Great Central Railway Heritage Bus & Railcar Rally-18/5/24

My wife Lynn & I were going to go to Weston Super Mare today but a chance glance on Facebook revealed that the owners of 1973 vintage Midland Red S27 class Marshall bodied Leyland Leopard 227;

……would be attending the Great Central Railway’s Heritage Bus & Railcar Rally at Quorn & Woodhouse station on that Leicestershire preserved railway, where Lynn & I had attended a similar bus running day before, though I had trouble recollecting the year. I’d thought that it was around 2018 and that I’d written a blog about it but no, looking through my back catalogue, I found nothing for that year, nor 2019 or indeed, anytime earlier, as there was nothing since I started writing blogs in 2015!

So I suggested this to Lynn as a possible alternative to Weston (though admitadly, I was looking forward to a trip to the seaside!) half expecting her to reject it, as I have dragged her to a few vintage bus events this year, but no, she seemed quite up for it, particularly as she somewhat half remembered it from that trip from what must have been 2014 or even earlier….though I do remember posting photos on Facebook from it, so it must have been either 2013 or 2014.

As we were planning to do with Weston, we could have drove over to Leicestershire but we both felt that it would be more fun to use public transport to get there, including getting a ride on the Great Central Railway itself.

The Journey There

So we were up nice and early, catching West Midlands Metro CAF 100 car 39 to the Grand Central tram stop, next to New Street station, where I bought two Day Returns to Leicester with Plus Buses for unlimited bus travel around the Greater Leicester area, which came to £29.10 with our Two Together Railcard, saving us around £14. We had been planning to get the 09.52 to Leicester but we’d arrived early enough for the train before it, the 09.22 to Cambridge, formed of Cross Country 170 638, with us grabbing a table seat. Normally, this service runs through to Stansted Airport but I suspect engineering works were taking place on the last section.

We headed out of the southern New Street tunnels, then I was able to show Lynn the latest work on HS2’s Curzon Street station, the work on the viaduct pillars having advance considerably since the last time I came out this way, which would have been on my trip to Nottingham in February (see blog “The Second Great British Rail Sale-Part One”) We then followed the continuing HS2 works out through the East Birmingham suburbs, before they disappear into a new tunnel in the Bromford area, with more viaduct pillars appearing as we left the city behind, near Water Orton, these being to eventually carry the line that, originally, was planned to head to Manchester & Leeds but will now only link up with the West Coast Main Line’s Trent Valley section near Lichfield.

Soon after, we left the line towards Derby & Nottingham and called at Coleshill Parkway before continuing on through Warwickshire countryside to Nuneaton, crossing over on the flyover the West Coast Main Line to reach the specially constructed platforms that enable Birmingham-Leicester trains to avoid crossing the busy West Coast Main Line on the flat, enabling less interuption to the Avanti West Coast Pendolinos as they speed through the station on their way from London Euston to the North and vice versa. Then it was fast to Leicester, avoiding calls at Hinckley, Narborough & South Wigston which are left to the Birmingham-Leicester terminating trains, so our arrival at Leicester came soon afterwards.

Leicester

As soon as we walked out of the station, I noticed a soon to be withdrawn Arriva Wright Gemini bodied VDL on the 44A to Wigston Magna, so I photographed it;

……then we crossed over the road to catch a bus into the City Centre, the 44A being the first to arrive in this direction too, only it was a single decker, MMC E200 3139, which took us to the Haymarket bus station, to where Lynn hasn’t been since it was rebuilt and expanded in 2018. Here, we saw what was very much the new order in the city, with the green electric buses that the city council and Mayor are supporting the entry into service of, having expanded considerably since my last visit last February, with First’s Wright Kite Electroliner single deckers totally dominating that company’s output, but Wright Electroliner double deckers, belonging to both First & Arriva were now also prevailant;

This is one of Arriva’s Electroliners, which differ from the full height First examples by being built to a low height specification. They are mostly to be found on the 47/48 Wigston Circulars but appear on other routes too. Whilst Arriva still have a fair number of diesel buses still in service, the only diesel First buses that I saw were a few Wright Streetdecks, otherwise, the electrification of the First Leicester fleet is almost complete, and it was one of the many Wright Kite single deckers, 63531, that we would travel next, on route 25, a circular around the northern side of the city, with service 26 running the other way around this route, the 25 being the quickest and closest route to the Great Central Railway’s Leicester North southern terminus.

Lynn was quite impressed with the bus’s legroom and smooth, silent acceleration as we left the City Centre, though she was less impressed by the next stop screen being full of computer code that I guess Bill Gates could understand but not us! This code manifested itself whenever the bus stopped at a bus stop, the computerised announcement saying “Input One” as opposed to the stop’s name!

