THE SCOTTISH VINTAGE BUS MUSEUM - P573 (WG 8790)
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DETAILS Chassis: Leyland Tiger TS8 Special, built 1939, chassis no. 302749 Body: W.Alexander, C39F single deck coach, built 1939 Engine: First Licensed: 1st June, 1939 |
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BACKGROUND
HISTORY
The TS8 'special' was a
Leyland variant specifically developed for the SMT Group. 150 were built, all
Alexander bodied, for Alexanders, SMT and Western SMT in 1939/40, and were a
common sight throughout Scotland until the early 1960s. They differed from
standard 35-seat TS8s in that the front bulkhead was moved some 6 in. forward,
allowing for an extra row of seats making them 39 seaters, the rear of the
engine being enclosed in a removable cowl which projected into the entrance area.
(Jasper Pettie)
HISTORY
OF THIS VEHICLE
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P573 was the second of
the 1939 TS8s delivered to Alexanders.
It was bodied at the Drip Road coachworks in Stirling with a 39-seat
coach body, possible because of chassis modifications which made it a TS8
Special. Finished in Bluebird
livery the vehicle operated initially from Larbert Road Depot, being used on
the longer distance services covered from that Garage. Left: When new outside Leyland's North Works (ATC Collection) |
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Sometime in the early 1940s the vehicle received all over blue
livery and the heating system was altered to the later standard, the two
intake grilles in the front dome being removed along with the circular anemostat
vents inside the saloon, and the Clayton canopy heater modified to intake
under the canopy and discharge down a trunking in the middle of the front
bulkhead. Right: Larbert Road
Depot est (c1950) (ET Collection) |
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In 1947 the vehicle received a heavy overhaul and the original
window pans were replaced with Claytonrite pattern as used on the Leyland and
Alexander bodied double deckers. The
original side sweeps were replaced with the familiar arrow trim encompassing the
title ‘Bluebird’, and the livery adopted was that of the post-war Bluebird
style with white window pillars.
By 1952 the vehicle was
allocated to Kilsyth garage and by 1954 it had moved to Bannockburn where it
remained until withdrawn in December 1961*.
By the late 1950s it had been repainted in two-tone blue bus livery with
standard bus fleetnames, the side trim having been removed along with the
sunshine roof. It spent its twilight
years on local runs around Stirling.
P573 was sold to Millburn
Motors in December 1961 - later reported in use as a caravan at Tummel Bridge
in July 1965.
Left: Murray Place
Stirling (c1960) (Allan Condie) Allan Condie
Mike Chapman and Eddie Taylor take up the story:
The Recovery of a1939 Leyland Tiger TS8 Special
As remembered by Mike Chapman and
Eddie Taylor
(With apologies to those whose names
have been omitted or forgotten and further apologies for the vagueness of some
dates and place names)
By 1979, older vehicles were becoming
harder to find although they did occasionally surface, hidden away in unlikely
places, just waiting to be found. Eddie discovered that a work colleague was a
keen hillwalker and often stayed in a converted bus in the Highlands. Curiosity
aroused, he asked for more details, (ie reg no, fleet no, etc). After his next
visit Dougie returned with the fleet no P573. Records were consulted and
disbelief followed. If that fleet number was correct it meant that the bus was
a Leyland Tiger TS8 Special, a class thought to be long extinct. Furthermore,
it was the first production model (numerically) to enter Alexanders’ fleet – P572
being the prototype. This had to be investigated.
With Dougie’s help, the
owner and exact location of the bus was determined. Bill Tuckwell and Ian
Bruce expressed an interest in being involved in the project and we were
grateful to have the benefit of their experience. The owner was contacted and
we arranged a visit to view the bus to determine whether is was savable and if
it could be recovered. The road to Fersit, where the bus was located, is off
the A86 some 5 miles east of Roy Bridge. (Road is probably an exaggeration -
2.5 miles of single track with a couple of narrow bridges, plenty of tight
bends, steep hills and overhanging trees.) Still, the bus had got up there so,
in theory it should come down.
When we arrived and met
the owner, we were given a brief history of how the bus came to be there. It
had been bought some 20 years earlier and driven into position near the house.
The insides had been stripped out and some basic facilities, including a wood
burning stove, installed to allow the bus to be used as bothy accommodation for
hillwalkers in the area. We explained why we were interested in the bus and
showed some pictures of Bill’s TS7 (P331) and FAC4.
