Wigan Album

Whitewalled during the war, due to shielded lighting in the blackout

Well you learn something new everyday<g>

The Abbey Lakes buses were good if you lived in UpHolland, they used to cross Wigan and go to Standish, handy if you had to go to the infirmary. Remember the barn in the background, demolished in the early 60s.

I don't really know William Collins of panto fame, but I can see the resemblance between Conductor Bill Collins and his other son Derek.

The date given for the pic is 1938. If it had been a wartime shot, tyres were whitened to help with visibility in the blackout. Other measures included painting the front of the mudguards, and sometimes their outside edges, and continuing this along the safety rails beneath the sides of the saloon. That it is almost certainly not a wartime shot is confirmed by the lack of shrouding on the headlamps and fog-lamp. The pic of Gore's Bedford lorry seen here a few days ago shows one such shrouded headlamp (the other being blanked off completely).

You can certainly see how proud the guys are of their immaculate British made Leyland bus.

Ron, don't know about the whitewalled tyres being posh! They look like a kid has done 'em with a yard brush.

The date 1938 was written on the back of the photo so I presume that was the date it was taken? The bus does look in immaculate condition.

brilliant photo ron. this is when buses were looked after with pride not like today. i see long is at it again putting photos down.

I don't know what your problem is "billy", but did your Comment add anything useful to the picture?
The bus is probably a Leyland Titan TD5c - the 'c' standing for 'Torque Converter' - a Leyland innovation providing semi-automatic gear changing. The box on which the fleet number is written beside the bonnet is for the fluid for this.
Bodywork was probably Leyland's own - and, like many in the fleet at the time, is of lowbridge construction.
There's a pic of a similar vehicle (but without the converter) in D Jack's "Leyland Bus" - it was delivered in 1940, and the caption draws attention to the same elaborate lining-out seen here. The pic must have been a pre-delivery pose - there are no signs of blackout measures having been taken with the lamps, or by the application of white paint.

The bus is in fact 1939 Leyland TD5 JP3904 with standard 4 speed gearbox Wigan didnt own any gearless The box with the fleet number on is the autovac this draws fuel from the tank and delivers it to the engine As you cant see the headlights because they are behind the crew you cant tell if they have shrouds on or not as you can see the sidelights didnt have shrouds

Thanks for the corrections, skippy - it's good to have the record set straight. Was this the wartime painting scheme for Wigan buses? There's a pic of EK7260 in EK Stretch's 'The Tramways of Wigan', looking as if it's in delivery condition (1929), rather than withdrawal condition (1940), and it has whitewall tyres, indicating it may have been standard practice, rather than wartime livery. From my bus books, sidelamps were shrouded in other fleets, and regulations for blackout painting (white leading edges, dumbbells) are mentioned.

I used to travel that route to get to the Hollies at Marylebone from home in Pem. Many years later than this photo, but, by the looks of things, same style open backed buses.

Great picture Ron, just to add to information above, the PSV circle fleet history of WCT, states that it was new in March 1939, and withdrawn from service in June 1957. Sold to a London dealer for breaking up.

So the date on the photo may not quite be right..;o)
I lived through that period of whitewalled tyres & remember also the stripes down the running boards & wheel arches.
What you don't see photos of these days, are the buses towing oil heaters,a boiler with a coke fire, heating oil to make gas to use instead of the normal fuel used in those days. I recall standing at Evan House Farm terminus,SLG watching the conducter, poking the fire & adding more coke.
That system was so bad, many times, if a full load was carried, a steep hill such as the one at New Srings to Aspull, the passengers had to get off and walk to the top before getting back on the bus again..;o)

Regarding the Rev David Long's comments about the bodywork probably being Leyland's own and his reference to a similar vehicle being featured in D Jack's Leyland Bus and delivered in 1940. I have this book and, since the 1940 photo is obviously taken outside the Plantation Gates on Wigan lane, I have always assumed it was on completion of bodywork at the nearby Northern counties works.

Leyland buses or indeed any make of public transport didn't make the bodies, makers only made the running gear, IE chassis and transmision. The coach work was done by companys like SMT of Edinburgh, W. Alexander Ltd of Falkirk and here in Wigan Massey brothers that later became Northern Counties of Pemberton.

Leyland did make their own bodies - but others also bodied their chassis. The caption to the pic of EK7260 says this was an all-Leyland vehicle, but notes it was posed in Mesnes Road "a favourite spot for Northern Counties official photographs", and that the pic is from the Northern Counies collection. EK Stretch opines 'it seems that it probably had a Northern Counties body. Perhaps it was sub=contracted from Leyland'. Maybe the same was true of the 1940 bus.

