Buses, coaches, & lorries

Guessing that would have been vented to the exterior in summer, and to the inside in winter? With coolant running the length of the deck so allowing for multiple small radiators along the way??

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The London Pay as you board Experiment

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The London Double Deck Coach experiment.

cav551 , iā€™ve read many times how the MKV Regents on the Bradford Council fleet were hated by most of the drivers. Underpowered and jerky transmissons.Was this exclusive to Bradford drivers or a widespread opinion.Or had they been specced wrongly for our hilly city???

East Kent had several batches of them and they were generally well-regarded by the few drivers I spoke to. From my point of view as a passenger, they performed very well and were significantly better on the hills than modern buses are now.

I think but not certain thatā€™s a Renown i donā€™t know the difference they look very similar.I think we had some up here

Nope. Itā€™s an AEC Regent MkV. East Kent never had Renowns, though it did have a couple of Bridgemasters (low-deck Regents, basically). The fourth kind of Regent V was the Routemaster, of course.

So whatā€™s the difference then between the Renown and the Regent?

The last version of the Renown was the later version of the Bridgemaster and was in essence the low floor Regent. The Bridgemaster was an integral in that the chassis was by AEC and the body by Park Royal (owned by AEC/ACV), you didnā€™t have a choice. The Renown could be bodied by other bodybuilders.

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Ah so a Renown was basically a differnt chassis to a Regent but with the same running gear. I donā€™t think in my opinion there was a better looking bus than the MKV Regent

I canā€™t really answer because I donā€™t know the Bradford spec. Maidstone & District had some Regent Vs with the optional AV 470 engine which certainly made them underpowered. These were open rear platform buses so probably a good 3/4 ton lighter than the pictures of Bradford Regent Vs Iā€™ve seen. IIRC The East Kent Puffins are over 8 tons unladen. The 4 speed synchromesh gearbox can be baulky selecting gear, but the main reason for a jerky transmission would, in my opinion, be wear in the worm drive rear axle which will work even when the teeth are almost non existent so a lot of slop would be evident.

Iā€™ve just been on Bradford Council Transport page on FB and the ex drivers mention the buses would shake them to bits on tick over. They had AV590s in and 4 speed manual boxes. Some had monocycle? boxes.One bloke said they were very underpowered and very thirsty too

Back in the 1930s when the Tyne Tees Mersey Express started this must have been some trek with six bus companies cooperating. I wonder whether the vehicles went straight through, I doubt that the crews did.

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Itā€™d be interesting to know. From the late '20s until the '80s The South Coast Express ran from Margate to Bournemouth, but various companies staged the route. From the '30s, East Kent operated the Margate to Portsmouth section with, I think, a couple of runs daily right through.

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This one used to do that route occasionally as well as numerous excursions & tours on the continent. There were several French & German cities on the blinds. Sadly the one year the owner was able to take part in a reconstruction I was unable to attend and IIRC he had to abandon the attempt when high winds caused one of the roof hatches to look like it would come adrift. However I am behind the wheel in this picture

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Great pic! Thatā€™s one EK bus Iā€™d have enjoyed driving, I suspect, as I believe it had a 6-sp constant-mesh TET 'box.

Yes it does have the D197 overdrive box ā€¦fast, I used to like blowing the doors off the wagons on the M20 occasionally. It wasnā€™t supposed to have that box apparently, it should have been a 6 speed ZF or 5 speed synchro but somehow got retrofitted . The linkage is entirely different because the selector housing is in a different place on those other two. This didnā€™t make it an easy 'box to handle in spite of many, many miles using the D197 in Mercuries and Marshals. The linkage U/Js and relay box bushes were worn out so a lot of slop, many years of misuse had burred the dog clutches, and it was some 15ft behind you and with all the noise from the hairies rabbiting on about 50 years ago made hearing the somewhat quieter 470 compared to a 505 a little difficult. You couldnā€™t do a fast downshift any longer like this:

it had to be a bootfull and wait for the revs to drop

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Crew change was in Dewsbury, vehicles went ā€˜throughā€™. Billy Matts was a regular Dewsbury driver.

Part of which was Southdown 700 IIRC