a shuttle bus service, for which reason not all of the museum's exhibits are 'on site', thereby adding to the overall running costs involved in the rental of external secure storage space.

Back in Midland Red land, this article by the late Peter Hardy may be of interest and add to the ever increasing knowledge database here.
 
Thylacine said:
Aidan, that supposed 1897 Birmingham Motor Omnibus Company vehicle is a complete mystery that has baffled all the "usual experts". The only thing I could think of was that it was an experimental vehicle of the Birmingham General Omnibus Co Ltd, which was active 1897-1899 (as a horse bus operator), and reserved powers "to operate motor cars on any ... routes whenever it may be demonstrated that it will be profitable to do so" (Hardy). There is no direct evidence for this whatsoever; I am only going by circumstantial evidence of time-frame and similarity of name.

[If you can remove the veils of obscurity from this pioneering little Brum motor bus, you will be (even more of) a hero! ;)]
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Not sure if I can remove the veil yet, but hopefully raise the skirt a little:

I was perusing the wonderful collection of assorted pics at https://www.chrishodgephotos.co.uk/pagev/veterantruckphotos.htm and came across this one "unidentified Warings is probably electric" which looks to my eyes (my eyes!) as if it could be related to the mystery bus. Comments? Is there a Warings Dept Store in Birmingham around 1900?
 
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