Other than this,  we headed smoothly along the multi cultural Melton Road before turning off up Loughborugh Road, turning off that to serve the Belgrave district. I’d visited the Great Central twice in the past, the last time that we’d visited the bus event and earlier, around 2008 for a Winter Diesel Gala which I remember being incredibly cold. Because of this sparsity of visits, I was unsure exactly where to get off the bus but I remember a footbridge that we had to cross, this being visible from the bus route. However, this time, I couldn;t see it, as we entered the Mowmacre Hill Council estate, where the bus became quite busy, people presumably heading to the Beaumont Leys shopping centre. Mowmacre Hill ends by an industrial estate where the largest factory belongs to Walkers Crisps, and it was then that I realised that I’d missed the stop for the railway! And we’d just missed a 26 in the opposite direction. As the 25/26 only run every twenty minutes on Saturdays (fifteen Monday-Friday) we stayed on until entering the Astil Lodge estate, where we had around a five minute wait for Kite 63538 to turn up on that 26, taking us back through Mownmacre Hill……from where I saw the footbridge! So it was on the bus in the opposite direction that I’d been looking for! D’OOHH!

So we then got off the bus, me noting that a nearby wall looked like the supports for a former railway bridge that would have carried the old Great Central Railway Main Line into Leicester City Centre, with us following the footpath that probably follows the course of the old line, over the footbridge that now spans the Leicester By Pass, taking us to Leicester North station, where the restored railway begins.

The Great Central Railway

The Great Central Railway (GCR) was regarded as the last main line railway to be constructed in the UK, at least until the construction of HS1 from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel was completed in the early years of this century, which will be supplemented in a few years time by the aforementioned HS2.

The GCR had it’s origins from the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (MS & LR), one of the railways in the control of Edward Watkins, who was the company’s General Manager. Watkins had grand ambitions, of linking the MS & R with two other railways that he had an interest in, the Metropolitan Railway, then trying to expand away from it’s origins as the world’s first London Underground line and join the big boys of long distance railways, and the South Eastern Railway, the plan being to be able to run through trains from Manchester & Sheffield-Dover…..and Paris, for Watkins was, I believe, the first to propose a Channel Tunnel!

The tunnel and through running to the South Eastern would flounder but Watkins would still persevere to extend the MS & LR to meet the Metropolitan, hence an extension south of Sheffield towards Nottingham, with the London extension then weaving itself down to Leicester, paralleling and competing with the Midland Main Line, then heading to Rugby, crossing another rival, the London North Western Railway (LNWR) West Coast Main Line, and then headed to join the Metropolitan which, by then, had reached Quainton Road in Buckinghamshire. By this time (the late 1890s) the Metropolitan had become quite busy as London expanded ever outwards (in fact, the Metropolitan would have a great deal to do with this, buying a substantial amount of land in Middlesex & Buckinghamshire to build houses on, coining the name “Metroland” for marketing, all of this being described most eloquently in Sir John Betjeman’s superb 1972 BBC documentary “Metroland”) so it simply wouldn’t have been possible to terminate the trains from Manchester & Sheffield either at the Metropolitan’s headquarters at Baker Street or along the tunnels towards the city, so the company purchased land for a new terminus at Marylebone.

In recognition of the greatly increased geographical reach of the new line, the MS & LR would be renamed the Great Central Railway (GCR) in 1897, the line into Marylebone coming into traffic in May 1899.

The Railway Grouping of 1923 would see the GCR taken over by the London North Eastern Railway (LNER), meaning that it was still in competition with it’s Midland & LNWR rivals, as these past to London Midland Scottish. Nationalisation of the railways in 1948, however, put the vast majority of our railways under the ownership of British Railways (BR), which found itself with a large number of formerly competing, duplicate routes which, as road traffic developed, would come to be seen as unnecessary, particularly once Transport Minister (and significant shareholder in a major road construction company) Ernest Marples appointed one Doctor Richard Beeching as the Chairman of BR, who became infamous for his “axe” resulting in cutting many miles of unremunertive line. The Great Central would begin to be cutback from 1966 (after Beeching had gone but his influence long held sway in BR management) to 1969, leaving just the former Metropolitan Railway from Aylesbury (1960 had seen the now London Transport owned Metropolitan Line cutback to terminate at Amersham, the furthest that electrification of the line had spread to, leaving trains beyond to BR) to London Marylebone (at the other end, the then electrified Manchester-Sheffield “Woodhead” route became freight only in 1970 but the subsequent decline in coal traffic would see the line close, aside from the local service from Manchester-Hadfield, in 1981) with a diesel multiple unit service running between Aylesbury & Marylebone. Today, this is operated by Chiltern Railways.

