On Saturday 19th June at Wellington Street, Leeds, not far from the former coach station, 29 potential members and 20 actual members were divided into two mixed groups. One group joined Wallace Arnold 8332U, a 1958 Reliance with Plaxton C41C body for visiting Optare at Crossgates. The other group joined FirstLeeds 8464 (R464JFS), a Wright Axcess bodied Scania, for viewing the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) scheme, the Super Busway and FirstLeeds Cherry Row garage before meeting at Optare mid-morning for the groups to exchange vehicles and programmes.
Tim Dixon of Highways and Transportation, Leeds City Council, introduced the HOV scheme started on 11th May 1998 on the inbound A647 from Bradford. Both the 1.5 km section on the Stanningley bypass and the 5 km. section on Stanningley Road have traffic lights at their exits. These give priority to the inside, HOV lane, reserved for buses, coaches, cyclists, emergency vehicles and cars with two or more passengers, over the outside lane with HGV's and cars with drivers only between 0700 and 1000 hrs and 1600 to 1900 hrs Mondays to Fridays Occupation of the HOV lane is enforced by the police with £20 fixed penalty fines. Four bus operators benefit with journey savings of about 3.5 minutes but only FirstLeeds promote the scheme, which is experimental until a decision later this year on whether to keep it. The idea was devised in America where research on automatic enforcement has tried measuring heartbeats or the relative distribution of body heat per vehicle! It was felt that Pelican crossings with their flashing green man and amber aspects cause confusions. These have been replaced by Puffin crossings which are also fitted with sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians so that traffic is not halted by pedestrians who have already crossed through a gap in the traffic or those who push the button without wishing to cross at all. To date, the scheme has produced a 1% increase in bus use rather than a move from buses to car-sharing schemes and also a reduction in the number of serious accidents.
Chris Gouldthorpe, Traffic Manager of FirstLeeds introduced the Leeds Super Busway. Guided bus ways are not designed specifically for former tram drivers but to physically exclude other vehicles by their differing axle widths, although a cyclist attempted a contra-flow journey the previous day! An outbound guideway was constructed on Scott Hall Road in September 1995 followed by two inbound sections in November 1996 and April 1997 with a fourth, together with a Park and Ride site on King Lane in July 1998. Different contractors were used and the blindfolded expert can distinguish between the four sections according to the quality of ride provided! Traffic lights at the ends of each section give priority to buses over other traffic approaching the roundabout from the same direction but are not positioned to halt traffic from other directions already on the roundabout. The Park and Ride caters for open air parking for 150 cars but covered parking for 10 cycles, each in what can best be described as oversize dog-kennels. Dedicated buses are unnecessary. Diversion of FirstLeeds normal services 35, X35, 71 and 71C is more economical and satisfactory. In the lay-by here, Mr. Gouldthorpe demonstrated the guide arms attached to the front axle of 8464 and answered questions. Other FirstLeeds services using the three guideways along Scott Hall Road are 34, 34M, 45, 45B, 48, 48A and 48B. An attractively produced brochure given to participants has, amongst much information and other interesting photos, four comparative photos depicting 8635, 8405, 8656 and 8464 in the four successive years from 1995. The 450 m. of outbound guideway saves 3 minutes off afternoon peak journeys and the three sections totalling 850 m of inbound guideway saves up to 5 minutes in the morning peak. A 2-3% growth per month in Superbus patronage compared to other FirstLeeds services was recorded for the first 2.5 years of operation.
The colourful allocation of buses to Cherry Row garage is in keeping with its attractive name. Most were out earning their keep but a few of most types were present for viewing. All eighteen Roe bodied AN68s remain in the cream and green Rider livery. All twenty-three Plaxton bodied Darts, all twenty-three Plaxton bodied Lances, all thirteen Leyland Olympians and fifteen of the Alexander Strider bodied Scanias are in cream, yellow, orange and (cherry?) red FirstLeeds livery whilst fifteen Scanias remain in blue and silver Superbus livery. Three Alexander Royal bodied Volvo Olympians and sixteen Wright Axcess Scanias are in FirstGroup livery. Visiting Scania Wright Floline demonstrator, S350SET, also fitted with guide arms, is painted green, blue and cream. Thoughtfully, articulated 1101 (Tl0lVWU), the first of fifteen Wright bodied Volvo B10LA's, was borrowed from Kirkstall garage, training drivers for the Headingley Park service, to provide us with a motorists view of Scott Hall Road. Articulateds do not use the guideways at present owing to excessive tyre scuffing.
On the A64 York Road out to Crossgates, Mr. Gouldthorpe pointed out the site for another guideway which is to be shared with Arriva who will, appropriately, be operating Optare double deckers. Under the railway bridge on the A63 Selby Road at its junction with the A64, a single lane bi-direction guideway is proposed.
