Leeds City Transport

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Sun 24 Aug, 2008 9:36 pm

simong wrote: D. A. Young wrote: Green buses with blue seats.But am I in the minority when I say I like the purple slugs now on route 4 and perhaps elsewhere as well? For example, they've been in service in York as well for a few years. I'm hardly a regular rider on them, not now living in Leeds, but they seemed OK to me on the couple of trips I've made. So why are they so disliked?D. A. Young There are quite a few reasons: for one, First have advocated them as an alternative to trams, which misses the point somewhat as they're still diesel powered as opposed to electric and the point was to reduce emissions at street level. In addition they are very limited in the services that they can run: the 1 and the 4 are the only bendy bus services in town because on other routes there are potential issues with their turning ability - I think they found similar problems in York, and that's not just the width of the city streets, but in other places in the suburbs.West Yorkshire was very quick to dump its municipal bus services when deregulation came, literally handing them over to Yorkshire Rider on deregulation day: compare this to South Yorkshire, who retained their service for several years, initially as the owner and then as a management backed buyout (which ultimately got sucked up by First).Where the borough still has investment in the transport services they actually work pretty well: Nottingham retains its City Transport Department and runs its buses and trams very successfully, and Edinburgh's Lothian Buses are very good. However, business has the bus services of most of the rest of the country firmly in its grip, and no government will ever change that while they believe that they have to keep business happy. The best that we could possibly hope for would be a stronger Metro that can subsidise services and actually have some say in how they're run: I particularily enjoy being on a 33 or 33a when it runs out of fuel for example - last Saturday at midnight at Menston station being only the most recent - yet it's something that First have been castigated for repeatedly over the five years that I've used the route, and nothing changes. Privatisation of the buses like privatisation of water, and railways is a mess. Just because one nationalised industry (Telephones) is suitable for privatisation doesn't mean they all are.The guy who organised the bus privatisation Nick Ridley could see from the various experiments what a mess it was going to be - but as a dogmatist he didn't care. He wouldn't have to ride on them anyway would he.

Rushers · Post by **Rushers** » Sun 24 Aug, 2008 10:47 pm

Anybody been on the Blenau Ffestiniog (?) railway in Wales? The small engines were made at Hunslet Engine Works and all the livery inside the coaches is the old LCT livery of greens and gold.I began my working life at Kirkstall works on Kirkstall Road in 1974 and did my apprenticeship there. My late father in law was a conductor, driver, Inspector and back to driver on the buses. He mainly worked out of Torre Road and was called Peter Cross. He ended up in the cash office at Swinegate.I worked on the services section at Kirkstall and was a plumber so I got to work at all the garages and also Metro House at George St. Wakefield when they became WYPTE in late 1974. Part of my job was glazing bus shelters. What a pain that was!!!

Trojan · Post by **Trojan** » Mon 25 Aug, 2008 12:50 am

Rushers wrote: Anybody been on the Blenau Ffestiniog (?) railway in Wales? The small engines were made at Hunslet Engine Works and all the livery inside the coaches is the old LCT livery of greens and gold.I began my working life at Kirkstall works on Kirkstall Road in 1974 and did my apprenticeship there. My late father in law was a conductor, driver, Inspector and back to driver on the buses. He mainly worked out of Torre Road and was called Peter Cross. He ended up in the cash office at Swinegate.I worked on the services section at Kirkstall and was a plumber so I got to work at all the garages and also Metro House at George St. Wakefield when they became WYPTE in late 1974. Part of my job was glazing bus shelters. What a pain that was!!! I thought that most of the engines on the Ffestiniog Railway were built at Vulcan Foundry in Newton le Willows. Perhaps the coaches were built in Leeds?

BIG N · Post by **BIG N** » Mon 25 Aug, 2008 2:29 pm

As far as I am aware the only loco on the Ffestiniog built by Hunslet was Blanche and she was built for a quarry and transferred to the railway when it closed - nothing on the F.R. was built at Vulcan to my knowledge.

Rushers · Post by **Rushers** » Tue 26 Aug, 2008 9:51 pm

I went for a ride on the railway when I stayed in Porthmadog and definitely recall seeing the Hunslet Engine Works brass plate on the engine. The inside of the carriages were like an old LCT bus.

Old Leo · Post by **Old Leo** » Wed 27 Aug, 2008 11:00 pm

The FR website lists all its locos. Of those currently in service, none were built by Vulcan. Five were built by the FR at its Boston Lodge Works, two by George England in the 19th century and Blanche was works no. 593 of 1893 by Hunslet, originally for the Penrhyn Quarry.

Post by **chameleon** » Sat 27 Feb, 2010 6:02 pm

Old Thread but probably appropriate if anyone wants a little from Torre Road -http://www.flickr.com/photos/chameleon2 ... 520060462/

ex loiner · Post by **ex loiner** » Mon 01 Mar, 2010 4:42 am

Just joined and remember well the L.C.T I wore the "Lincoln Green" for quite a few year and drove a lot of the buses pictured my red badge was BB 65673 and green badge BB 81483 are there anymore ex L.C.T out there ex loiner

Uno Hoo · Post by **Uno Hoo** » Tue 02 Mar, 2010 12:10 am

ex loiner wrote: Just joined and remember well the L.C.T I wore the "Lincoln Green" for quite a few year and drove a lot of the buses pictured my red badge was BB 65673 and green badge BB 81483 are there anymore ex L.C.T out there ex loiner Welcome, ex-loiner. There sure are ex-LCT personnel on here, but they're pretty quiet at the moment - maybe there's a "Secret Leeds City Transport" re-union taking place!

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Tue 02 Mar, 2010 8:29 pm

D. A. Young wrote: But am I in the minority when I say I like the purple slugs now on route 4 and perhaps elsewhere as well? For example, they've been in service in York as well for a few years. I'm hardly a regular rider on them, not now living in Leeds, but they seemed OK to me on the couple of trips I've made. So why are they so disliked?And I like the idea of a conductor on board.D. A. Young The conductor on board is the only good idea about these buses.One of the worst bugbears I have with them is the appalling use of interior space. The actual seating capacity is little more than a traditional single decker with around half the passenger capacity being standing. Standing isn't a good idea on a full bus doing 30 mph carving through traffic on narrow streets. Then the seats are too narrow and in the "lounge" area at the rear there isn't anywhere for everyones legs to go if all the seats are occupied.Plus, it's now on record that First also used them to put the skids under the last Supertram bid, but promising the then Transport Secretary (Alastair Darling) that they could do the job with ftr's at minimal cost. A cynic might suggest it had more to do with the tram operator concession going out to tender and them potentially missing out.