But as is the case with all of our preserved railways, a band of volunteers got together after the line’s 1969 closure to save part of it for preservation. Unlike most such lines, which were single track branch lines, the fact that this was a former main line meant that it has become notable for being the only preserved railway to mainly feature double track. Operations would gradually become possible, with trains beginning to be run between Loughborough Central and Quorn & Woodhouse in 1973 and was later extended to Rothley. Initially only retaining single track, it’s unique double track status would gradually be restored, whilst 1990 would see the railway extended southwards to a totally new station at Leicester North, this being a little to the south of the previous Belgrave & Birstall station, which had been vandalised to such an extinct that it was impossible to save. These signs, at the entrance to Leicester North, hints at the railway’s past history;

But this wasn’t the only section of the Great Central to be saved! For the section to the north of Loughborough as far as Ruddington has also been restored, originally known as the Nottingham Heritage Railway but later renamed the Great Central Railway (Nottingham.) This is separated from the Leicestershire line mainly by the lack of a former bridge across the line’s old Midland Railway rival at Loughborough, a replacement for this having been constructed in 2017, although there is still more infrastructure needed, including a bridge over a canal, with eventual plans leading towards the “unification” of the two sections of the railway, eventually restoring the Ruddington side to double track too. But for now, the two sections of line continue to operate separately, with the main Leicestershire section running from Leicester North-Loughborough Central.

Entering the ticket office, I looked at the board siting the fare, noting that a return to Quorn & Woodhouse was £17 but I decided to buy two £25 All Line Rovers, giving us the chance to ride more of the line. I also purchased a programme for the day. A steam hauled train had pulled in as we arrived, this being hauled by Stanier Class 8 48305;

We found an empty BR Mk 1 compartment and settled into the deep, springy seats that typified this type of train stock. Ohhh, why aren’t modern train seats this comfortable?

Whilst waiting for the train’s 11.55 departure, I perused the programme. Although two steam hauled diagrams were working today, this being one, the event’s “Heritage Bus & Railcar” status was justified by three different diesel multiple unit workings. One seemed a most odd sight on a preserved railway, because several of this class are still in service on the Transport for Wales network, though probably not for that much longer as new trains enter service there. This was two Class 153s running in multiple, the single car units formed in the early nineties from split, 1987 vintage Class 155s, the two having been bought by the GCR to transport workers from Main Line operating companies, who hire use of the line when not in use for training purposes, so the pair were making a rare appearance on normal passenger service today. Unfortunately, I was never in the right position to photograph this colourful pair, one being painted in the former London Midland grey & green, whilst the other was in the mostly blue scheme of the former East Midlands Trains.

Also running was a Class 101, the 1957 vintage class of DMU built by Metro Cammell and remaining in service for many years, being the last type of traditional DMU in operation on the National Network. The example here being painted in sixties/seventies era BR blue;

The third unit in service was very unusual. This was Iris, one of two single car versions of the Derby Lightweight experimental units, built by BR in 1956 in order to try and find an economical vehicle to run on unprofitable branch lines, something that would sadly be unable to stop the almost zealous axe swinging of Doctor Beeching in the following decade. The units were used on the Bletchley-Banbury line and were well patronised but failed to really improve the economics of the line, which was closed in 1961. Iris would survive in BR departmental use at the Railway Technical Centre in Derby, where it gained it’s “Test Car Iris” nickname, enabling it to be preserved on the GCR.

Today, both Iris and the Class 101 would be operating trips up the Mountsorrel branch, a former quarry line that the Mountsorrel Railway Project has restored to use from 24th October 2015. We therefore planned to get both Iris and the Mountsorrel branch, which leaves the GCR just to the north of Rothley, the first stop after Leicester North, with the two units running trains today from either Quorn & Woodhouse or through from Loughborough Central, reversing onto the branch at Rothley. Again, sadly, I never got a photograph.

We then had a gentle chuff through the Leicestershire countryside, calling at Rothley and then noticing the Mountsorrel line branching off, it’s restoration previously being something that I was unaware of. Then, we reached Quorn & Woodhouse, where we were greeted by the vast sight of buses in the station yard!

Buses!

