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Midland Red Early Days

Lloyd said:
I'll give you a ride when you come to visit! have you joined yet? ...
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Thanks for that timely reminder, Lloyd. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't yet become a member of The Transport Museum Wythall. But I will attend to that omission this very day.

[And I'll take you up on that offer of a ride on D10 Mark I fleet number 4943 (registered 943KHA) one of these days! ;) Seen below in service at Dudley bus station circa 1962 is "the other one": D10 Mark II fleet number 4944 (1944HA) with its small rear exit door.]
 
Thanks, Dek, for bringing us back to "the good old(er) days". And to Lloyd for giving us the "inside story". As I type this post, I have a picture of one of these beautiful buses hanging on my wall. It's been seen on the BHF before, but not recently, so here it is again, seen in 1928 somewhere in Worcestershire on service 358 to Upton-on-Severn. I like the lady passengers in their cloche hats.

[Anorakian details: It is fleet number A335 (registered HA2248 Tilling-Stevens TS3 petrol-electric chassis number 2725 with Carlyle FS KO22/29F body number BB282). It was new in 1923, withdrawn in 1928 and sold in 1929).]
 
Thanks for the link to the BaMMOT application form, Lloyd. I've posted my application (including a small donation which will help towards the cost of a new rear suspension unit for the D10 ;)).
 
Thanks to the "espacenet" website linked to by Lloyd above, I've discovered the specification of patent GB109669 applied for on 29 September 1916 by Nottinghamshire bus proprietor Thomas Henry Barton and his son Thomas Andrew Barton. This is for the roof-top "gas bag" and asssociated equipment, which permitted motor vehicles to be fuelled by town gas instead of petrol during World War 1 (when petrol was scarce, restricted and expensive). The "gas bag" was widely used by Midland Red (and many other operators) in the years 1916-1918, and must have been a "nice little earner" for the Bartons.
 
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Going back to route 118 Birmingham Walsall mention a few posts ago. Was interested to read that several garages provided buses for this route. I knew that Bearwood provided buses on this this route as I saw a service 118 bus pull out of Bearwood garage with several bus crew on board presummably to provide crew changes as this was away from its home depot.

Back in 1950s Midland Red also ran a service 119 Birmingham to Scot Arms, effectively a shortworking of the 118. Officially this was operated on behalf of Birmingham Corporation so it also had an associated night service NS119, Midland Red's only night service. Eventually Birmingham Corporation took this over as their service 51. It was logial therefore when WMPTE took over that the 118 was renumbered 51.

With Polish drivers working on the buses now, do you think that instructions to drive the bus to Walsall can be misunderstood? LOL
 
DavidGrain said:
... With Polish drivers working on the buses now, do you think that instructions to drive the bus to Walsall can be misunderstood? LOL
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That's very good, David! :D But Warsaw is spelled "Warszawa" in Polish, and pronounced "varˈʂava", so perhaps they wouldn't head for the Channel Tunnel! We always used to say "Wors'l" for Walsall: I don't supposed that's changed since I left Brum.
 
David the,ve just painted red lines up the road to Walsall i think all the training the get now is to follow the" red lines".Dek:D:D:D
 
I love that clock, Mike! May it always remain as a memorial to Midland Red in Worcester. If they ever want to get rid of it, Wythall should get first refusal (I wonder who actually owns it).

I'm afraid it's stopped though: in this other picture it also shows 11:35.
 
Thylacine said:
Thanks for the link to the BaMMOT application form, Lloyd. I've posted my application (including a small donation which will help towards the cost of a new rear suspension unit for the D10 ;)).
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Thank you! Replacing suspension units is one of those "depths of the cold winter" jobs that keeps our circulation going!
 
dek carr said:
David the,ve just painted red lines up the road to Walsall i think all the training the get now is to follow the" red lines".Dek:D:D:D
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You think that is a joke, Dek. In Oldbury years ago they painted a pictogram of a bus on the road with the route no. 404 to show the driver which way to go and it is still there between the Birchley roundabout (M5 Junct 2 and site of the Oldbury MidRed garage) and Oldbury town centre!
 
Correct, David - yes it's still there!
The first time I did a route to Chelmsley Wood, I said I didn't know it. "The passengers will tell you!" I was told. Yes, they did.
On the three trips I did I was taken three ways to three diffenent places, and each time as the last one got off they said "It finishes about here. Turn round and go back the way we've come."
 
It has been enquired about, the building's owners do not want to see it removed (and made up some story about it being "attached to part of the building frame that would require demolition of the frontage to remove it") so it's not for the want of asking.
These clocks were a commercially available advertising item for shops, it possibly predates Midland Red's presence in the shop, I think the name would be more prominently painted on otherwise.
 
Lloyd said:
Correct, David - yes it's still there!
The first time I did a route to Chelmsley Wood, I said I didn't know it. "The passengers will tell you!" I was told. Yes, they did.
On the three trips I did I was taken three ways to three diffenent places, and each time as the last one got off they said "It finishes about here. Turn round and go back the way we've come."
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Lloyd

Many years ago, I had to go to London on a day when there was a rail strike so I went on what was still then the Midland Red service. As you can imagine Digbeth was very busy with numerous coaches hired in for the extra traffic. When we came off the M1 in an Evesham coach I had to guide the driver into London but at Brent Cross he saw a Midland Red which he insisted on following although I told him it was on a different route. Sure enough the MidRed stopped at Golders Green so I had to wing it guiding him over Hampstead Heath.

When I went to Victoria for the return I found a WMT Leyland National on the stand with a driver who said that he had signed on that morning to drive the Outer Circle. He said he did not know what his wife would say when he got home and told her he had been to London. He had the engine running as he refused the inspector's instruction to switch off as he said he would never get it started again. As I expect you know there is a misleading sign post and junction in the St Johns Wood area which unless you know the road you can easily make a mistake and go off in the wrong direction round Regents Park. Inevitably he did, so I had to turn him round and go back.
 
