Around Chiswick Works
For many people this is a view that sums up what Chiswick Works was all about. The actual engineering site was vast and with it came a few buses that were attached to Research & Development plus staff buses parked up during the day. But for vehicle movements, the Training School though only occupying a small part of the overall site provided the main interest and photo opportunities.
Only an organisation of the size of LT could provide the infrastructure associated with driver training including a Skid Pan that for size and frequency of use on an in-house site was unique among UK bus firms.
This picture was taken on 17 July 1984 some five years after RT operation in passenger service had ceased. But RT 1530 is still going strong and would have the distinction of being the last RT in LT stock to be used regularly in a non-display capacity - albeit within the confines of Chiswick Works as a Skid Bus.
It was a rather special RT in that it spent longer being used after coming out of passenger carrying service for special purposes that involved being regularly driven than any other RT. In this view it is almost fifteen years since it last ran in normal service with its first assignment being a mobile classroom (one of several) to prepare staff for the changeover to decimal currency in early 1971. The blacked out upper deck windows are relevant to the use of a slide projector as part of the training given. And long after RT repaints ceased, this bus received one in the early 1980`s - the worth of which is obvious here. It even outlived the break up of the `proper` LT to stay on within the new look fragmented London Buses business into the 1990`s. Certainly, a very special RT.
And that concludes the run of pictures that I took over the course of a few years around Chiswick Works. Tomorrow a new theme begins.........
Around Chiswick Works
For many people this is a view that sums up what Chiswick Works was all about. The actual engineering site was vast and with it came a few buses that were attached to Research & Development plus staff buses parked up during the day. But for vehicle movements, the Training School though only occupying a small part of the overall site provided the main interest and photo opportunities.
Only an organisation of the size of LT could provide the infrastructure associated with driver training including a Skid Pan that for size and frequency of use on an in-house site was unique among UK bus firms.
This picture was taken on 17 July 1984 some five years after RT operation in passenger service had ceased. But RT 1530 is still going strong and would have the distinction of being the last RT in LT stock to be used regularly in a non-display capacity - albeit within the confines of Chiswick Works as a Skid Bus.
It was a rather special RT in that it spent longer being used after coming out of passenger carrying service for special purposes that involved being regularly driven than any other RT. In this view it is almost fifteen years since it last ran in normal service with its first assignment being a mobile classroom (one of several) to prepare staff for the changeover to decimal currency in early 1971. The blacked out upper deck windows are relevant to the use of a slide projector as part of the training given. And long after RT repaints ceased, this bus received one in the early 1980`s - the worth of which is obvious here. It even outlived the break up of the `proper` LT to stay on within the new look fragmented London Buses business into the 1990`s. Certainly, a very special RT.
And that concludes the run of pictures that I took over the course of a few years around Chiswick Works. Tomorrow a new theme begins.........