An initial inspection revealed
that all of the mechanicals were still in situ. The bodywork was in fairly
rough condition, as would be expected after such a time standing outside in the
lovely Highland weather, but externally complete. In fact the only missing
items were the folding passenger door, which had been replaced with a wooden
shed door, and the cab door, which had partly disintegrated. Internally, all of
the seats, luggage racks and some of the light fittings had been removed.
Getting the bus out of its resting place would also be fairly straightforward,
no 6ft stone walls or new houses in the way!
The registration plates, WG8790
and one of the fleet plates P573 were still on the bus, confirming
its identity. We could not think of any other TS8 Special in preservation, so P573
would fill a gap in the range of preserved Leyland vehicles and, to this
day, no other example has come to light so P573 remains a unique
survivor. A brief discussion followed and we all agreed that we had to try to
save it. The owner was willing to let us have the bus if we could provide
another one to take its place. A syndicate, comprising Eddie Taylor, Mike
Chapman, Bill Tuckwell and Ian Bruce was formed with a view to saving the bus.
The next step was to find
a suitable vehicle to take the place of P573 at Fersit. That vehicle turned out
to be 121CVD, an Ex- Baxter’s AEC Reliance/Alexander DP41F B964 which
had been the team bus for Inverkeithing United FC. It was purchased for £180
and, in Dec 79, moved from Inverkeithing to temporary parking on a farm near
East Kilbride. The plan was to drive the replacement up to Fersit, strip off
any spares we could for 7424SP and then tow P573 back to East
Kilbride. It took a while to get this arranged and, in the meantime, the owner
had found and installed a residential caravan. We agreed to contribute towards
the cost of this, instead of providing the bus and 121CVD was sold on
and eventually scrapped.
We finally managed to
arrange a date for the recovery (autumn 1980) and set off for Fersit. Ian
Mckerracher’s Leyland Tiger TS8 tow wagon CSF226 – ML199 had been
“hired in” for the tow job, the rest of us travelled up by car. We arrived to
find that access to P573 had already been cleared and we set to work
preparing the bus. Loose bits were secured and the bus was made safe to tow
around lunchtime. The track out from the house to the road involved a fairly
steep climb of about 100 yards over loose gravel and doubts were expressed as
to whether the tow truck would handle this. We decided 
to see if P573 would fire up and come out under its own
steam.
We had already established
that the engine was not seized so, after checking the oil state, we opened the
valve lifter, hooked up a set of batteries to the starter and, to our surprise,
the engine turned over easily. Next we rigged up a gravity fed fuel supply and
tried again. Almost immediately, the engine tried to fire so we eased in the
valve lifter and, after a few coughs, splutters and bangs, the engine burst
into life. After a few seconds running, the engine was ticking over nicely, as
though it had just come in from a day’s service work.
Left: Fersit, as found,
engine running ( Mike Chapman)
There was a rush for the
cab as the volunteers fought for the opportunity to be the one to drive the bus
out but, after such a promising start, we were all to be disappointed. It was
impossible to select any of the gears. Even with the engine off none of the
gears would select, so it wasn’t that the clutch had stuck to the flywheel. The
top of the selector box was removed and it was found that the selector sliders
appeared to be jammed.
Time was now running short
if we were to complete the journey back to civilisation before dark, so we
accepted an offer from the owner’s son to tow the 
bus to the top of the hill with his Forestry tractor. The tractor
made light work of the load and rough surface and pulled the bus up with ease.
With P573 safely at the top of the hill, it
was hitched up to the tow wagon and the long journey home began. Negotiating
the narrow road down to the A86 was interesting and a tight squeeze at times.
Once on the main road, progress was good and trouble free down through Fort
William, Glencoe, Crianlarich and Callander but, because of the delays trying
to sort out the gearbox, time was beating us and it was clear that we would not
reach East Kilbride until long after darkness had fallen. So it was decided to
park the bus at a lorry yard in Doune and continue the journey to East Kilbride
later in the week.
Right: Doune, hitching up ( Mike Chapman)
The second phase of the
recovery took place during the middle of the following week, so it was early
finishes at work and off to Doune to continue the move. ML199 was once
again the workhorse and pictures show the hitching up and departure from Doune.
Left: Leaving Doune (
Mike Chapman)
The journey to East Kilbride was fairly uneventful, apart from one
tactical reverse when a wrong exit was taken off a roundabout. P573 arrived
safely at the farm just as darkness was falling. The bus was parked up in a
field near one of the farm’s barns where it was to remain for the next two
years or so.
