Following on from ERF’s well presented post above, and thank you for your kind words, by the way. My own experience is at the sharp end of vehicle operations and the day-to-day problems, and satisfaction that brings to the job. When I was involved with the AEC Society for many years I was fortunate to meet and talk to several former AEC employees from various departments within the company. These were people ranging from Regional Depot Managers, and remember AEC was no small company, it did have its own Regional Service Depots with full workshops facilities. After the Leyland takeover some of AEC’s depots were merged with Leyland’s regional depots and one or two AEC men were in charge of the combined depots. I also met service engineers, men on the road who visited operators of AECs and Leylands to learn of any operational issues and deal with them, passing feed back to Southall or Leyland. I also met men from the Southall design, development, and testing departments. ALL these people were skilled, qualified and experienced engineers, either coming up through the ranks via apprenticeships, or through engineering graduate intake. These were some of the most critical people of AEC products I have ever met because their one aim in their working lives was to make their products better. Surely this is what engineering is all about. Never to be complacent and always to strive for improvement? So yes, we can criticise the failures but as ‘railstaff’ so aptly commented “they were triers”. But there is never any place for endless and needless derogatory comments about anyone’s working life and career when none of us outsiders know now, or will ever know what it was like to be involved at the sharp end of a company such as AEC or Leyland, or ■■■■■■■■ or Rolls Royce, or Gardner.