Well, the trains were all well and good but I was mainly here for the buses! This side of the event was organised by the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust (LTHT), who did a fantastic job of organising it all! The programme told me that there were 66 buses due to be present on the Saturday (the event continued onto the Sunday, though with a smaller number of buses present) of which no fewer than 50 would be giving rides on four services. The most frequent of these was the 70, running every twenty minutes to Loughborough Midland Station, returning via Loughborough Central. Then there was the half hourly 75 to Loughborough’s Premier Inn, both routes using a mixture of double and single deckers.

In addition, there were two single decker only routes, the 64, which ran to Mountsorrel in conjunction with the Mountsorrel branch trains, allowing passengers to head there by one mode and return by the other, whilst the fourth route was the hourly 60, taking a more indirect route to Loughborough Midland via the village of Barrow On Soar.

The plethora of buses operating these services were one of the most immense operations of it’s kind that I’ve ever seen, with virtually every departure on the 60 & 70 being duplicated, which was certainly needed to handle the crowds that had turned up for the event! It was impossible to ride on every bus here and, for once, I wasn’t even going to try!

It was particularly good to see a selection of Leoicestershire buses here, including the ex London Transport Routemaster of Oadby independent Confidence, a bus I once rode on, in 1987 when it was being used on a short lived 45 running from Leicester University-Oadby Halls Of Residence, short lived because Midland Fox (the company that was the renamed former Midland Red East, this company being formed as part of the September 1981 split of Midland Red) would compete with it, later converting their parallel Fox Cub 80 minibus route to larger buses to accommodate the large number of students travelling. Confidence, however, have kept the Routemaster for Private Hire;

Also present was a satisfyingly large number of Leicester City Transport (LCT) buses, including what I believe is the oldest preserved example, which was here on display. 1939 vintage, three axle AEC Renown 329;

Representing the early postwar years was 1950 vintage Leyland PD2 154;

Following the 1956 legislation of 30 foot long double deckers, LCT would standardise on Leyland PD3s of such length, such as 1958 vintage 164. PD3s would feature in the fleet until 1982;

The late sixties would see LCT reverse it’s maroon & cream livery, with the cream becoming the dominant colour, relieved by a maroon strip, this brighter livery being demonstrated on 1961 vintage AEC Bridgemaster (LCT buying other models to supplement the PD2 & PD3, doubtless keeping Leyland on it’s toes!) and 1981 vintage Dennis Dominator 50, loading for a trip on the 70;

This livery would last until 1984, when the city council adopted a new white, red & grey corporate livery for all it’s vehicles, including the bus undertaking, the fleet being renamed Leicester City Bus at the same time. This would last until 1990, when former LCT Manager (from 1975-1984) Geoffrey Hilditch returned to manage the company in the difficult, post deregulation years, reintroducing (as he’d never liked the Leicester corporate livery, the heavy influence of the council on the undertaking then being the main reason that he first left) a maroon and cream livery, featuring a fairly even mix of each colour, this being represented here today by 1980 Dennis Dominator (a type that Mr Hilditch persuaded Dennis to return to bus building with, countering the then Leyland double deck monopoly. Leicester would become the second largest operator of the type, after South Yorkshire) 240, featuring the subsequent fleetname Citybus, which alas, I also failed to photograph today.

By this time, the remaining local authority fleets were being encouraged by the then government to seek privatisation, with Mr Hilditch attempting to form a management buyout but this didn’t happen, Mr Hilditch finally retiring and the company passed to GRT, the group formed from the management buyout of the municipal Grampian fleet in Aberdeen, this subsequently merging with Badgerline in 1995 to form First Bus, later First, accounting for First’s Leicester operation today!

Saturday 27th July sees the LTHT celebrating the Centenary of LCT motor buses with a Running Day though sadly,  I’m working, so won’t be able to go.

Meanwhile, the operator that today’s Arriva operation in Leicestershire is a successor to, the mighty Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus (BMMO) company, more commonly known as Midland Red, was also represented here, with 1949 vintage BMMO C1 coach 3311 being on display whilst two 1968 vintage single deckers built, along with 3311, by the company at it’s Carlyle Works in Edgbaston, Birmingham  were present, BMMO S23 5919, seen here next to 1983 vintage Midland Red North ECW bodied Leyland Olympian 1902, featuring the green Mercian stripe indicating it’s original Tamworth allocation;

……and dual purpose BMMO S22 5905, the single decker on the left of the photo below. However, it was the single decker on the right which I was most excited to see when I checked what was running in the programme!

