North`s Scrapyard, November 4th 1982 and representatives of two successful and numerous bus types are at the end of their respective roads.



The Alder Valley RE is about half the age of RM 1298 - both could have been capable of many more years service. Interesting to consider that with advances in interior design capabilities the RE should have had the potential to be far superior to the RM. But not so. RE`s built long after the last Routemasters still had (with a few exceptions) the bland formica type side walls, extensive use of white - and vinyl seats. The traditional Routemaster interior looked warm and sophisticated in comparison - only to adopt formica walls and lots of white when refurbed years later!

Also, whilst the RE was generally considered to be a nice bus to drive, there was a characteristic that, thankfully, Routemasters never had. To say that some RE`s had more rattles than Mothercare would be no exaggeration! Windows, overhead luggage racks, the glass screen behind the driver (often wedged with ticket rolls), the cab door, destination box flap, door gear flap and even the contents of the drivers change dispenser could all combine to make a lot of noise. And this was in the days of roads with less potholes than now! There was nothing in a Routemaster interior that rattled. Sometimes a direct comparison with another mass produced bus is needed to really appreciate the thought that went into the design of Routemasters.




It looks as if RM 1298 has just been picked out of the pack to commence the process of breaking for parts reclaim starting with the removal of the tyres to return them to LT for audit by the tyre company. Overhauled in early 1980, RM 1298 was initially sent to Mortlake to cover for a bus away for overhaul. I remember taking it for its first trip there but it only stayed three weeks before moving on to Putney where it remained until withdrawal. The overhauled bus returning to Mortlake that caused RM 1298 to move on was RM 1563.......

These recollections Neil, are such a good read.
These as a compilation would make such a good book.

What surprises me about the ECW bodywork is how much they ALL rattled; Lodekkas, REs, VR. The only ECW designs that don't rattle are the GS and RFW.

My bus number (if any): RML2532

Another ECW bus that didn`t rattle was RMC 4. It was my regular bus to school. Couldn`t begin to calculate how many times I travelled on it!

I didn't know that LT rented their tyres on mileage contracts as long ago as 1982 so I started searching for some information on the subject.

I came across this interesting article which makes it clear that the practice was in place as long ago as 1954. It also describes what lengths LT went to in order to save on tyre rental.

http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/wp-content/themes/Old-Bus-Photos/articles/lt_rt4742.php

My bus number (if any): RMs 238, 471 & 2213. GS17

Each garage had a tyre fitter - employed by the tyre company and not by LT.
Tyre fitters worked weekdays only and started work around 4am in order to do vehicle checks before service started. Only they were permitted to `work` on tyres with inflations being done in the required safety cages which were usually in a locked area to which nobody else had access. The exception to this being the `float` of spare tyres for unexpected need (punctures) or designated tyres for routine wear based changes which were usually carried out by night staff. For both cases the tyres were either chained or locked to prevent theft Thus, garage staff changed wheels - either in garage as directed by the Tyre Fitter or on the road in the case of punctures - but never individual tyres. Likewise, Tyre Fitters didn`t change wheels.

I remember one night at Mortlake when the Night Foreman got in a muddle. At that time among our allocation we had RM`s 1232, 1322 and 1332. By an unfortunate coincidence, routine tyre changes were needed on two of those three on the same night. I think it was probably a case of poor handwriting and/or not reading the paperwork correctly but Len somehow managed to put new tyres on the one bus out of those three that didn`t need them. All tyres were numbered and absolutely had to be on the correct bus. So having done a couple of wheel changes he had to start again. I can still picture him now - dirty, knackered and spouting the choicest of language!

One anomaly that ceased around 1980 was the need for special tyres for `private hire` buses. I can`t be sure if this was applicable to all garages but when the Sports & Social Club coastal outings on Summer Sundays were commonplace, there were special tyres for these vehicles based on the potential heat build up when running at speed for longer distances than would be achieved in normal service. At Mortlake, RM`s 1617, 1633 and 1634 had different tyres for this reason and were thus the buses that always went on trips to the seaside! And nicely relevant to how this post started, 1617 when sent for overhaul in early 1980 came back as 1563.

