Merthyr Imp

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Everything posted by Merthyr Imp

  1. That photo must have been after my time (don't remember seeing diesels through there), but that view of the tunnel brings some memories back. The rat hole was were we trainspotters at High Pavement school used to go at lunch time - at least we did when I was one of them in the 1961/62 period. Lunch time then was from 1230pm to 2pm, and after school dinner (one shilling a day) a few of us could usually be found on Arnold Road at the point where the rat hole line went underneath, with of course the main line next to it on the bridge over the road. We seldom bothered going further down to where
  2. I suppose using the same criteria as for including the Skegness service you could also add the United Counties services to London via Loughborough and Leicester (MX1) and London via Northampton (MX5), as they ran several times every day. Although didn't use double deckers of course! The MX1 was supposed to go via Loughborough and Leicester before joining the M1, but at busy times you;d often find two or three vehicles on the same departure - one calling at Leicester and missing out Loughborough, one doing the opposite, and one going straight to the M1 and missing out both.
  3. You perhaps ought to include the Trent/North Western joint service to Manchester - the X2. Although it was a long distance service you actually bought your ticket from a conductor on the bus in the ordinary way (unlike with Barton's Skegness service where you had to go to the booking office). It was also a regular daily service several times a day.
  4. Here's a photo of Barton 878 (one of their part home-made/part Leyland vehicles) on an Epperstone service in the 1960s.
  5. Regarding the bend into George Street from Parliament Street, it was always said that it was the reason why the 40 could only be worked by the 4-wheel trolleybuses - the 6-wheelers couldn't make the turn due to their extra length.
  6. I've still got one of those! My wife sometimes uses it for making a cup of herbal tea.
  7. I'm afraid that doesn't mean anything to me. The only cafes I can remember (this is 1962 onwards) were 'Hughie's'(?) at the top of the bus station - where you could sit on stools and look out of the window, which was why we bus spotters favoured it - and Capocci's(?) the other side of Huntingdon Street. Actually, for all i know it could be that place you're referring to as I have only vague memories of it. I don't know if there was a cafe - which might have been used by bus crews in the area in the bottom corner (where Gash's buses used to leave from), where there was a sort of waiting ro
  8. The black building on the corner was Trent's booking office. Just to the right of that was a cafe - was it a branch of Capocci's? Can't remember. Went in it occasionally, but preferred the one at the top of the bus station.
  9. Here's a photo of Trent Leyland Titan PD2 no. 783 on a 63 that's evidently just arrived at Huntingdon Street. It's possibly going out of service as it hasn't gone into the platform for the return journey. I think I've got a photo of a 62 taken at Sherwood, but I'll have to dig it out. I've got boxes of bus and railway photos and slides in the attic, but I've only got some of them scanned into the computer. Any photos I put on this forum are all my own unless I say otherwise. I did say under the previous two: 'taken with my old Instamatic camera'. Did anyone else have one of those? No m
  10. Having caught up with this thread here's a couple of photos from me to be going on with: This is NCT AEC Regent V no. 237 on Mansfield Road, Sherwood. And here's a line-up of West Bridgford AECs on South Parade. Sorry if the picture quality is not great. These were taken with my old Instamatic camera (probably around 1968).
  11. One give-away is that there is no hole in the lower middle part of the 'radiator' for a starting handle! In fact, motor buses of that era would often run about with the starting handle inserted.
  12. Well, in the 1950s the fairly standard number of seats on a double decker was 56, with - officially! - 8 standing downstairs. When the modern rear-engined, front entrance double deckers were first introduced in the early 1960s they had 77 seats.
  13. It was Makemson's in Bulwell. Their garage was on the corner of Highbury Road and Piccadilly. I forget when they ceased operations - but I think it was before 1980. Last time I was around that area was in 1997 and the building that was their garage was in use for something else.
  14. That took me back! When I was very young, in the 1950s my dad used to drive buses like that when we lived in Lincolnshire (getting off topic for this Forum!). That clip almost sounded louder than the real thing used to - they had petrol engines, whereas most buses by the time those Bedford were being made (late 1940s) were diesel. When starting cold in the morning and backing out of the garage I remember the engine would make a sort of spitting cough noise, which I'm led to believe was due to water in the carburettor. That gearbox whine was so distinctive!
  15. The Manchester service was the X2. I may have a photo or two of my own somewhere about, but here's one taken at the Victoria bus station a year or two after the time I was describing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21940361@N08/8240818869/ Regarding trainspotting, it was the end of steam that lost my interest in that, for a while at least, causing the change to buses instead.
  16. I'm pretty sure that all the services that came down Mansfield Road went down Huntingdon Street itself. I don't ever remember any bus service along Glasshouse Street.
  17. And I don't imagine you're referring to pyclets either!
  18. This is Barton 1021 all set for Skegness, probably with the vehicle behind it also going there. No. 1118, a second-hand vehicle, parked on Huntingdon St itself. Behind the tree on the left can be seen part of the cafe ('Hughie's') mentioned. Trent no. 56, with the Central Market in the background. To its right on the corner is the Trent booking office.
  19. Confessions of a Bus Spotter At the risk of boring people here's some reminiscences from me. In my bus spotting days in the 1960s I spent literally many happy hours at Huntingdon Street on summer Saturdays. In those days, although use of private cars was increasing rapidly a great many people still went on their family holidays by coach, and to a bus enthusiast in Nottingham, Huntingdon St. on a Saturday during the school summer holidays was the place to be. My friend and I would usually get there before 7am (I think 6.30 was the earliest I ever managed) in order to see the early departu
  20. To this day when talking to people who knew Nottingham in those days and referring to that entrance to the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre I still say 'Where Drury Hill used to be.' And even years after the Victoria station was demolished I still kept referring to the other one as 'the Midland station'.
  21. With those Twelve Journey tickets, the cancelling machine would chop a piece off at the side each time, similar to those Felix tickets shown on an earlier post. There was space for 12 bits to be snipped off, but if you were careful about inserting the ticket into the machine and only did so barely enough for it to operate you could squeeze a 13th journey out of it!
  22. This one is of a Midland General a few years later.
  23. A couple of comments picking up on earlier postings: The Barton non-stop service to Derby was the X42. I think Nottingham was just about the furthest north that Midland Red services reached, but they did run to Grantham from Leicester. In my bus-spotting days my friend and I, or sometimes on my own, used to get a Midland Red 'Day Anywhere' ticket for 12/6 which gave you unlimited travel for the day on any of their buses. In earlier days it was a thing like a playing card, and you had to buy it what I think was the Trent booking office at the bus station. I think I've still got one somewhere
  24. Here's a photo of one with some details:- http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/?cat=160 I'm pretty sure they did first enter service on the 68, as I remember going on one to Clifton and back when they were new for the sake of it - a whole 4d each way! By the way, unlike front entrance buses today where you pay the driver as you get on they still had conductors on them in those days. They then became regulars on the 49 and I would travel on them to school and back.
  25. But as I said, they built the A46 bypass road bridge very close by - see here for a photo of it, with the railway beyond it leading to the flat crossing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jondave/4432545506/ It would surely have been a lot simpler in the long run to build a combined road and rail bridge when they did that instead of now having the problem of trying to fit a separate rail bridge in at that height as well (the road also goes over the main line). I believe a flyover is still in Network Rail's long term plans, but I don't know if it will happen. I think it's not so much the idea o