Bus Odddity Oddments

What's Your Favourite Oddity?

fbb is a great fan of 1960s Barton. A highly decorated Leyland (above) or a two door VAL (below) ...

... and not forgetting the Dennis Loline with a low height body! Mind your head when leaving your seat, and mind it a lot!

A few full front deckers were around in fbb's youth.

But for consistent oddity the "prize" must go to Walsall Corporation. It had a good selection of pre-owned buses ...

... and the two door, two staircase high capacity (100) mega decker before Stagecoach invented the term and well before the Boris bus in London.

But the choice of trolleybus replacement vehicles for Walsall's complex estate routes was truly odd.  Daimler Fleetlines were chosen, but short in length ...

... to go round tight corners, AND ...

... some with an extra door for one man dual entry and exit. When fbb first visited in his late teens, there were some full fronted buses still pottering about.

But we certainly do not think of the traditional London Routemaster as a haven for oddities.

There was, of course, FRM 1, London Transport's equivalent to the Atlantean.

There was a front entrance "standard" Routemaster ...

...which only ever found favour in London on the BEA airport shuttles.

But Northern (a BET company, soon to be sucked into e National Bus Company) was keen on Routemasters - pretty much the only operator outside London that was!

But like all bus companies facing an economic squeeze, Northern wanted to operate its buses one man.

So a Routemaster was modified and christened the Wearsider.

The cab (and presumably the controls) were moved back to allow the driver to collect fares. Note the sticky-out nose and the strange looking window.

But when this bus was involved in a prang ...

... it was "merged" with bits of Routemaster to make the Tynesider.

And that was really weird! Note a similar dual entrance style to the Walsall Fleetlines, again to allow for one man operation with "dual flow!.

It featured (fuzzily) in the trade press. Back then no one was horrified by the staircase needed to climb up to the saloon!

And here are the two oddities parked together resplendent in their NBC poppy red livery(?).

As far as fbb can gather, Union opposition meant that neither ever operated "one man" and the ideas were never perpetuated.

Both are preserved.

Are there any other contenders for weirdness?

Tomorrow we go far, far away.

 Next universal blog : Sunday 9th Feb