Midland Red LS18 5185

During the early post war years, such was the demand for new buses that Midland Red was forced three times to supplement the production of double deckers at Carlyle Works with buses built by outside manufacturers, with 1948 seeing 100 AEC Regents, which were christened the AD2 class, 1949 saw 20 Guy Arabs known as the GD6 class enter service at Dudley, where, apart from the very occasional loan, they remained for their entire lives, and 1952/53 when the company received 100 Leyland PD2s, these becoming the LD8 class. But Carlyle Works was able to supply the company’s entire need for single deckers from 1925-1963!

By 1963, however, the main problem wasn’t so much an increased demand for buses, the post war boom in bus travel having gone into decline by then due to the rise in car ownership, but the growth of car factories in Birmingham caused heavy staff shortages for Carlyle Works, Midland Red being unable to match the wages that these factories offered. Therefore, as well as the company receiving 50 Alexander bodied Daimler Fleetlines, christened the DD11 class in 1963, Midland Red was forced to order it’s first new single deckers from an outside manufacturer since it built it’s first type of bus, the Standard SOS in 1925!

These consisted of 100 Leyland Leopards, Leyland’s then relatively recent answer to the increase of legal length single decker to 36 ft, something that Midland Red had campaigned heavily for and had already introduced to it’s own single deckers with 1962’s S16 and 1963’s more refined (more powerful engine and semi automatic gearbox) S17 but, as I say, the need to replace the early post war single deckers (plus the 52/53 seat capacity of a 36 ft single decker being very close to the 56 seat capacity of early postwar double deckers meant that some of these could be replaced by the long saloons too) meant the need for the Leopards, which were christened the LS18 class.

Their bodies were built to Midland Red’s BET (British Electric Traction) group owners Federation style of body design, the body order being split between two manufacturers , with 5145-5169 being built by Weymann and 5170-5244 by Willowbrook. Of the Willowbrook examples, 5175-5194 would receive 48 dual purpose seats and Midland Red’s red with black roof coach/dual purpose livery for use on longer distance bus services and occasional duplication on coach work, rather than the 53 bus seats fitted to the remainder, these being designated LS18A until they were refitted with bus seats from 1970 onwards.

Thus 5185 was originally one of those LS18A DP examples, though it’s preserved in it’s seventies guise, wearing National Bus Company (NBC, which Midland Red became a part of after BET sold it’s bus industry shares to the state in 1967, being merged with the already nationalised Tiling Group to form NBC from 1st January 1969) Poppy Red livery;

Midland Red would be very impressed with the Leopard, going onto standardise on the chassis for coaches (the last BMMO built coaches would be the 1963/64 vintage BMMO CM6/CM6T Motorway coaches) whilst built for stage carriage work in 1966 would be 10 Willowbrook bodied Leopards that were branded LS20 semi coaches (with full, blue trimmed coach seats that were much more comfortable than Midland Red’s DP standard of seat,  meaning they were allocated to coach work at busy times and bus work at other times, Midland Red’s 1967, 30 own built BMMO S21s receiving identical seats and designation) then, following the end of BMMO bus building in 1970, Midland Red would gain 100 S24 class Willowbrook bodied DP (by this time, DP seats had followed the example of the semi coach seats, becoming more coach like) Leopards in 1971, followed in 1972 by 13 S26 Marshall bodied Leopards that were the last bus seated Leopards that Midland Red would order.

1973 saw 50 more Marshall bodied Leopards come, these being the DP S27 class, including 227 seen here alongside 5185, resplendent in it’s poppy red & white NBC local coach livery that the S27s introduced to Midland Red, as well as featuring on the DP Bristol RE of Trent alongside 227!

1974 would see another 50 red & white Marshall bodied Leopards come as the S28 class, after which the company would adopt the Plaxton Supreme body that it was using on it’s coaches for future Dual Purpose deliveries, these becoming known in the company as service coaches, entering service from 1976-1979, after which, in line with NBC economies, Midland Red would switch to Willowbrook 003 bodywork for their 1980 order of semi coaches, these sadly being less comfortable than the earlier Plaxtons. The final batch of Leopards for Midland Red would be more Willowbrook 003s, these delayed coaches being delivered for National Express work after the company split in 1982, being allocated to the Midland Red Express (later Midland Red Coaches) coach operation at Birmingham Digbeth. The final bus to actually be delivered to the original Midland Red company in 1981 was 832, a Plaxton bodied example of the type that was replacing the Leopard in Leyland’s catalogue, which ironically used the name of the shorter single decker that the Leopard originally replaced, the Leyland Tiger!

So the Leopard would become a huge part of the Midland Red fleet….and it was the LS18s that started it off!

