I have many pictures taken through all of the different departments at Aldenham Works and although most have yet to be converted from slide to digital, here are a few more that I took on 9 October 1983.

I`m hoping that Brian W can put more detail to the various pictures that follow.......



These, I think, are the acid dips that were used for cleaning prior to the Bonderising Section.




Bonderising means `protective coating`. Excuse the grille from an SM on an RM forum!




Redundant blinds could routinely be found around the Works for all sorts of uses.





The Accident Shop could contain some alarming examples though the ease of which panels were designed to be removed to faciliate repair often made the original damage look much worse than it was. I don`t know how severe the damage had been to this unidentified RM.




And this is RM 710 recovering from a rear end mishap





It`s a lot easier to see where the brass `identity` tag is on a B Frame when it`s clean and it hasn`t got a bus body sat on top of it!




As far as I`m aware, the only place inside the Works where a bus moved under its own power was the Licensing Garage. Everywhere else Lansing Bagnall battery carts moved buses and delivered parts between the various sections.

Yes spot on Neil those are the cleaning tanks prior to bonderising, they had the same cleaning process prior to inspection, no panels had any paint in the metal shop.

Not sure that is an SMS grille. It looks like a grid used to paint screw heads for RMs etc it fitted into the rack next to it w to go into the oven. I never found pre-painted screws to keep the paint on very well when actually used, you could get red/green/off white and sung yellow screws for accident repair work, as well as pre-painted panels which a lot of garages also used, although they usually painted their own!
On some RMs the interior roof panels were stove enamelled prior to fitting as hand painted panels "browned" very quickly.

The roof painting pictures appear to be in the Paint Prep Shop, the accident shop as such had 2 roof gantries for roof repairs when I worked in it up to 1973, but quite a few changes occurred when the non dismount overhauls started so they may have put in gantries for roof painting or used spare bays in the Paint Prep.
In the past buses were also just sent through the Paint line and had a roof only paint job. This was also quite common on service buses in the 60s where the roof paint was badly faded, I even saw RFs having it done!

It was in later years that the trucks had roofs. Neil is right, the only place buses were driven was in the Licensing Shop or on the Test Road, all other movements of buses were by Bagnell "lift and pull/push" trucks. The trucks with roofs were quite recent additions when the photo was taken. With the alterations in layout and non dismounted overhauls more tow trucks were needed.

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

The picture of RM710 clearly shows the o/s/r indicator lamp mounted on the rear quarter panel. IIRC there was something in the lighting regs which required the lamp to be moved from its origianl position on the rear panel inside the moulding line at some particular date. In spite of this many buses seem to have the lamp in the original place. Or am I wrong? Anyone know chapter and verse?

As far as I know, nothing required the O/S indicator to be moved Roy. LT decided to do it on production RMLs to give more visibility of the O/S lamp, and then all new and reconditioned rear frames had the bracket mounted the other side of the rear O/S pillar. There was no modification done on overhaul as there was for the RT N/S arrow, it was "as and when" the pillar was changed or the rear frame.

In the early days some buses that had the mod from new got a rear frame that had not been modified, but this didn't last long. LT went through rear frames at the rate of knots, we were doing 5 or more per week in body parts 442 shop!!

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

Brian

My assumption regarding the SM grille was obviously flawed! Having said that, I seem to recall that London Country MB`s eventually gained something similar built into the engine cover to counteract overheating problems.

It is the Accident Shop where the pictures are taken and, as you said, there are just the two roof level bays both being at the point where the first picture was taken. Beyond which the bays stretch some distance as in the photo below. Useful to locate this is the front end smash Metrobus which appears in the first picture of the roof repair RM and in this next picture. It would have to be the Accident Shop because, if I remember correctly, the paint prep area didn`t have a long line of windows.






The re-positioning of the r/o/s indicator was a real ad-hoc alteration and many buses survived to the end of their time in service with the original style built into the advert panel. This picture below taken at a Cobham rally on 12 April 1981 shows a selection of Routemasters spanning a vast age range: 8, 1250, 1563, 737 and 2760 of which only 1563 has the original style - and still does.



At what point did RML`s gain the `revised` style from new? I have found a couple of rear end RML views among my digitalised stash and these have the original style - unless by coincidence they were `retro fitted` at repair. Even the FRM has the original type.
The change of position couldn`t have been a legal requirement as all buses would have been done.

Yes the SMSs and some MBs did gain a grille type panel on the side at a later date Neil.
I think the Accident Shop must have relocated after I left the Works finally in 1978 Neil, I did go back a lot but not very often into the Works itself, only the main Stores. When the Accident Shop moved from where Leylands took over, it relocated to the North side of the High bay opposite the RFs and Inverters.
The chassis accident shop was where the North side of the High Bay was located. Then we moved further up towards the entrance and had the roof gantries next to the main cross wise gangway that was originally the end of the Body Repair shops.

I know the Chassis line was completely transfigured to take the non dismount buses on a series of post jacks, it looks like the Accident Shop has windows and a low roof, so it can only be where the chassis line heavy repair shop originally was, opposite the old chassis line.

This very long link, shows where it was in March 1973 just after I left it. You can see this is in the High Bay opposite the Development Shop and RFs.

You can see RM 304, the "banana bus" being dismantled.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/52467480@N08/6426268249/in/photolist-aMSiEr-aMSg1V-qBiYCP-b6X6QT-7PxN4U-b3FMJ8-iaVga9-cCpr17-7PtMSB-afD3jY-7oa3BC-cEamV1-aMShKn-j16dCX-aMSj4T-aNebc8-aMSmZe-Vg9ro7-7PtPcn-aMSs5T-qbhJ8K-8CRRFG-7KCp5M-aMSrc4-aMSpSP-b2FakK-bj2zeF-221jG6h-cAZq4U-b6X6KP-bH1RQr-pzfxoi-953SRP-aT9JKz-95athQ-aNeaW4-j1NduX-boBzba-bQRyei-aMSi3i-aNebhz-qaRJiu-cCpsdE-bj2z8k-aMSqTx-aTq2xx-aMSjm2-bXi5ms-g8AgGe-amnprs

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

Some really great pictures Neil - thanks very much posting them! As I've said before, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could still get our hands on some of those immaculate parts?!

My bus number (if any): RML2302