Anorak time.
Driver Bentos poses with his steed of the day, a 1968 Bristol RE-type with bodywork by ECW, at the Bristol Omnibus Company's Lawrence Hill Depot, Friday 27th August 1976. This ...apart from the centre exit door, which was a modification... is an example of the type as it first appeared in Bristol. After the plodding, 30ft, crew-operated, crash-gearboxed Lodekkas and 27ft K-types, these brisk, 36ft, semi-automatic vehicles, intended for one-man-operation seemed positively space-age. A driver who had previously worked for the chassis manufacturer, Bristol Commercial Vehicles, and had delivered early examples to the Company told me how drivers used to gather around them asking where the clutch was, how did you change gear, and so on.
The blinds upon which destinations are printed are known in the industry as "linens". This bus has a "T-box linen" ...i.e. the destination display is in the form of a T, with destination above route number. This configuration led to visibility problems because the top of the windscreen was low and when it rained the driver found himself looking through the unswept arc above the windscreen wiper blade. Accordingly the design was altered and a shallower "side-by-side" linen box was substituted. Yet, looking at the partially visible bus on the left, which is of the newer design, the windscreen is deeper but its top edge is at exactly the same level. So perhaps there was a more thoroughgoing re-design that involved lowering the driving seat. Anyway, the deeper windscreen and side-by-side linen box was an aesthetic mistake in my view ...although not as disastrous as the early-1970s redesign which brought rounded corners and a curved windscreen. Interestingly (to some) the curved front added 5 inches to the overall length of the vehicle.
In the second window are two notices, affixed by their gummed edges and produced by the Company's stationery office, probably giving notice of a fare increase and modifications to services. In the mid-1970s the former were at least a biannual event. Soon the latter would become bewilderingly frequent as young "new broom" managers, often straight from business college and with no experience of any industry, let alone public transport, were recruited in an attempt to run bus services according to commercial principles. Services such as the 99 (Stockwood-Avonmouth) which had been started by Greyhound Motors, a company taken over by BOC in the 1930s, disappeared. Others, belonging to the Company's prehistory, such as the 28 (Avonmouth-Withywood) and 21 (Filton- Ashton?) went the same way. Among "country" services, pre-First World War routes such as the 400 (Bristol-Stroud), 432 (Bristol-Cirencester) and ...my own favourite... the 526 (Bristol-Gloucester indirect) were severed at their midway points, so that through passengers had to traipse from one bus to another, usually with a 20-minute wait between arrival and departure. Why this was done, nobody could ever say. I am inclined to believe it was for one of two reasons; either a) a new manager trying to gain a reputation for thrusty innovation and impatience with established practice, or, b) the services were loss-making and if they could be made even more unattractive to the public a further, fatal, reduction in receipts might be used as a justification for withdrawing them.
Anorak time.
Driver Bentos poses with his steed of the day, a 1968 Bristol RE-type with bodywork by ECW, at the Bristol Omnibus Company's Lawrence Hill Depot, Friday 27th August 1976. This ...apart from the centre exit door, which was a modification... is an example of the type as it first appeared in Bristol. After the plodding, 30ft, crew-operated, crash-gearboxed Lodekkas and 27ft K-types, these brisk, 36ft, semi-automatic vehicles, intended for one-man-operation seemed positively space-age. A driver who had previously worked for the chassis manufacturer, Bristol Commercial Vehicles, and had delivered early examples to the Company told me how drivers used to gather around them asking where the clutch was, how did you change gear, and so on.
The blinds upon which destinations are printed are known in the industry as "linens". This bus has a "T-box linen" ...i.e. the destination display is in the form of a T, with destination above route number. This configuration led to visibility problems because the top of the windscreen was low and when it rained the driver found himself looking through the unswept arc above the windscreen wiper blade. Accordingly the design was altered and a shallower "side-by-side" linen box was substituted. Yet, looking at the partially visible bus on the left, which is of the newer design, the windscreen is deeper but its top edge is at exactly the same level. So perhaps there was a more thoroughgoing re-design that involved lowering the driving seat. Anyway, the deeper windscreen and side-by-side linen box was an aesthetic mistake in my view ...although not as disastrous as the early-1970s redesign which brought rounded corners and a curved windscreen. Interestingly (to some) the curved front added 5 inches to the overall length of the vehicle.
In the second window are two notices, affixed by their gummed edges and produced by the Company's stationery office, probably giving notice of a fare increase and modifications to services. In the mid-1970s the former were at least a biannual event. Soon the latter would become bewilderingly frequent as young "new broom" managers, often straight from business college and with no experience of any industry, let alone public transport, were recruited in an attempt to run bus services according to commercial principles. Services such as the 99 (Stockwood-Avonmouth) which had been started by Greyhound Motors, a company taken over by BOC in the 1930s, disappeared. Others, belonging to the Company's prehistory, such as the 28 (Avonmouth-Withywood) and 21 (Filton- Ashton?) went the same way. Among "country" services, pre-First World War routes such as the 400 (Bristol-Stroud), 432 (Bristol-Cirencester) and ...my own favourite... the 526 (Bristol-Gloucester indirect) were severed at their midway points, so that through passengers had to traipse from one bus to another, usually with a 20-minute wait between arrival and departure. Why this was done, nobody could ever say. I am inclined to believe it was for one of two reasons; either a) a new manager trying to gain a reputation for thrusty innovation and impatience with established practice, or, b) the services were loss-making and if they could be made even more unattractive to the public a further, fatal, reduction in receipts might be used as a justification for withdrawing them.