5185 entered service in June 1963 from Birmingham Digbeth garage, where, as a Dual Purpose bus it would have operated on that garage’s longer routes, such as the X73/X74 to Cheltenham (the X72 to Gloucester was then predominantly double deck) and, most notably, the Digbeth share on the long X96 (Shrewsbury-Northampton), upon which it would also have operated from it’s second garage, transferring in November 1964 to Rugby. It was converted to one man operation in December 1968 (by which time the LS20s & S21s had taken over the then still crew operated X96) and received bus seats in April 1971. October 1976 saw 5185 pass to Leamington, though it became unused in April 1977, re-entering service at Hereford in November of that year, spending its final service days there until it’s March 1978 withdrawal. Subsequently bought by South Camridgeshire District Council, the bus would pass through several owners until bought by it’s present owners, Steve Riley and a Mr Pendleton in October 2020, the bus subsequently being restored into it’s final NBC poppy red livery.

I picked a running order from the stall selling programmes. showing my programme as proof that I’ve bought one, this told me that 5185 was next running the 13.35 60, around an hour away, so Lynn & I had a superb burger and had a wander around the sight before making sure that I was in the queue nice and early, for I didn’t want to miss this trip!

The bus stop flags that were being used took me back to Leicester in the eighties, illustrating the time when LCT & Midland Red successors Leicester City Bus & Midland Fox battled for predominance in the city!;

The LS18s were liberally spread across the Midland Red network but not every garage received an allocation, so they were a type that I never came across that often. My main memories of riding them were from around 1974, just after 19 of the class had passed to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) following the December 1973 selling of Midland Red’s Birmingham & Black Country services to WMPTE. Several of those that were allocated to the still Midland Red owned Digbeth were transferred to the PTE’s ex Birmingham City Transport (BCT) Moseley Road garage that had been reopened to take over the former Digbeth routes that had passed to the PTE. My Mom then had a relationship (she was divorced at the time, so it wasn’t an illicit affair or anything!) with a chap called Vic who owned a TV shop in Knowle, to the south of Solihull, who had a model railway in the shop’s loft! We used the 182 from Birmingham’s undercover Bull Ring bus station (a place where an LS18s Leyland 600 engine would add to the echoes of BMMO engines, the Gardners of Fleetlines and then being joined by the clatter of a Leyland 510 in Leyland Nationals! Ohhh, what halcyon days!) out to Knowle to see him on several occasions, with LS18s seemingly predominating, apart from the odd D12 or D13 Daimler Fleetline, at least that’s how my memory plays out! Around the same time, I would ride on an LS18 for my first trip on the 159 to Coventry, coming back on an S17.

November 1975 would see Moseley Road (along with the ex Midland Red garage at Sheepcote Street) close, with services mostly transferred to ex BCT garages, with Moseley Road’s LS18s transferring to Yardley Wood, a garage with a strong Leyland tradition. 1976 would see the remaining PTE examples at Stourbridge also transfer to Yardley Wood, aside from two, 5223 & 5243, which went from Stourbridge in July 1976 to become the first of the type to operate from Oldbury garage, both then transferring to Dudley in July 1977 before returning to Oldbury the following month, before being withdrawn that September. I remember seeing the Oldbury pair running around my old home town of Smethwick at the time but alas, I never got to ride them.

The last LS18 that I would travel on happened on the Saturday before the then Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977! This was a still Midland Red owned example and was on the 133 (Stourport-Birmingham) so would have been either a Kidderminster or (I suspect the latter as it was quite late in the evening) Digbeth bus. My Mom, Step Dad (not the guy with the TV shop!) and myself had been to visit a friend of my Mom’s who lived in Quinton, with the LS18 being the first bus to come on the Hagley Road as we waited for a bus to Bearwood to connect into an 82 for the last leg home. My Mom was unsure about getting on the LS18, as Midland Red buses used to charge double fares within the Birmingham city boundary but I explained that this had ceased in 1974 so, for once, she believed me! And of course, I was right!

We would move to Telford shortly after this, where I would last see an LS18 sort of in service in 1979, not long before the final LS18 was withdrawn by Midland Red. This example was parked at Telford Town Centre bus station on the day of that year’s Super Saturday event, a sort of carnival/funfair that took place at the nearby Telford Town Park, with Midland Red having the LS18 on standby (the local Wellington garage never had any on it’s allocation, though nearby Shrewsbury did, so it may have come from there) in case the show caused over crowding on any of the local Telford routes but alas, not sure if it did get used but it wasn’t required for my bus home to Woodside (routes 901/920/921) for which I boarded a rather full Leyland National. Not long after, the type would be seen on Midlands roads no more!

5185 isn’t the only preserved example, as the Wythall Transport Museum have 5212, which looks fine cosmetically but has yet to run in service there, something that I look forward to seeing one day!

