Lincolnshire 1431 departs

Lincolnshire 1431 departed from the BusWorks yesterday after a reasonably lengthy convalescence in Blackpool. It had arrived at the BusWorks after many years of outside storage had taken its toll on the bus and with many mechanical parts seized.

We were commissioned to partly repanel, re-rubber and repaint the vehicle back into Tilling green and cream livery whilst on the inside the side panels were relined in green rexine and the interior ceilings repainted. Unfortunately, our client's budget could not stretch to reupholstered seating - the coach seats being in very poor condition.

As other Bristol RELH owners will testify, the air suspension on these vehicles is very expensive to replace (the air bags of the correct dimensions are no longer available requiring substantial modification to the vehicles) but this issue aside, the BusWorks prepared the bus for MoT Class V including substantial rewiring.

Leicester Dominator arrives

This East Lancs bodied Dennis Dominator spent more years in Warrington than its native city of Leicester. The East Lancs bodywork styling superseded the traditional box shape applied to Leicester's previous batches of Dominators but the thin body sides and square gasket glazed windows meant that body movement soon resulted in excessive water ingress.

C100UBC is part of the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust collection (see http://www.ltht.org.uk/). The Trust owns four ex Leicester City Transport buses, but the Trust's current membership can muster a further 15 vehicles ranging from 1950 to 1982, and all of these have connection with Leicester and the County. Indeed, this Dominator is privately owned by Andrew Harris but considered as part of the LTHT collection.

The bus is to be partly repanelled and all glazing rubbers replaced prior to a complete repaint back into mid-1980s Leicester livery of red, light grey and white.

Merseyside Leyland National commissioned

Merseyside PTE was a late convert to the Leyland National and apart from a batch ordered by Southport (but delivered to the PTE) in 1974, it was not until 1977/78 that significant numbers were ordered.

1000 was the PTE's first dual-purpose seated example and entered service in May 1978 at Southport garage with NBC-style moquette for 45 passengers. Later renumbered 7000 and latterly garaged at St.Helens, the bus later found its way to Aintree Coachlines. Now preserved, the BusWorks has been commissioned to start restoration on the vehicle back to its original Merseyside livery. The photo above shows it when new on a private hire in Southport.