Bus nostalgia

[Lizzie_Zoom]

You look so well in that photo Lizzie.. is this where your interest in all things, bus, comes from....

Yes Mike, I was a slip of a girl then going forward into a mans world!   Anything to do with transport fascinated me then and now!

That uniform is rather smart and fetching though.  Female transport police officers wore something similiar at the time.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Like this Mike;  Railway Police woman 1917:



8-) 8-)

[Dishevelled Den]

You look so well in that photo Lizzie.. is this where your interest in all things, bus, comes from....

Yes Mike, I was a slip of a girl then going forward into a mans world!   Anything to do with transport fascinated me then and now!

That uniform is rather smart and fetching though.  Female transport police officers wore something similiar at the time.

Perhaps you would have been doing this had you been in your prime at that time E.

The "Spitfire Women", although not all of them got to fly the fighter pilots' favourite plane, were the 164 female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Once planes had been built a British factories, or shipped from overseas, or repaired after major damage, or indeed had to be scrapped, they had to be transported to where they were needed. So:

"In all, the ATA delivered 308,567 aircraft, including 57,286 Spitfires, 29,401 Hurricanes, 9,805 Lancasters and 7,039 Barracudas of the type that took Betty Keith-Jopp to the dark floor of the Firth of Forth. In mid-1942, when British aircraft production reached its peak, the ATA was moving more planes each day than British Airways did on a typical day in 2006."

Read more at;

http://philobiblon.co.uk/?p=2291

Without women the world doesnt work but during times of conflict and national emergency women invariably step up and expose themselve to as much danger as men - as they're presently doing overseas and on our streets.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

You look so well in that photo Lizzie.. is this where your interest in all things, bus, comes from....

Yes Mike, I was a slip of a girl then going forward into a mans world!   Anything to do with transport fascinated me then and now!

That uniform is rather smart and fetching though.  Female transport police officers wore something similiar at the time.

Perhaps you would have been doing this had you been in your prime at that time E.

The "Spitfire Women", although not all of them got to fly the fighter pilots' favourite plane, were the 164 female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). Once planes had been built a British factories, or shipped from overseas, or repaired after major damage, or indeed had to be scrapped, they had to be transported to where they were needed. So:

"In all, the ATA delivered 308,567 aircraft, including 57,286 Spitfires, 29,401 Hurricanes, 9,805 Lancasters and 7,039 Barracudas of the type that took Betty Keith-Jopp to the dark floor of the Firth of Forth. In mid-1942, when British aircraft production reached its peak, the ATA was moving more planes each day than British Airways did on a typical day in 2006."

Read more at;

http://philobiblon.co.uk/?p=2291

Without women the world doesnt work but during times of conflict and national emergency women invariably step up and expose themselve to as much danger as men - as they're presently doing overseas and on our streets.

All of those are great quotes Zulu

It is hard to believe, although so true, that the two women shown in the Great War years did not have the right to vote!    That only came in 1918

However after WW1 no one could deny the right of women to have the vote after all the work they achieved, and this worth was certainly repeated again during WWII as your quotes highlight, along with all those women undertaking skilled tasks in aircraft, munitions, and general manufacturing industries. 8-) 8-) 8-)

[Lizzie_Zoom]

And the most famous of the ATA pilots, being the first to be killed, in very strange "Top Secret" circumstances, was of course the wonderful Amy Johnson:



8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Driving buses during the Second World War was a dangerous occupation. 

These brave souls kept the communications of transport going:



Dover bus drivers and women conductors enjoy a spot of tea.Their mobile canteen, parked on a side street, once was a double-decker bus. Another old bus serves as the bus company's local office. A Nazi bomb fell in the street outside the original company building, ripped off the front, killed 14 people, and hurt 30 more.

They manned their buses along bombed streets, this one in Dover:


Does anyone know the make and model of that bus??