So, with my last ride on an LS18 being just over 47 years ago, I felt that I was long overdue another trip!

Duplicating 5185 was a Merseyside PTE Duple Dominant bodied Leyland Tiger coach, which pulled up first, with a fair few boarding this, meaning there were plenty of seats available on 5185 when it pulled up;

Lynn & I were able to grab the back seats as the bus took on around three quarters of a load;

……and we set off, heading out of the station into the village, crossing over the A6 and heading into the village of Barrow On Soar, home of the now Wellglade (Trent Barton’s Holding Company) owned Kinchbus, then we continued along delightful country lanes, wandering the back way into Loughborugh, passing the Brush factory, where tramcars such as Blackpool’s 1937 vintage Brush cars were built, along with diesel locomotives like the Class 47 later in the plant’s life. Just in front of this was Loughborough Midland station, where several got off for a quicker run back to Quorn on the 70. We though, decided to enjoy some more of that Leyland 600 engine’s roar back through the country lanes! A fine bus, expertly driven by Steve Riley, a ride on which really has been a long time coming! The ride proved what I’ve always thought,  that when Midland Red was forced to buy from outside the company,  it bought from the best!

Leicester City Transport Bristol RE 122

The nearly hour long round trip on 5185 meant that there wasn’t really time to do much more bus riding, particularly as we intended to ride Iris on the Mountsorrel Line. However, as we walked towards the terminus, we saw that LCT 122, a 1969 vintage Bristol RE, was loading on the 75 to the Loughborough Premier Inn.

122 had warranted a major write up in the programme, on account of the bus returning to the road for the first time today since 1994! Lynn took quite a shine to the bus, probably on account of the bright livery so, upon seeing 122 loading, we both decided to forego the trip to Mountsorrel and ride 122 instead, managing to take two of the last four seats on board!

The Bristol RE was introduced in 1962, the first example of an underfloor rear engine single decker to be placed on the market (there had been a few pre war experiments with the concept, including by Midland Red who, postwar, would adopt the mid underfloor engine layout for single deckers, as featured on the three BMMO saloons here today, as well as the LS18) potentially offering a lower entrance than the mid engine types, which required quite a climb to get in.

As things would turn out, the RE would turn out to be the most reliable of the first generation of rear engine saloons, though it’s sales in it’s early years were restricted to state owned fleets, mainly those of the Tilling Group, plus also the Scottish Bus Group, with the Tilling Group in particular being compelled to buy products from the group owned Bristol chassis builder and ECW bodyworks, so it was these companies which purchased the most REs, with the ECW bodywork that the type would be most associated with. 1966 saw Bristol & ECW involved in a rather complex share exchange with Leyland, enabling other operators to buy Bristol & ECW products.

LCT would be one of a relatively small number of municipal fleets to buy the type (probably the most famous was Hartlepool, who amassed a fair number in the early seventies, these lasting right up until the operator was purchased by Stagecoach in the nineties) ordering a small batch of the shorter RESL version for a short lived City Circle service,  these eventually ending up with Blackburn, then a small batch of RELL long buses before a larger batch of 20 dual door such examples arrived in 1969, these including 122. LCT’s main requirement for single deckers then was the Outer Circle service, which passed under a low bridge, and the REs would become common on that route throughout their lives, plus at first, they were also used on the Anstey Lane & Goodwood services, the REs being used to replace Leyland PD2 double deckers like 154, again, as with the LS18s and other Midland Red 36 ft saloons, the REs seating capacity wasn’t that much lower than those early postwar double deckers, though the dual doors on the REs reduced the seating capacity here.

Despite the success of the RE elsewhere, this batch would be unique to LCT, the fleet continuing to concentrate on double deckers for the majority of it’s needs, with it’s next large batch of single deckers being  the Metro Scania saloons built by a partnership between Scania and Metro Cammell, such as preserved 1972 vintage 225, which was here today;

But the RE would ultimately meet it’s demise thanks to the Metro Scanias great rival, the jointly developed by British Leyland and NBC Leyland National, which, with NBC’s support, would see off the Metro Scania, with Leicester becoming the penultimate operator of that type (Newport being the last) the two partners going on to build the Metropolitan double decker, which LCT would also buy, including preserved 301 which was also here today, following which the partners would go their own separate ways.

