102 The London Bus
Always on the lookout for a
bargain, several of the Scottish
Bus Group’s operating companies
took London Guys and gave
them extra life, sometimes – but
not always – by rebodying them.
As the Scottish Bus Group was
part of the British Transport
Commission, there were no
barriers to the purchase of
London’s cast-offs, so between
1951 and 1953 group companies
bought 129 London
Guys. At £185
each, these were
bargains to gladden
any Scottish
accountant’s heart.
Some were
placed in service in
Scotland virtually
as received from
London, notably
with the giant
W. Alexander
company, which
took 54, although
not all were used
in service. Of the
43 that were used,
32 were allocated
to town services
in Kirkcaldy and
Perth and painted
in the red town
service livery.
The others wore
the more familiarAlexander blue and cream.
Twenty-seven of them survived
the split of Alexander into three
companies in 1961 – 17 with
Alexander (Midland) and 10 with
Alexander (Fife); the last of the
Fife examples were withdrawn in- All the Alexander examples
held on to their original
Northern Counties, Park Royal
or Weymann bodies.
The typical Scottish Bus
Group double-decker was built
to a height of roughly 13ft
6in (4.1m) to cope with low
bridges and, in several cases,
low depot entrances. Most
urban buses around Britain
were 14ft 6in high (4.4m), so
SBG operators could only use
the full-height London Guys in
certain areas. The Alexander
company concentrated them on
those depots where there was no
problem with bridges – or depots.
Western SMT had different
ideas. It took 65 of the Guys
and although 28 ran with their
original bodies – mostly metal-
framed Northern Counties
ones – the rest received new or
secondhand bodies. Alexander
provided new lowbridge bodies
for 19 of them and eight
received 1947 lowbridge bodies
by Croft of Glasgow, which had
previously been used to rebody
prewar Leyland Titans.
The remaining 10 were
extensively rebuilt with new
Northern Counties lowbridge
bodies and Birmingham-style
tin fronts that meant they
were largely indistinguishable
from brand-new Guy Arab IVs
entering the Western fleet at the
same time.
An even more substantial
rebuild was carried out on 23
former London Guys, which
emerged from the Scottish
Omnibuses coachworks at
Marine Gardens, Edinburgh as
single-deckers. In 1951, Scottish
Omnibuses had received eight
London Guys and initially
operated them as double-deckers.
Similarly, the new Highland
Omnibuses company ran two as
double-deckers from 1952.
These 10 plus another 13 lost
their original double-deck bodies,
the chassis were lengthened
to accommodate new 30ft-long
bodies and they emerged as
39-seat single-deckers between
1952 and 1954. All but five went
to Highland Omnibuses where
they lasted in service for up to
13 years; the other five went into
Scottish Omnibuses’ own fleet
in 1954 for rural services in the
Scottish Borders but lasted just
seven years.Lives after London
ABOVE: The 10
London Guys
rebuilt and
rebodied by
Northern Counties
for Western SMT
in 1954 were
almost identical
to new Arab
IVs delivered to
Western between
1953 and 1955. The
chassis of Y1064
started life as
London Transport
G392 in 1945
and remained in
service in Scotland
until 1967. It was
photographed in
Paisley. HARRY HAY
In 1951 Scottish Omnibuses received eight London Guys and initially operated them
as double-deckers before using them in 1953 as the basis for some of the homemade
single-deckers. This Massey-bodied 1945 example, new to London Transport as
G366, was photographed in Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square in April 1953; the London
red was over-painted in green while they ran as double-deckers. J. C. GILLHAM