Banbury Line-Up June 1944.

Here's a picture [see Lloyd's post #1129 for a bigger and better version] of a nice line-up of buses allegedly at Bicester, Oxfordshire [but actually in Banbury Market Square: see subsequent discussion]. It is from the resourceful "Old UK Photos" website. It is captioned "1950s", but must be no later than 1945 [taken by Ray H G Simpson in June 1944: thanks Lloyd!]. The two buses facing us on the left are Midland Red SOS "M" type buses with Ransomes B34F bodies (details below). The bus seen in rear view is also an "M", but I can't quite make out the registration [it's HA4929: thanks Lloyd.].

The double-decker on the right has an Oxford registration mark (EWL7x0), so probably belongs to City of Oxford Motor Services [can anyone identify it?].

[Since it is Banbury, not Bicester, the following paragraph is now somewhat spurious!]

The picture is a reminder that "Red" tentacles reached southwards into Oxfordshire. Bicester was served from Banbury (BY) garage. This raises the question, what was the southernmost place served by Midland Red buses?

The "M" type has been discussed briefly before on MRED (posts #155-156), where this picture of HA4922 was discussed. The "new" picture gives us our second (known) rear view of an "M".

Anorakian details:
A956 (reg HA4910 1929 SOS M chassis number 968 Ransomes B34F body number BB1286 withdrawn 1945 sold 1946).
A978 (reg HA4918 1929 SOS M chassis number 993 Ransomes B34F body number BB1294 withdrawn 1948).
A989 (reg HA4929 1929 SOS M chassis number 1087 Ransomes B34F body number BB1305 withdrawn 1947).​
:cool:
 
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Following the omment above about the MidRed in south midlands, a couple of years ago I went to Banbury by train and as I walked into the town centre I saw a bus, (don't think it was a Stagecoach but can't remember the operator). The route number B6 made me think immediately that the Midland Red still lives on.

A long time ago a neighbour who worked at Bearwood told me that on the running card for one of the routes out of the Midland Red Banbury garage had the instruction to wait in the layby outside some village until City of Oxford service had passed as the roads were too narrow for two buses to pass.
 
Midland Red running cards were full of old information and instructions like that. I remember one 144 Malvern journey from Digbeth where the running card instructed to "Await Bristol Blue service at Malvern Link Station". Now Bristol buses hadn't been blue since...WW2 anyway (motorman mike will know), but sure enough as we approached the former GWR station at Malvern Link, A (green) Bristol Omnibus Service Co Bristol "RE" type single decker was parked in the yard.

Now, the M types picture above. I've been studying and enlarging my copy of the photo, I've never been convinced of the location - supposedly Market Square, Bicester - and I'm still not. The Oxford Motor Services AEC Regent (EWL 750 is noted by me on the back of my copy, but it could be 730 or 760 when enlarged) is displaying route 99, "to Bicester via Bucknell, Fritwell, Aynho" suggesting the route started in Banbury. But why 3 Midland Reds in Bicester, hardly a main centre of their operation? Diligent searching of Google streetscene shows nothing that looks like the background buildings, anywhere along the route; nor can I find any reference to "Needles Fish Restaurant" (or Saloon, as the smaller notice says), and checking all the 'Needle/s" in Oxfordshire, and properties around Bicester Market Square in the 1911 census draws a blank too. It might be Bicester, it might not. Discuss.

Edit: just noticed HA 4918 on the left is displaying (very faintly) route number stencils for "486". Can anyone look up that route no. in an old Ian Allan ref please?

The rear-facing M type is HA 4929 (A989, SOS M 1087, BB1305) by the way.
 
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486 Banbury and Bloxham according to my Ian Allan 1998 reprint of 1948
B6 which I mentioned above is not listed but it is definately in the Banbury sequence of route numbers
 
DavidGrain said:
486 Banbury and Bloxham according to my Ian Allan 1998 reprint of 1948
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OK, thanks - I hoped someone had one of those handy! - now Bloxham is South West of Banbury on the A361 to Chipping Norton, nowhere near Bicester.
That, along with the COMS 'decker displaying "Bicester" as a destination, [its route being A40 (now the A4260) to Adderbury, then the (now) B4100 to Aynho and Souldern, before taking to the lanes for Fritwell, Arley and Bucknell, a straight road to Bicester] makes me think this is somewhere in Banbury.
Incidentally, the Banbury - Adderbury - Aynho section was also part of the Birmingham - London "J" service, recently mentioned!
 
Sorry I am still not getting it right. If you look on the map for a roundabout at the junction of High Street and Bridge Street then turn street view to South West, I am sure that McDonalds is the building at the back of the buses.
 
Certainly in that area, close to the centre of Banbury and the railway station. The bus station I knew in the 1970s is stilll there, on Bridge St right by the canal, but many of the buildings are new (but built to a traditionial style) in the centre. Those that are old have had rebuilt frontages, so I think it will be almost impossible to find them now.
Some services loaded further down High Street, in an area now pedestrianised, so the camera car didn't go there.
 
Clutching at straws here a bit, but the 1911 census has only one restaurant keeper in Banbury Market Square, Henry Edwin Boddy (& family) at No.40.
Henry E Boddy dies 2nd quarter 1938, Banbury. That could have been when Needle/s took over??
 
BINGO!!!!
(Oh how I do love the internet!!!)

1941 phone book entry illustrated below.
Does it for me! The photo is taken in Banbury Market Place, not Bicester!

The MacDonalds is 27 Bridge Street by the way. Close enough for the archetecture to be the same, well done!
 
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