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The airport bus, a question from a mate

Moseley Bill

proper brummie kid
Hi I wonder if anyone can help me with answering a question a mate posed to me.

He is trying to identify the service number of the airport buses, as he wants to model the old Leyland PS2 Tiger bus that worked on the service.

We both hang around in a model making forum and because I am making a horse drawn bus he wondered if I could help him, so far I am afraid Mike is out of luck but as the BHF has such a knowledgeable membership I hope we can help him from here.

Any help would be very gratefully received.
 
The 1962 Birmingham Airport booklet, page 7, shows JOJ 261 unloading at the airport. The destination indicator shows 'AIRPORT' while the number indicator is blank.

Although BCT buses were used for the service I believe they were under contract to BEA so didn't have a BCT service number. The nearest BCT service was the 58, terminating at the city boundary. Midland Red services 159 and X68 passed the airport entrance.
 
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There is more information in the Elmdon thread and Birmingham buses one about airport buses. In addition to the Leyland PS2's there were five Leyland Olympics.
 
The Airport was actually outside the city boundary, so the service was not a Corporation one. It must have been a contract hire, paid for by the Airport authorities or a consortium of the airlines, so no 'route number' was allocated or shown. Incidentally, if Elmdon was closed for fog or other reason, planes would be diverted (e.g. to Manchester Airport) and in pre motorway days, the journey from there to Birmingham could take longer than the flight! I suspect local coaches would be hired for this, not the Corporation buses!
 
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