LETTERS TO OMNIBUS
THE ‘MANCHESTER’ GUYS
I am planning to produce a drawing to build a 4mm scale model of the Manchester style vehicles built by Weymann (Midland Red had a couple of them in 1943) but I am having trouble with body dimensions. I seem to draw a blank at every avenue I take.
Dimensions I am after that will help me are:- overall height, bottom edge of lower saloon panels to lower saloon waist rail, waist rail to cant rail, cant rail to upper saloon waist rail, and upper saloon waist to cant rail, overall length of body and length of lower saloon. I have dimensions of Guy chassis, so once I have some body dimensions I can then match them to the chassis.
I have photographs all round of these two vehicles (GHA923 and GHA924) as built, but only offside and nearside views of them when rebuilt, but no rear view when rebuilt. Any rear view of the rebuilt form would be helpful.
Bill French
1 Ellwand Court, Dawley, TELFORD, TF4 3LD
GHA923 and GHA924 entered service in 1943. Their bodies were rare in being genuine Metro-Cammell Weymann products at a time when the two companies were quite separate manufacturers, although they shared a joint sales organisation. The frames were produced by Metro-Cammell, presumably around 1940 and presumably also to an order for Manchester, but would then have been “frozen” upon the directive to stop manufacturing buses. When bus building recommenced in 1942, manufacturers were allowed to use up existing stocks of manufactured components; hence the small numbers of “unfrozen” vehicles that preceded the true “utilities”. The “relaxed” specification came later, towards the end of WWII, when features such as panel-beaten rear domes were reintroduced. By 1942, Metro-Cammell at Washwood Heath would have been manufacturing tanks, so the “Manchester” frames were dispatched to Weymann at Addlestone for completion.
Few pre-war Metro-Cammell drawings survived WWII and the 1948 transfer to Elmdon and the 1969 return to Washwood Heath. Even so, drawings for these particular bodies were probably sent to Addlestone, which closed in 1965, and are equally likely to have been lost.
However, the bodies in question appear to have been copied from a contemporary Crossley design. (Metro-Cammell also built some bodies for Manchester in the 1950s to the then current Crossley style.) While there would have been some detail differences between the true Crossley bodies and the Metro-Cammell copies, details of the contemporary Crossley bodies might be sufficient, although again the chances of original drawings surviving are remote.
Nevertheless, if anyone can help Bill with drawings, photographs or other data, please contact him directly.
SOS MYSTERY OBJECT (1)
Very first and foremost, I am a timetable rather than vehicle enthusiast so am not very technically minded – this e-mail is more likely to give you a laugh than an answer!
I was born in Manchester in 1942 and my mother came from Luston, near Leominster, where we spent most holidays. I can JUST remember what I think were SOSs on the X34 (Shrewsbury-Hereford). I particularly remember the stencil route numbers and destination boards in the front nearside window, and have seen photographs of these vehicles in which they had a small spotlight fitted outside the vehicle, shining on the destination at night.
I would suggest that these lights might have contravened blackout regulations during the war and the fitting could therefore have been a cab-mounted light that shone on the service number and got around the regulations?
As asides, the only other thing I remember about these vehicles (after all, I was only ten at the most!) was the stock of destination boards kept in an open box at Leominster Bus Station, which the conductor would root amongst for the next journey when changing routes. Probably such freely available (to all!) 'open-air' stocks of potential 'weapons' would not be dreamt of nowadays (and probably banned by the police if they were!). I have also always assumed that the reason Midland Red did not have service numbers like '111' or '222' is that buses only carried a maximum of two stencils of the same figure.
Last, but my no means least, I have found your web site of enormous interest and pleasure and you will soon be receiving a membership application from me, even though it's from a Mancunian who now lives in Inverness!
John Hodkinson
Inverness
It is true that Midland Red did avoid triple same digit route numbers so that only two stencils of each number needed to be carried.
SOS MYSTERY OBJECT (2)
If I recall correctly this was where the doorway light switch was fitted. Normally conductors switched it on (from a second switch in the saloon) to attract the driver. This was better than the bell as the bell often couldn’t be heard above rattles. Drivers switched it off and if you were inside it gave a clue to give the starting bell. It would have been nice if FEDDs had had the same layout of doorway light as the FEDD bells were nearly useless, rattles or not.
While mentioning bells, when the LRRs got a bell cord c1946 it ran along the offside into the cab; the rest of the fleet should have been done likewise. No doubt these were cheap surplus from Bedford OWBs when they reverted back to electrics in the OB The LRR/OWB were smaller domes than normal BMMOs.
Incidentally, the Gray/Keeley/Seale Midland Red history (volume 1, page 129) says FHA841 2337 had electric bells. We had it from its last full COF (body chassis and paintshop job) having normal cord and no signs of it having anything different in a previous life...
Colin Gittins
Felixstowe
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
