harry_gill:
hiya,
I think that british road ferry services ltd was attached to preston depot working out of preston dock it’s certainly a north west motor, bet there’s someone ready to put me right if i’m wrong the old grey matter aint what it used to be, thanks harry long retired.
You are right Harry, ran out of Preston.
If anyone has the book, “Road Transport, The Read Story” there is a photo of one of the brothers, David, who ran two ex-BRS Bristol artics. The first was YAE34, the other 268BCY.
Incidentally, my own baby appears on page 46.
Hiya,
I remember Oliver Hart’s having a motor with a Bristol cab but knowing that firm and
their rather mixed fleet it could have been a “bitsa” he had quite a few of them most
likely one of his cobbled together concoctions.
thanks harry, long retired.
I can recall a local owner driver acquiring a bristol unit , must have been late 60s , and used it to pull a tipping trailer on the lime job . He was very happy with it , did the job and was reasonably trouble free even though it was well over 10 years old . a nice roomy cab compared to the s21 fodens we drove . dave
I can vaguely remember a Bristol 8 wheeler coming into Taylor’s garage on Washway Rd Sale driven by Alan & Donald McLean who owned Swains Transport, when they had a Depot at the back of what was then the Eagle service station in Broadheath ( now the local Nissan Agents) .this was in 1954 so I assume the Bristol was ex B RS , I don’t think they had the vehicle very long because when Swains moved to Cornbrook they bought a new KV ERF 8 wheeler to run along with the S type Bedfords artics they had at the time . a couple of drivers I remember that worked there Eric. ? & Billy Mac, I think Billy Mac Finished up at Reliance Tankers ,hen they had a Depot in Elm Grove Sale . I think Eric worked for Mancunian Springs at Cornbrook, I don’t know where he is now.
IIRC Bristol used two engine types, the Leyland 600 and the Gardner 150 or was it the 6LW? but which type got which engine, did the 8 wheelers use the 600 and the tractor units use the Gardner or was it the other way about ? Cheers Bewick.
Dennis the Leyland 0.600 was standard for the HG6L (22 Ton later 24 Ton 8 Wheeler) the HA6G used the 6LX, the HA6L used the 0.600 and the HA6LL had the 0.680. Interesting the production ran from 1952 with the HG6L’s until 1964 as the new C&U regs rendered them obsolete, plans of a new 30Ton GCW tractor unit named the HD was shelved and Bristol continued to build buses with of course Leyland having a large percent of the shareholding, say no more! Cheers Franky.
Hiya,
I have driven both the rigid and the artic and both were adequately engined
for the weights at the time and guaranteed to get you there and back they
also had a roomy cab for the time if not a bit cold when the Gardner was in-
situ, the Leyland engined jobbies bobbed on a lot better than the Gardner
engined marra’s and you could get a bit of heat in the shed with them too.
thanks harry, long retired.
Frankydobo:
Dennis the Leyland 0.600 was standard for the HG6L (22 Ton later 24 Ton 8 Wheeler) the HA6G used the 6LX, the HA6L used the 0.600 and the HA6LL had the 0.680. Interesting the production ran from 1952 with the HG6L’s until 1964 as the new C&U regs rendered them obsolete, plans of a new 30Ton GCW tractor unit named the HD was shelved and Bristol continued to build buses with of course Leyland having a large percent of the shareholding, say no more! Cheers Franky.
Thanks for the info “Franky” the Bristols were certainly a numerous BRS motor in the 60’s and to a lesser extent in the 70’s but they always seemed like “clunkers” to me and typical of a Government organisation ! Cheers Dennis.
rigsby:
I can recall a local owner driver acquiring a bristol unit , must have been late 60s , and used it to pull a tipping trailer on the lime job . He was very happy with it , did the job and was reasonably trouble free even though it was well over 10 years old . a nice roomy cab compared to the s21 fodens we drove . dave
Can you recall Derby in the late 60’s - the Eagle Street area before it was cleared to build the Eagle Centre? There was a one-man-band operated out of one of the back streets there had an ex-BRS Bristol (tractor unit, I think). I believe it was something to do with Arthur Hibbs?
(God, I am getting old now!)