Welcoming us on the forecourt of Optare were Sales Staff Chris Wise and Steve Johnson together with 1939 former Leeds City Roe bodied AEC Regent 106 (HUM401) and five Optare neonates, namely Excel T783KNW with one offside and two nearside doors and perimeter seating for Concorde Express, 8.5m Solos T641AJT for Wilts and Dorset and T552ADN in green with blue skirt for CMT/ABC, demonstrator T343FWR in blue with silver skirt and stretched 9.2m coach, T11AGO for Nevin Coaches in a gold and silver livery.
Inside the offices, we were shown a video that also included Ceymo Automobile, a joint venture company with the Itochu Group of Japan and Ceylinco of Sri-Lanka, building, from low cost components, the ColomboRider, a dual-door l0m. bus, many of which are exported from Sri-Lanka. The video emphasised the Unitech parts supply system.
We were given a brief history of the company. Both Chris Wise and Steve Johnson had previously worked for Charles H.Roe, Ltd. Half of the site at Crossgates was eventually purchased from British Leyland, starting with the, offices and finishing shops in February 1985 and more was purchased as the business grew. The half which included the repair facilities has subsequently been demolished. Employees were encouraged to buy shares in both the original and in the second independent company after the fragmentation in 1993 of the United Bus Group into which Optare had merged in 1990. A full history is given in the chapter written on Optare by Tony Greaves in "Charles H Roe" by Geoff Lumb, published by Ian Allan and on sale at Branch Meetings. Additional space came with the purchase of Autobus of Rotherham where a workforce of 100 is engaged in the basic assembly of the MetroRider and repair and certification. 380 are employed at the Crossgates site.
A tour of the works found, amongst others, construction of 8.5m solos for FirstGroup, 9.2m. Solos, stretched by the insertion of a small amidships section for four extra seats, for Nottingham, Excels for Trent and Blackpool and Spectras 13'8" high with conventional step entrances for Arriva Yorkshire. Optare still offer the Spectra with either floor height and either overall body height. On the Spectra and Solo, the heating unit and ducts are installed above the engine and so the rear window is omitted.
80% of Optare bodies are integral. This is much preferred by the Company as they can then design the layout to the needs of operator and passenger. The Allison gearbox and, in the Solo, the Mercedes-Benz and, in the Excel, the Cummins Euro 2 engines are mounted on a sub-frame at the end of the assembly line and can be removed, if necessary, within two hours. A few MetroRiders have been built for stock for immediate purchase but demand for the low-floor Excel and Solo models has been too great to allow time to build for stock.
Sheet steel is cut precisely and with the minimum of waste by the Trumatic 500 controlied by a computer linked directly to the drawing office. The resulting pieces can be shaped accurately with a second machine, the Truma Bend. Back on the forecourt, Ken Swallow proposed a vote of thanks to Chris Wise and Steve Johnson for showing both groups around the works of this most enterprising concern.
After a 40 minute break at Wellington Street, the two groups were united in Bradford 200 (6220KW), a Regent V with MCCW H40/30F body, bound, via the Aire Valley, for the Keighley Bus Museum. One of two sites is part of the former Keighley College and is ideally located close to Keighley Railway Station. It houses, amongst others, nine vehicles from the "Transperience" collection which is sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Science Museum and Bradford M.D.C. The rest of the College buildings are for sale and, if they could be purchased or leased by the Keighley Bus Museum Trust, would allow those vehicles currently housed on top of the Pennines at Denholme to be integrated at Keighley. Glorious views were afforded from the top deck of 220 during the climb to Denholme. Between the two sites, local interest is provided by the vehicles of the former West Yorkshire PTE and its constituent Corporations: six from Leeds, five from Bradford, including 841 (FWX914) a 1948 Sunbeam, formerly a Mexborough and Swinton Traction single-decker and the last trolleybus to run in Bradford, four from Halifax and two from Huddersfield and by the six vehicles of the former West Yorkshire Road Car Company, Ltd. Prewar veterans are Rawtenstall 61 (TF6860), a 1931 all-Leyland LT3, Leeds 139 (ANW682), a 1934 Roe bodied Regent, which, like 106 at Optare and 492 (NNW492) a 1950 Roe bodied Regent III in the collection, is painted in the Leeds blue livery, and Crosville M52 (CEM354), a 1933 E.C.W. bodied Leyland TD5. Two further vehicles with prewar chassis are Keighley-West Yorkshire KDG 26 (CWX671), a 1938 Bristol K5G and Ribble 2057 (RN8622) a 1939 Leyland TD5 rebodied postwar by Roe and Alexander respectively. Furthest from their original homes are Western S.M.T. 1375 (KAG856), a 1957 Alexander bodied Leyland PD2/20, Southern National 1381 (formerly OTT90 but now SVS904), a 1954 Bristol LS6G coach and London Transport RT3314 (LYR533).
This report cannot do justice to all the vehicles in this interesting collection. The Museum has a publication at £2.00 which gives full details of all the vehicles.
Well, Robert K., you missed an excellent Buzz Day. Our thanks are due to our hosts: Leeds City Council, FirstLeeds, Optare and the Keighley Bus Museum Trust and also to our own Ken Swallow and Martin Yates for their expert organisation. We hope to welcome 29 new members to the Society and hope that the success of this promotional day will lead to more such days in the future!