Coventry Buses - past and present

Those 'H' & 'S' plates. When Sandy Lane bus garage opened in September 1954, the easiest way to split the fleet of buses between that garage and the Harnall Lane garage was to allocate those buses with an odd fleet number to the new garage in Sandy Lane, and, those with an even number to Harnall Lane. That only happened up to 1964. From 1965 onwards, new buses added to the fleet did not follow on with that. The WMPTE did reintroduce that system during the early 1980s. Derek L. Hyde became General Manager in August 1969 and it was his idea of those 'H' & 'S' plates so the inspectors in Broadgate & Pool Meadow could see at a glance from which garage a bus was allocated too. It had nothing to do with maintenance at all. One or two buses may have had them fitted in late 1969, but, it was from 1970 onwards that the whole fleet had them and all new buses joining the fleet. They were still fitted after 1974 into the WMPTE era.

Thank you 20A-Manor House for confirmation of the H & S plates. I probably wrongly used the wording linking allocation to maintenance. However, having the confirmation of why and when was interesting, Many thanks.

On this day 65 years ago, Thursday the 24th of March in the year 1960 AD, I was born. For most of my life I have had a hobby, a lifelong interest, researching & documenting the history of the Coventry Corporation Transport Department 1912-1974. On the day I was born, an event was taking place over at the bus garage in Harnall Lane East. The new dispatch office was opened and came into use; Across from the dispatch office, the rebuilt office block also came into use; The offices and other areas of the garage had been damaged by bombs during the war, but, it was not until 1958 that work started on rebuilding the office block; Councillor W. Spence, Chairman of the Transport Committee unveiling a plaque to commemorate the completion of the new despatch office and the reinstatement of the head office block. It is not often, one finds an item related to a hobby that also is dated with ones date of birth! (I took a close up photo of the plaque); The reception area of the office block. I used to go there every month during the late 70s to collect a copy of 'FARE', the staff newspaper of the WMPTE. I have also been up the stairs seen on the right when I was given a tour of the office; The years 1912-1974 is research, however, the years 1974-1979, I was actively recording all that was going on as the Coventry Corporation Transport Department became the East Division of the WMPTE. During that period I also took 650 photographs of the bus scene. The last few years, I have gathered all of my note books and written a book about those years; Have a great day as I hope too on my 65th birthday

Happy 65th Birthday

Congratulations. Sadly the 65th birthday is not the date you now qualify for the state pension (nor the free bus pass, unless you live in the non-England parts of the UK). Obvious question, Is the book available to purchase and if so where from and how much?

Hello 20A-Manor House, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Your wealth of knowledge regards our transport system is amazing. You've made such a huge unique contribution of that here. At school in the Juniors, (the prep school), I always wanted to be a Coventry bus driver. I was one of those up to five year-olds who would kneel on the front bench seat watching every action of the driver. The pre-selector always fascinated me. Coventry Transport was an integral part of my school day life. The No7, from Sewall Highway terminus would stop at Ford St, near to old Paynes radio shop. Then, walking up Trinity St, to board either the No 16 to Green Lane or the 17 to Bagington village, getting off outside of school in Warwick Rd. Coming home was different as I often walked into town, then boarded the No 7 to Sewall Highway, which went from outside of the Hipodrome in Hales St. The only ever misshap during all of those years was when I was about seven, a bus that I was on suffered minor damage where another GKV, got tangled negotiating the nasty Z junction, moving from Avon St into Coventry St. Please continue your posts. I bumped into you on one occasion near to the poolmeadow years ago. From all of the team & members HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Thank you Mike59. Thank you mcsporran. As this next year will fly by, 'Tempus Fugit', it won't be long before I can get those benefits of old age. As for the book, which covers, the bus fleet on 1st April 1974, new vehicles, re-allocated buses, re-numberings, repaints, withdrawals, re-instatements, temporary visitors, conversions, disposals, accidents, tickets, fares, timetables, Autofare, Travelcards, details of the service fleet (vans, lorries & ex buses) and so much more trivial stuff. Well, early 2023 before I moved out of the house I'd sold, I scanned all of my negatives and chose the photos I was going to use in the book and saved them in a folder on a laptop, then continued to write the text. Of course, it happened, the laptop died and silly me, I had not saved the folder to an external device, so lost the pictures. I still have my negs and know what I'm going to use, but I've not had a chance to re-scan them yet. It will get done, but can't say when. Thank you Philip. I do try to help if I can and have the knowledge. All the years from the 60's onwards I've enjoyed going on buses, but never once, have I ever wanted to drive one, odd that, but it don't appeal to me. I did try and buy 2 ex Coventry buses, SKV 211 & SKV 196, but failed, maybe if I had I would have drove them. When that East Division book if finally done, dusted and out the way I am going to write a book about the history of Coventry bus services. It is impossible to do it as, history of service 1, service 2, service 3 etc.. it can't be done that way, because, during the early years there were many short, temporary, experimental routes and they didn't run with service numbers, I will have to do it by each year. It may not be of interest to many, but, for me, it is really an exercise to tidy-up. Instead of having information in several books, it will all be in one place and being a hobby, not a chore, I dont mind writing about bus services. The number 7, it was always a tight turn into Coventry Street and probably why the buses don't run that way now. As can be seen in my photo of 6748 below;

