Celebrating a British icon 9
the years had also provided buses
and trolleybuses for London.
It was asked to supply 1,
modified Titan PD2 chassis —
the RTL class — on which the
RT body could also be fitted, plus
500 8ft wide chassis complete
with Leyland’s own bodies — the
RTW class — which Leyland
agreed to make as close to the
standard RT body as possible.
Metro-Cammell of Birmingham,
a partner of Weymann in a joint
sales organisation, built 450
bodies on RTL chassis.
All this took time, the first RTL
entering service from Sidcup
garage in December 1948, the
first RTW in May 1949.Begging and borrowing
In the meantime things were
only getting worse, with vast
numbers of worn out buses being
declared no longer roadworthy. A
desperate solution to a desperate
problem resulted in local coach
operators being approached and
the first of around 350 coaches
started work in October 1947.
Wildly unsuitable for Central
Area bus work, few having morethan 31 seats and none more
than 35, but better than nothing,
they came with their own
drivers and London Transport
conductors. They were employed
mostly, but not exclusively, on
rush hour work. A few former
London Transport buses and
coaches also returned, briefly, to
the fold.
Quite the most unexpected
apparition was of 190 brand new
Eastern Coach Works-bodied
Bristol K type double-deckers.
London Transport Executive,
replacing the London Passenger
Transport Board in 1948, was
part of the state-owned British
Transport Commission, as
was the Tilling Group, which
operated buses across England,
Wales and south-west Scotland.
Tilling was directed to send
25% of the double-deckers it
had on order to London. Tough
luck on operators such as Hants
& Dorset, Eastern National and
Crosville, which were expecting
them.
Most were of lowbridge layout,
a clumsy arrangement with seats
upstairs arranged in benches
of four reached from a sunken
gangway running the outside
length of the bus. That got
the Metropolitan Police highly
bothered and it was reluctantly
persuaded to allow their use on a
few approved routes.
All the Bristols eventually
reached their rightful owners by
June 1950. There were also a few
other double-deckers on loan.Another emergency stopgap
was the SRT class. These were
refurbished STL chassis fitted
with brand new RT bodies, which
were ready before there were
new RT chassis to accommodate
them. They were introduced in
February 1949, but proved to be
underpowered for their heavier
new bodies and had inadequate
braking. All were withdrawn by
July 1954, the bodies then being
refurbished, repainted and fitted
to new RT chassis.Regular rides
In September 1948 I became a
pupil at Whitgift Middle School
in Croydon and was initiated
into the roughhouse mysteries
of rugby football at the school’s
playing fields at Shirley. To
begin with, this meant a ride in
an Elmers End-based six-wheel
LT, but within a couple of weeks
these veterans were replaced by
sparkling new RTs.
These, however, were no
ordinary RTs, or at least not
what we had become used to as
the norm, for on the newest the
number box had slid down from
the roof and was now to be found
alongside the via box at the
front of the upper deck. This was
revolutionary indeed (although
it had been a feature of many
prewar STLs) and we eagerly
jotted down their numbers,
beginning with RT860.
Shortly afterwards, in February
and March 1949, Croydon garage
received a run of 16 such buses,70 Years Ago
ABOVE: RTs
and RTLs
replaced London
Transport’s
remaining tram
routes by 1952.
Here, an RTL
follows a tram on
route 40, which
linked Victoria
Embankment and
Abbey Wood along
the Old Kent Road.
GRENVILLE WILLIAMS