Steve
Bewick:
Frankydobo:
Dennis the Leyland 0.600 was standard for the HG6L (22 Ton later 24 Ton 8 Wheeler) the HA6G used the 6LX, the HA6L used the 0.600 and the HA6LL had the 0.680. Interesting the production ran from 1952 with the HG6L’s until 1964 as the new C&U regs rendered them obsolete, plans of a new 30Ton GCW tractor unit named the HD was shelved and Bristol continued to build buses with of course Leyland having a large percent of the shareholding, say no more! Cheers Franky.Thanks for the info “Franky” the Bristols were certainly a numerous BRS motor in the 60’s and to a lesser extent in the 70’s but they always seemed like “clunkers” to me and typical of a Government organisation ! Cheers Dennis.
More questions ! How many were built using the 680 engine ? and were any double drive 8 wheelers or did they just use the single drive to pull a drawbar trailer ? Cheers Dennis.
I don’t recall the BRS Bristols with a drawbar trailer. Come to think of it, I can’t remember many, if any BRS eight wheelers pulling a trailer. No doubt the BRS lads will enlighten me.
gingerfold:
I don’t recall the BRS Bristols with a drawbar trailer. Come to think of it, I can’t remember many, if any BRS eight wheelers pulling a trailer. No doubt the BRS lads will enlighten me.
Here’s 2 or 3
harry_gill:
Hiya,
I remember Oliver Hart’s having a motor with a Bristol cab but knowing that firm and
their rather mixed fleet it could have been a “bitsa” he had quite a few of them most
likely one of his cobbled together concoctions.
thanks harry, long retired.
Photo of Harts. This cab wasn’t used on BRS 8 wheelers so I guess only the cab was used on a different chassis. Someone might recognize the axles
From what I can see of the half shafts it looks like a Leyland Octopus back end, therefore would be bouble drive as opposed to the single drive Bristol. The rest of the chassis I think is Bristol,whether the air tank on the offside is a Bristol I don’t know if it was a Leyland chassis the vacuum tank would have been bigger.
Thanks for the wagon and drag photos, much appreciated.
gingerfold:
Thanks for the wagon and drag photos, much appreciated.
Apparently Bristols only used a single drive bogie so I bet they were a “real bundle of laughs” on the old shiny road surfaces and the granite sets !! They’d be about as numb as the Steer draw bars and would spin on a sixpence ! Cheers Bewick.
Dennis, as you will know from your trailer mate days on the Octopus, Leyland had the double drive rear bogie as standard with a single drive being a rare option. Another rarity for BRS was the four-in-line semi-trailer; an ex-BRS Leyland Comet tractor unit was restored a few years ago and the owner had a four-in-line to put with it. The BRS experts and archivists were hard to pressed to find any records of BRS actually having used any such trailers, but there were a (very) few as it turned out.
We had quite a number of 4-in-line trailers at Forest of Dean, if memory serves they were mostly Bodens. They were not originally BRS but were part of the fleets of the private hauliers taken over during the early 1960s. My first experience of the ■■■■ things was with a full load of tinplate from Ebbw Vale Works, bound for the storage facility at our depot. The previous user of the trailer had managed to overheat the brakes, a situation which only became apparent to me as I descended the Black Rock on the Heads of the Valleys road.
No-one died and nothing was damaged but it certainly ensured that I made a more detailed inspection when I swopped trailers. Talk about a bum-clencher!
gingerfold:
Dennis, as you will know from your trailer mate days on the Octopus, Leyland had the double drive rear bogie as standard with a single drive being a rare option. Another rarity for BRS was the four-in-line semi-trailer; an ex-BRS Leyland Comet tractor unit was restored a few years ago and the owner had a four-in-line to put with it. The BRS experts and archivists were hard to pressed to find any records of BRS actually having used any such trailers, but there were a (very) few as it turned out.
Hiya,
I did three stints with the old “Red and Rust”, and therefore visited many depot’s
in my time and can’t say I ever came across a four in line trailer, but getting back
to wag n’ drags they were prolific up to 1958 mainly being AEC’s and Leyland 's
mainly doing night trunks I drove them on tramp up to almost 1960 and then it
was artics which I’d taught myself to drive as a very young driver in 1957 when I
was on for Fearings of Burnley, I did swap motors many times when the newbie
at Blackburn (drivers on holiday or sick leave) but always double drive, but the
trailing axle Bristol’s certainly did pull drawbar’s, I have seen many and was sad to
see their demise and being such a young driver of them did at that time feel like
“King of the Road” but was always when on cafe car parks being mistaken for the
trailer “boy”, I did at one time have a second man who was in his 60s and had been
a drawbar man himself until failing eyesight had “grounded” him, I hasten to add it
was never necessary to use the knotted rope on him (Jimmy) he was bigger than
me a lot !!! and certainly knew the job inside out and taught me lots.
thanks harry, long retired.