In the post above, I did mention I tried to buy two buses. Just to show I don't make this stuff up, here is the letter: And me with the said bus, (I was much younger then); As for SKV 196, oh dear! I was just minutes away from saving it. Jim Nolan had it at his scrapyard in Rowleys Green and advertised it for sale at £1,500, I offered him £1,000 (I had the money and place to keep the bus) he turned my offer down, but, I left it a few days for him to think about it. If still a no, I would have paid more. Instead of driving to his yard, I parked at my dads in Burbages Lane, a short walk to the yard. When I got there, I was too late! I stood and watched him start to rip/pull it to bits!!! I was so close to saving it. Still have sleepless nights about it, maybe why I'm up early now;

Hello, I've just got up for a cuppa, so reading your posts now. Only the most trivial of my memories. Going back to the Coventry St Z turn. Coventry council had a strict rule at the time that no pavements can be tarmac covered. All public pavements must be concrete. As we know nowadays, concrete pavements do not stand up well to vehicles crossing them. They break & crack in no time. The severe turn in Avon St, made the bus inside rear wheel mount the kerb, which meant that the pavement was always broken on both corners. Those corners were subsequently tarmac. There might have been an article about it in the Telegraph, but I can't remember. It's odd these memories coming to mind, seventy years on for me. Making that turn, using the maximum steering in both directions, I remember watching drivers literally standing as they winched the steering wheel from the full left lock to the full right lock. No power steering them days.

You're welcome. A tip for backing to to EHD's, because they can fail too, is to have at least a second backup EHD, or, if the total content is a reasonable size, then consider one of the more reputable online storage sources. So long as you don't exceed the free storage limits, the worst case scenario is adverts and constant prompts to have a subscription plan. But they'll be stored safe. You're comments regarding the Z turns, I know exaclty what you mean. I never drove one of those early Leyland Nationals, with the huge front and rear overhangs, but I could imagine the fun and games.

A little more on SKV 196. New during February 1956, it worked until being withdrawn in 1972. In March 1973 it passed to the Education Committee and became a mobile school. Then in the mid 70's it went to Red Lane School as a playbus and ended up in Rowleys Green in the early 80s . I captured it on the playground of Red Lane School in 1976; The CET article on SKV 196 being for sale, Friday 25th November 1988; Another former Coventry Transport bus that ended up as a playbus was RWK 170. This one ended up in the scrapyard on Red Lane. Seen here again in 1976 at John Gulson School, George Street;

I remember seeing SKV196 when it was parked outside the school in Red Lane back in the 1970's. I was told that it had been converted for use as a mobile classroom for use at the traveller encampment at Baginton and had subsequently been taken to Red Lane for use as an extra classroom because they were short of space.

Knowing what the interior of SKV 196 was like, being an additional classroom at Red Lane would make more sense. In 1986 I did work at the yard for several weeks, cash in hand, that's, how Jim liked it, and with the bus being the yard office, I did spend quite sometime inside. The upper saloon still had all of the seats fitted and the seats from the lower saloon, having been removed were stored up there. The only seats in the lower saloon were the two bench seats facing each other over the rear wheel arches the rest of the area was taken up with wooden racking & shelves full of car bits. The exterior was painted in the same light blue as seen on RWK 170, but the interior was still ex Coventry Transport, the colour & all signage. It still had a full set of destination blinds, front, side and rear. As can be seen on RWK 170 it had the same pair of rear doors, these being well made, I suspect they were made and fitted by the staff at either Harnall Lane or Sandy Lane bus garage. I did sit in the drivers cab once.

Hi 20A, If you still have that laptop that had your photos, you could remove the hard disk drive and put it in a special enclosure (a few pounds on ebay) that will allow you to read it via a USB connection. Even if the file system is corrupted there's recovery software (a few pounds on ebay) or there are recovery specialists that can recover even deleted files (not though on ebay). There were another two of the SKV registered buses that escaped the scrapyard for a while, 193 and 213 were bought by a company called Sundeckers who also fitted rear doors, but removed the roofs to operate adventure tours as far afield as Yugoslavia and Morocco. I think they were mentioned on here before. Regards 22 Purcell Road

I only had a quick glance inside SKV196 when it was parked at the school. The lower deck was how 20A describes it although without the racking. There were seats upstairs but I don't recall if it was the full set. The exterior was painted in the blue seen on a few other vehicles but I don't recall what the inside looked like. The substantial door had a Yale lock just like the average front door of a house.