Outside parking/storage is
not the ideal situation for a vehicle awaiting restoration but, at the time, it
was all we could get and the price was right (i.e. free). During all of its
time at the farm the bus stood outside and was subject to the vagaries of the
Scottish climate and the local yob element who took great pleasure, I am sure,
in breaking all of the windows and generally doing as much damage as they
could. No work was done on the bus while it was stored at the farm, due to the
distance to travel, the size of the task and the unsuitable environment and we
were not able to come up with a better solution which we could afford. One
important item was dealt with – the retention of the bus’s registration number,
the loss of which was threatened by the DVLC’s plan to kill off all the old
registration numbers which had never been reported as scrapped.
Time passed, as it does,
and The Scottish Vintage Bus Museum got itself off the ground. Larger premises
were acquired at East Whitburn which offered undercover storage and workshop
and pit facilities. Unfortunately we were not quick enough to get a space there
for P573 but storage space was now available at Pathhead. Concern about
the rapidly deteriorating condition of the vehicle resulted in a Bus Museum
working party descending on the farm one freezing Sunday morning with the aim
of transferring the bus to Pathhead for storage.
The bus was towed up from the field onto hard standing by one of the
farm tractors. Its condition by now could only be described as “hingin’”. Most
of the body panels were in the process of detaching themselves from the frames
and had to be removed. More of the small interior and exterior fittings had
disappeared.
Right: Preparing for the move to Pathhead ( Mike Chapman)
After several hours of
hard work on the remaining bodywork and fitting of roadworthy wheels and tyres,
a swan-neck bar was attached to the front axle and P573 was deemed ready
for towing. All of the loose bits were secured inside the bus and it was a very
sad looking vehicle which was hitched up to the museum’s AEC Matador.
With Andy Walker at the
wheel of the Matador and Mike Chapman keeping P573 in a straight line
behind it, we set off for Pathhead. Facilities in the Leyland’s cab were less
than basic. No windscreen, no floor, no door – in fact, not much more than a
seat and a steering wheel.
A comfort stop was taken
at Harthill Services on the M8 where we had a cup of tea and Mike had a chance
to thaw out. When we returned to the vehicles, a coach party was just arriving
and a few looked in disbelief at our ensemble and asked if we were taking it to
a scrappie. When we explained that their coach had broken down and that this
was their replacement vehicle, for some reason, they didn’t believe us!
The journey continued with
Eddie Taylor at the wheel of P573. Just Eddie’s luck. As we left
Harthill heading for East Whitburn the rain started and he had to endure a
soaking along with the biting wind. We stopped in at East Whitburn to pick up a
second Matador which was also going to Pathhead. So our Matador was hitched up
to the lifeless Matador and P573 towing duties were taken up by David
Heathcote’s Leyland Tiger TS8, WG8107 - ML205. The rain kept
falling as the convoy continued on to Pathhead where P573 remained,
still untouched, for several years before being transferred to East Whitburn for
a short spell and eventually to its current home at Lathalmond. Lack of funds
and the purchase of two other vehicles meant that P573 lay neglected at
the back of a shed for more years, deteriorating further.
P573’s
rarity value was not forgotten, however, and in 2003 it was suggested that, if
the bus was owned by the Museum, its restoration could be funded by an appeal
for public donations. The owners readily agreed to this, ownership was
transferred and the project was set in motion. Work has, after a delay of more
than 20 years, now begun on the restoration of the only Leyland Tiger TS8
Special known to have survived.
(Mike Chapman and Eddie Taylor)
RESTORATION
DETAILS
Following an appeal ……….
The body of course had all
but collapsed and Phase I of restoration comprises a complete new frame to be
built using what's left of the original as patterns. A detailed inspection and
assessment of the remains has been made. In order to do this what's left of the
body was dismantled, taking the vehicle down to the bare chassis.
It will be required to
fabricate a complete new frame comprising pillars, roof sticks, main bearers,
front bulkhead, wheel arches, cab framing and interior stress panels. However,
there's also good news. All the mechanical components are present, and can be
refurbished by volunteers with the minimum of replacement and therefore cost.
The Museum fortunately has a good stock of pre-war Leyland parts which can be
used to replace any worn or defective items. The engine can be rebuilt if
necessary by volunteer labour. The chassis has survived in reasonable
condition, having only suffered surface rust, and once shot blasted and
spray-painted will be as good as new. Despite the funding shortfall, we are
going to make a start.
(Jasper Pettie)