Meanwhile, Leyland’s desire to maximise the investment put into the National (namely the factory at Whitehaven built to build them) saw the organisation’s other rear engine single deckers taken off the market, including the RE, which caused a lot of opposition from the type’s supporters! The last examples entered service in 1975, although the model was retained for export orders, including Northern Ireland,  yes, part of the UK but Werner Heubeck, General Manager of the combined Ulsterbus/Citybus company said to Leyland

“Bristol REs, or I go to Mercedes Benz!”

He got his REs!

122 was withdrawn from LCT service at the end of October 1980, being one of five sold to Ipswich Borough Transport, where it remained in service until July 1987. It was then purchased by the Ipswich Transport Society but was sold to it’s present owner, LTHT Chairman Richard Worman in 1989.

Richard and his team have done a superb job in restoring 122 to it’s former glory and it was a treat to listen to the Leyland engine (which sounded a pitch higher than the similar engine in the LS18) as we charged along the A6 to the outskirts of Loughborough, dropping off a few enthusiasts who were staying at the Premier Inn overnight to enable them to visit the Sunday of the event, where a smaller number (around 30) of buses would be running. Then, it was back to Quorn, ready to catch a train back to Leicester North;

Only two vintage buses ridden today, but talk about quality over quantity!

We planned to catch the last train back to Leicester North but, in the event, the train before was running late, so we caught that. Whilst steam is all very well, it’s not an era I can remember, unlike the Class 101 DMU that formed the train we caught, which I’ve travelled on many times throughout my life;

The Metro Cammell built Class 101s entered service from 1957 onwards and soon became one of the most dominant, and reliable of the various DMU classes that were then sweeping away steam on secondary and local services, at least those what would survive the Beeching Axe and, to begin with, many that didn’t!

Although mainly in the hands of the Class 116 Derby built DMUs, the Class 101s would take a secondary role in the increase in services sponsored by WMPTE in the West Midlands throughout the seventies, until replaced by Class 150 Sprinters from the late eighties. I would also come into contact with the 101s in their final years, where they operated around the North West. A 2000 holiday in Blackpool saw Lynn & I take a ride on one on the first Saturday evening, which was the last Saturday of a 101 run extra return working catering for Manchester-Blackpool traffic, us taking the return leg on board 101 685 to Manchester Piccadilly and returning on a Class 142 Pacer. I would ride other examples on several trips from Manchester Piccadilly on their last stronghold, the lines to Marple and Rose Hill, Marple, before they were finally withdrawn in 2003.

So it was comfortably familiar as I listened to that traditional DMU sound as we trundled back through the countryside to Leicester North:

Towards Home

As we headed towards the bus stop,  we saw the rear of a Wright Kite disappear towards town on the 26, so we thought about taking the 25 the long way round, only to discover that we’d missed one of those too!

Fortunately,  whilst waiting for the next 26,  a green Yutong, 855, leased to the third main operator in Leicester,  Centrebus,  appeared on the hourly Orbit, the recently renamed 40 Circular around the edges of Leicester.  This isn’t the old Outer Circle that 122 was once used on but the Outer Link, created as a joint Midland Fox/Leicester Citybus service in 1984, with the Outer Circle being renamed Inner Link at the same time.

Deregulation would see the Inner Link rerouted away from the low bridge and converted to double decker operation (as LCB had then just got rid of it’s last single decker buses, though retained coaches) though it would later convert to minibus operation before Citybus deregistered the route and it passed to various independents,  ultimately Centrebus before it’s withdrawal some years back. The Outer Link, meanwhile,  would pass on tender to Leicester Citybus, who ran the route with empty double deckers before minibuses took over  and ultimately passing to independents,  eventually Centrebus, who continue to operate the rebranded service with the electric Yotongs. Judging by the lack of people on 855, the route still seems quiet, meaning there’s little justification for Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby’s stated aim of increasing the route to every fifteen minutes!

855 took us to Melton Road, where more frequent services run into the City Centre,  namely Arriva’s 5, 5A & 6 and First’s 4, which came first in the form of Wright Kite  63543, which took us smoothly into the City Centre,  from where we caught another Centrebus Yutong, this time 842, one of the short, dual door examples used on the free City Centre Hop service, which took us the short distance to the Highcross shopping centre,  where Lynn had noted that there was a branch of the Slim Chicken restaurant,  which we’ve become recently fond of.

After tea, we walked through the shopping centre,  back to Haymarket, where the next bus to the station was 8006, one of Arriva’s new Wright Electroliner double deckers,  which took us smoothly to the station,  from where we had a pleasant evening journey on 170 639 back to Birmingham,  then catching a packed West Midlands Metro car 39 home, tired but happy after a lovely day enjoying the yesteryear of East Midlands Transport, then getting home and relaxing in front of “Doctor Who!”