Women Bus Drivers became common during the war years:



Of course WWII was not the first time buses had been used during a war;  these omnibuses are carrying British troops to the Western Front during the 1914-18 War:



Back to WWII, and of course bus crews undertook dangerous work in the cities and they could be casualities:





Who hasn't seen this famous scene:




......and not forgetting other cities like Bristol:






Just over 70 years ago these bus crews faced daily danger from above.  Let's remember them.

[Seth]

The location here is indeed Aberavon Beach.

For local BET subsidiary Thomas Bros (Port Talbot) Ltd; 'The Beach' was indeed 'big business' during the Summer months, as evidenced in this early 1960s view of a heavily-laden, (and crew-operated!) bus arriving at the seafront terminus opposite the Jersey Beach Hotel. Miami Beach funfair is just out of view to the right.

[/img]

PTX 202 was numerically the last of four 1955 Leyland Tiger Cubs with durable 30ft 44-seat Weymann 'Hermes' all-metal bodies. The others being PTX 197/8/9.
The engine was the strong little Leyland 0.350; horizontally-mounted amidships and driving through an Albion 5-speed 'crash' gearbox to a very reliable single-speed Eaton/Leyland spiral-bevel rear axle. 

Just like neighbouring BET concerns Western Welsh and Rhondda Transport, Thomas Bros found the lightweight Tiger Cub to be an excellent 'maid of all work'. Little wonder then, that a second-hand Thomas Bros Tiger Cub was pretty well worn-out!

Around half of their 40ish-strong fleet consisted of these useful Leylands - the AEC Reliance being the popular choice for coaching duties and later 36ft service buses at Port Talbot.

The livery was 'Thomas Bros Blue' (or was it 'Thomas Bros Green'?) with cream relief - a hotly-debated subject!
The next (colour) photo of a Thomas Bros bus on Aberavon seafront will show why this was so!

Thomas' buses never carried fleet numbers, and the fleet name font was Gill Sans (in cream).

[Col. Gibbon]

Hi Lizzie Zoom.

Looking for info on MUD975?

[splott]

Hi Lizzie Zoom.

Looking for info on MUD975?

PM Lizzie if you know its whereabouts

[Peachy]

I have been searching for about 6 weeks, nade some progress, but am still working on it rest assured.
D.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Hi Lizzie Zoom.

Looking for info on MUD975?

PM Lizzie if you know its whereabouts

Yes please!! 8-) 8-) 8-)

[Peachy]

Hi Lizzie Zoom.

Looking for info on MUD975?

PM Lizzie if you know its whereabouts

Yes please!! 8-) 8-) 8-)

Lizzie, will send you a PM in a few minutes OK.

[Col. Gibbon]

Well, I don't know where MUD975 is today, but I used to own it until about 1987.

What you have posted about it being at the Mid-Hants Railway at Ropley is correct, but after our group relocated to Bittern, Bristol, the bus was towed to Peter Moor's yard near Woolwich, in 1986. About a year later they were told to leave the yard in Woolwich, and I had a phone call from Peter to say he could not re-home our bus, and that the back end was very rotten, and the gear box could not be fixed, so regrettably I agreed to it being scrapped.

That was the end of the story for me, until I had a call from a friend in Bristol tonight, and the discovery of a picture of MUD975 on Photobucket.

http://s282.photobucket.com/albums/kk247/lizziefreeman/?action=view&current=scan1.jpg#

Now, I have no idea where, or when this picture was taken, but it's post my ownership. I can see the Chiltern Queens lettering has been removed from the side, only leaving the the logo in the circle on the side. The passenger side window has some signs stuck on the top passenger window, and there seems to be some lettering over the front grill. All these things were not done by me, so this picture seems to indicate MUD975 survived post scrapping in 1987.

That's all I can add, but I could look out some old pictures of MUD975 when she was in my ownership.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Hi Lizzie Zoom.

Looking for info on MUD975?

PM Lizzie if you know its whereabouts

Yes please!! 8-) 8-) 8-)

Lizzie, will send you a PM in a few minutes OK.

Thanks Di!

[Peachy]

PM Sent