We used to have use the Aldenham staff bus RT 4614 at Mortlake for CGSA sports work, as I was a staff bus driver I used regularly to take football teams to Aldenham when I was playing. For "real" Private Hires CGSA usually had an RM from Mortlake as the SEcretary of the CGSA was the old staff bus driber there, Jim Cobb.

Not heard of special tyres before for these though. We had coast buses and the Cricket bus at Wandsworth on summer Sundays, we often had often given a freshly overhauled bus (as Mortlake also did back in the 60s for CGSA outings), but the coast buses were often the same buses every week, maybe these had the special tyres.
One morning when waiting to leave for Oxford one of the clippie's uncles who came to watch the cricket, noticed a big lump hanging off the outside of the front O/S tyre of RTL 1347 and so we had to have a sub. Tyre fitter not being there Saturday night so it got missed.

All LT tyres were numbered and rubbed, Chiswick also had a Tyre Inspector ( John Kissingbery?) who checked Miscellaneous vehicles and buses.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960, RMC 1458, RM 1585 and many RTs

Hi all
There has been a lot written about Wombwell and the 'death' of the RT's and likewise the RM's at PVS etc but does anyone know of any reference for the quantities etc that North's undertook and were they a scrapyard or dismantler ?
Thanks, Andy

Apart from the fifty RM`s sent to Norths for dismantling and parts reclaim in 1982, from disposal records I made there appears to have been just twelve other Routemasters that went there direct from LT and two of those were part of tendering processes. I don`t really know much about the work Norths undertook prior to the early 1980`s but from that time onwards they seemed to be the preferred place for scrapping buses from NBC subsidiaries. It was a huge place and parts for re-use and metal for scrap were everywhere.

Dismantling is a very loose term.
Basically, it was parts recovery either for scrap or reuse.
Tyres and running components mainly. Seats and easy to recover items were salvaged.
Very little gets properly dismantled so as to be in a ready to reuse condition.

A heck of a lot of short supply parts never seemed to return as expected, pigs ears in particular.

All the parts that most now crave for got ripped out and trashed.

As I never went up there, Did LT remove all the serviceable seat cushions prior to despatch from London?

Presumably as well most were driven to the scrapyards as engines and drive trains as far as I recall, were not removed in London.

I've often wondered what was on the list of components to be returned as we at HL and NB were always short of official stores parts which often used to be 'borrowed' from AEC. It was like our local convenience store.

The idea was the RMs at Norths were dismantled, not cut up with a gas torch. There was a long list of parts to be salvaged for return to LT, it included all the GRP items, bonnets, grilles, emergency doors. Engines were not on the list as they all should have had Leyland engines.

When I went there with LT Internal Audit to do a check in early 1983, Norths told us to date nothing had been requested to be returned despite many items being crated up for return to Aldenham.

Just an addition on the tyres issue, I saw a transfer notice for buses going to garages from Works, it said tyres to be changed as necessary, which reminded me that as with AEC and Leyland "groups" during the RT period, different Bus Districts also had different tyre companies. Dunlop and Firestone being those I remember, there may have been Michelin as well.

My bus number (if any): RTL 960, RMC 1458, RM 1585 and many RTs

Thanks guys. All good info. Why was Yorkshire a hotbed of this activity ? There was obviously no business in the South that could have handled this ? It must be at least 175 -200 miles from London to,say,Barnsley so logistically this must have been a nightmare ??

Hi all, a bit off topic

Re Wombwell diesels they used to send down a driver to Poplar to recover our scrap RTs. This chap only had one arm. (i forget which one.) God knows how he drove the bus all the way to Yorkshire.

Does anyone remember him?

I know it sounds a bit improbable but, yes, it really happened! He was well known around LT.

And at the risk of going further off topic, there was a chap at Tottenham Garage who only had one arm and he could beat most people (myself included) at snooker!

But to return to the subject of North`s, there were some parts that came back to LT. A couple of weeks after I visited to take the pictures, I found the complete lower back section of one of the RM`s I`d seen at North`s propped up against the wall in a garage (can`t remember which one) having just been offloaded from a stores lorry.