Only the Leyland National single-deck buses of 1977, is an all-Leyland product, these were supplied to Lancashire United who were one of the first...Ribble had many as well.

A quote from the chapter on the Leyland National in the above-mentioned book "Leyland Bus Mk2" by D Jack: 'As early as the the mid 1950s, shortly after ceasing production of bodywork, Leyland considered the possibility of building a complete bus by methods normally associated with the volume car industry'. The prototype appeared at the Earls Court Show in September 1970. Delivery to companies began in 1972.
Leyland bodies, as stated above, were built until December 1954, the last one going to Trent Motors. Other body builders adopted Leyland designs for their own products - the most obvious being the Orion, which was the version with a concealed radiator, of which Wigan had a number of Northern Counties-built examples.

In the 70's we used to go to Wigan on the corporation because it was cheaper. Then come back on the Ribble to save walking up the hill. I think it was 4p to go to Wigan and between 8p and 12p to come home on the Ribble.

Do none of you bus enthusiasts know anything about the oil boilers towed behind wartime buses?
I can only relate to what I've seen, not from reading books.
I'd like to refresh my memory if someone has a pic of one..

The pic of the bus reminde me of the two Wigan Corporation diecast models I've got stored away somewhere. Ones "Ince Bar"(PD1 Lowbridge) and the other "Abbey Lakes" (PD2 highbridge)

I've found a pic of a "Gas Bus", not one of Wigan corpys double deckers, but it illustrates the use of oil boiers during the war...C&P this into your browser:
[img]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b388/artycul/gasbus.jpg[/img]

117 IS A LEYLAND BODIED TD5 WITH 4 SPEED CRASH BOX REG JP 3905 AND DELIVERED MARCH APRIL 1939 ONE OF 15 2 X NCME 3 X ENGLISH ELECTRIC AND 10 LEYLAND BODIES WIGAN REGULARY WHITE WALLED TYRES UNTIL THE OUTBREAK OF WW II WIGAN ONLY HAD CRASH BOX BUSES UNTIL THE JP 83XX PD2/1S OF1950 IE NO TORQUE CONVERTER GEAR BOX BUSES

RE GAS BUSES TDI PETROL BUSES FLEET NO.S 1 2A 5A 62A 67A RAN ON GAS UNTIL 16 SEPT 1944 THE A SUFFIX ON WIGANS FLEET NUMBERS WAS USED UNTIL 1970 WHENBUSES HAD IDENTICAL FLEET NUMBERS THE OLDER BUS GAINING THE A SUFFIX

SORRY CORRECTION TO REG SHOULD BE JP 3904

Hi Art.
I'd love to see the pic that you refer to in your comment on 13th, April. however, if I C&P the link you have so helpfully provided: I get a 'page not found'.

Any chance I could beg thi tu email me a copy, please?

r.e.jimmys comment me and my mates used to walk from cherrycroft in skem to abbey lakes to save our busfare into wigan by getting the corpy bus as we used to call it.fun times good memories and not a mention of silly engines thanks

Goodness, some strange comments here! I hope I can shed some light on this. Firstly, Leyland did indeed build bodies for their buses from the 1920s to 1954 - and this bus here is definitely bodied by them. Wigan favoured local body manufacturers (i.e. Northern Counties, Massey and Santus) but also bought complete buses from Leyland, possibly when the order books at the local builders were full or to 'keep the lads on their toes, they can't always assume we'll buy from 'em no matter what'.

Now, white tyres: this photo is certainly prewar as there are no headlamp masks or white edges to the wings, as required by law after September 1939. As it happens, white tyres were in use on Wigan buses throughout the 1930s and this was a personal 'pet' of the General Manager of the time: it was partly because he thought they looked smart, but also because it was easier to see if a driver had 'kerbed' a wheel potentially damaging the tyre! In fact, strangely, photo evidence seems to indicate that the white-walling of tyres stopped when war broke out. That seems strange as they'd help buses show up in the dark, but it may have been either due to paint shortages or to a fear that the white might actually make the buses TOO easy to see, i.e. visible to marauding German bombers. That may seem daft, but in the mood of the time other towns went to some trouble to make their buses less easy to see from the air. For example Manchester had a crash programme to paint all the white rooves of their buses dark grey within a few weeks of war breaking out.

If you want to see one of these buses for real, number 70 (registration JP4712) is under restoration at the Manchester Museum of Transport.

paul no 70 JP 47XX WHERE TD7s MADE 1940 THE GIVEAWAY IS NO AUTO VAC