Surviving Leeds city transport buses

Awol Wakefield · Post by **Awol Wakefield** » Mon 08 Oct, 2007 4:11 pm

Barwicker wrote: rangieowner wrote: Barwicker wrote: West Yorkshire Buses were almost exclusively "Bristol" chassis with bodywork by Eastern Counties of Lowestoft. They were a nationalised company in all but name and very similar buses could be seen in many parts of the country. I can dimly remember WY buses with the rear staircase open never mind the back platform!! and I am not that old. If you really want to know something about Leeds Transport there are now four volumes of History published by the Leeds Transport Historical Society. Vols 1 to 3 are certainly available in Leeds libraries , Vol 4 is very new and goes up to 1974. Yeah! they were called Yorkshire Traction in S Yorks if i remember correctly! still see Yorkshire Traction buses on Leeds/Barnsley run! Oddly enough I don't think Yorkshire Traction were ever part of the nationalised "Empire" but United who operated in Durham & Narth Yorkshire certainly were. Yorkshire Traction was indeed a part of "NBC" at one time. My brother worked for them out of their Shafton Depot. Just registered to this site today "Keep up the good work"

BONDGATE BUSES · Post by **BONDGATE BUSES** » Tue 09 Oct, 2007 10:58 am

Otleybard wrote: Wow, some memories here! I worked on the buses out of Headingley as a guard (conductor) in the early 70s and well remember the exhilharaton of hanging off the back up Otley Road on balmy summer evenings (the phasing out of the back loaders killed the job). Lots of laughs and some brilliant characters, from gnarled old tram drivers to dopehead students to a few borderline psychotics - all human life was there! Must have worked with a thousand people; where did they all go? I'm sure I know who "Otleybard is" - as I was one of the thousand people he worked with at Headingley - I was somewhere midway between a "gnarled old tram driver" and a "dopehead student" !!Good to see these fascinating messages on the transport scene when it WAS an enjoyable occupation, especially for those of us who could appreciate the "human" side of things and the chuckles.

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Tue 09 Oct, 2007 11:03 am

Some great pics & tales there fellas! Wouldn't it be good if we could have some character to our busses again these days instead of them all looking the same First bus nearly in every city!

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Tue 09 Oct, 2007 7:41 pm

Just found this shot i took of Regent 492. It looks like it's been totally stripped down for a full refurb. Bet it will look splendid when finished!

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Wed 10 Oct, 2007 10:13 pm

roundhegian wrote: rangieowner wrote: perhaps it turned off the bell so no one could request to get off a limited stop service!! maybe! i dunno! It illuminated a sign ( attached to the underside of the upper deck on the nearside of the bus ) which read " Limited " .When the " Limited " sign was silluminated it meant that the bus was an express service and its first stop would be somewhere near its destination .For example a " Limited " service from Leeds city centre to Seacroft would not stop until it reached South Parkway . That would have been the X16 - same route as the ordinary 16 from Seacroft and then along Wykebeck Valley Road, up the hill past Gipton Fire Station and down York Road to town.When I used to catch it the last stop was either Wykebeck Valley Road (near the school) or the one after...it was great. It left Seacroft Bus Station 2 minutes after the ordinary 16 (but from the single stop on it's own near the rent office, not the usual 16 stop) but got to town miles faster. It ran up Eastgate, along Vicar Lane and then terminated outside the top of the Market on Kirkgate, opposite what used to be the TSB bank and then ran back again. Even into the 80's it was usually one of the old two door Atlanteans - in the summer you used to cross your fingers for one of the models with the opening windows at the front upstairs otherwise it was like a greenhouse with the other tiny windows they had.It used to have a "Fastaway" sign to show it was the limited service. It was a sad day when they did away with the "Fastaway" buses.

BONDGATE BUSES · Post by **BONDGATE BUSES** » Thu 11 Oct, 2007 1:43 am

I wonder how many can remember a feature of the fares on the "Fastaway" services ?? The fares were 2d per journey more than the standard price and, if I recall correctly, the first generation of ten journey tickets were introduced on the buses- with those first tickets the passenger bought it from the driver, but only cancelled it in the machine on the following nine trips !!

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Thu 11 Oct, 2007 2:01 am

I can't remember that far back. But i can remember the Kerching tickets from years ago that we used to slide in the machine & it chopped off a bit of the ticket each time we boarded the bus.. My favourite trick was to use a new Kerching ticket as a template on the same size card, cut it out & use them all the time when you boarded the bus. No wonder thay scrapped the things when they emptied the boxes full of blank card as every one i knew was doing the same thing when i told them how to do it. It wasn't very honest but then again they shouldn't have done away with all the inspectors that would have caught us!

LS1 · Post by **LS1** » Thu 11 Oct, 2007 9:14 am

Were they called "Saverstrips" I alwasy remember ging to town with my grandparents and having one of these - also had the bright idea of making a template too!!! - They also worked on trains and instead of kerchinging the ticket the train conductor would clip a bit off. I used to use it going to Bradford via train and bus!

Phill_d · Post by **Phill_d** » Thu 11 Oct, 2007 10:27 am

I think the saver strip & kerching were very simlar but not the same thing. talking about the trains now i also remember the West Yorkshire day rovers we had. A piece of card where you had the The year, The Date & month on. They were like a scratch card that you scraped off the date you were using it. Great idea was to save your old ones, Have your card you wanted to use lets say you had scraped off june 25. Get an old ticket with june 25 still on, Carefully cut them out, splice the no's in half & glue them back over the offending scratched off date. You could keep on with the same process forever more! There was a whole load of us doing this for maybe 2 years way back in the early 80's untill a train conductor decided to pull my friends ticket out of his see through card holder & all the dates fell off! We were rumbled & the demise of that style of ticket quickly followed! Little sods eh?

liits · Post by **liits** » Thu 11 Oct, 2007 4:45 pm

carrotol wrote: LS1. Pic of the watch that Grandad used 'on the buses'. I remember his friend had same watch but don't know if they were issued by bus company or not. The watch is a "Smiths Empire" [bit obvious that, it's printed on the dial]. They came in two different types, one with luminous hands and dial, like the one in the pic, or with just plain hands and dial. They were also standard Civil Service issue. Mine keeps the worst time possible and would suit the bus operation where I live [London].