Search results for ""Author Mike Rhodes""

A visitor to one of the principal cities of the East or West Midlands during the 1970s would not have failed to notice that all the incumbent local bus operators were still running buses that still resembled types which could be seen throughout Britain between the two world wars – that is double-deck buses with the driver seated in his own cab area with an open space over the adjacent engine shroud. Whilst the vast majority of these also had an open entrance at the rear, there were some types that the passengers could board or alight through a doored entrance at the front. With a wonderful selection of photographs that will delight enthusiasts of all ages, Mike Rhodes looks back on the twilight years of half-cab buses in the Midlands.

Read more less

Preston Corporation Tramways began operation of electric trams in June 1904, and they exclusively served the town until 1922. Additional tram routes to Frenchwood and Fulwood had been mooted several times, but the latter had been rejected on a number of occasions due to the narrowness of some of the highways on the proposed route. Consequently, the route to Fulwood was inaugurated on 23 January 1922, using motorbuses. The trams were abandoned between 1932 and 1935 when the six routes were converted to motorbus operation. Before the Second World War additional bus routes were started to serve new housing developments. Post-war routes were commenced to serve further new housing at Brookfield, Ingol, Larches, Lea, Moor Nook and Ribbleton. A Joint Operating Agreement was entered into with Ribble Motors (and Scout Motors) on 1 January 1948. There were initially four routes involved, with three more being added over the next twenty-five years. This agreement continued in diminished form until deregulation in 1986, following which the route network rapidly expanded. In more recent times, following the brief tenure by Stagecoach, Rotala Preston Bus has also operated a diverse number of services on behalf of Lancashire County Council, which over recent years has involved routes to many of the surrounding Lancashire towns.

Read more less

The AEC Regal IVs and Regent IIIs, or to give them their class prefix letters RFs and RTs, are among the most revered buses to have served London over the years. The RFs were maids of all work and were tailored for private hire work, Green Line coach work and ordinary stage bus work in both the central and country areas. The first of the type were introduced in October 1951 and a total of 700 vehicles were built for the London Transport Executive. They replaced virtually all the other types of single-deckers then operating in the metropolis. The RT was first introduced to service in 1939 and production ran to 151 vehicles before construction ceased in early 1942. Following the war the Park Royal factory recommenced building the type in 1947 with the last new chassis being rolled out in 1954, taking the bonnet number RT4825. Both types soldiered on throughout the 1970s as LTE encountered severe problems with their ‘OPO’ replacements before both finally bowed out within a week of each other in March/April 1979. This account charts the last years of operation of both types from the mid-1970s onward, focusing on South London.

Read more less

Preston Corporation Tramways was formed in 1904, later becoming Preston Corporation Transport Department. Electric trams, the majority of which were built in Preston, were operated until1935. The first buses entered service in January 1922. The department bought nothing but Leyland chassis until 1976, when three Bristol LHS midi-buses entered the fleet. The first ‘OPO’-equipped buses were introduced in December 1968 and consisted of fifteen Leyland Panthers. Preston was a staunch advocate of the Leyland Titan and operated an assortment of PD1, PD2 and PD3 models over the years. Between 1959 and 1967 eight rear-entrance PD2s were famously rebuilt as front-entrance PD3s. A large fleet of Atlanteans was assembled between 1974 and 1983 and these formed the backbone of the fleet for many years. Following bus deregulation in 1986 the company fought a bitter battle with United Transport (Zippy) as both operators went toe-to-toe with large fleets of minibuses. Preston won the day as United Transport was absorbed by Ribble in March 1988 and what had been a chaotic couple of years eventually settled down. In April 1993 the company was sold to a management and employee consortium. Here, rare and previously unpublished images document the years surrounding deregulation in Preston.

Read more less

Edinburgh is reputed to have more buildings designated as of ‘special architectural or historic interest’ than any other city in the world. These range from rows of Georgian terraced houses and individual Victorian tenement blocks to such diverse structures as the diminutive Greyfriars Bobby sculpture and the Forth Rail Bridge. Many of the buildings were constructed from sandstone, from a proliferation of local quarries and which could be found in a variety of different colours. The city’s local transport system has a similarly rich history, and this book looks to celebrate these two popular elements in the city’s contemporary setting. Featuring unique and previously unpublished images of Lothian Transport buses sharing the scene with some of these historic buildings, this book will delight anybody who shares a fondness for Auld Reekie.

Read more less

Bus garages, or depots if that is your preferred nomenclature, come in all shapes and sizes and have their origins in the tram depots that were established by the various tramway companies of the pre-electrification era. Tram depots were originally built for horse-drawn and steam-hauled tramcars and, in the case of the former, often had stables attached. Hardly any two bus garages were the same as they varied in both size and type of construction. Some, such as London Transport’s Stockwell garage (which is still in use) and Salford Corporation’s Frederick Road tram/bus depot, could be considered architectural gems. The capacity of a garage could vary enormously; examples of this were Ribble Motor’s outstation at Bowness-on-Solway with space to garage just one bus and Oldham Corporation’s Wallshaw Street garage, which when built was designed to hold 300 buses under one roof. There are still a significant number of former tram depots functioning as bus garages, but they are on the decline. The deregulation of bus services in 1986 changed the course of the bus industry forever. As undertakings were privatised and sold off during the 1990s, the new operators moved out of their inherited garages and set up more low-cost establishments. These generally consisted of a moderately sized maintenance building and a large open-air parking area.

Read more less

In 1959 there were twenty-seven Corporation Transport systems in the Red Rose County. These were significantly reduced in 1969 with the creation of the Passenger Transport Executives in Manchester and Liverpool and further reduced in 1974 following the reorganisation of local government, when boundaries were changed and new administrative boroughs created. All but two of the remaining systems were privatised during the 1990s, following the deregulation of bus services in 1986. Rossendale clung on to its own transport organisation until 2018 when it too was bought out by Transdev, leaving just Blackpool Transport as the only council-owned operator within the redrawn county boundary. This book picks up the story following local government reorganisation in 1974 and uses a comprehensive selection of photographs to depict the closing years of all of Lancashire’s Corporation Transport systems.

Read more less

Like the railway industry in the nineteenth century, Britain was a major player in supplying the world with buses, particularly double-deckers. The principal contributors in the mid-twentieth century were AEC, Daimler and Leyland Motors. Buses were exported throughout the world either as complete vehicles or as a chassis with locally assembled bodywork completing the bus. As early as 1911, Leyland Motors sold five single-deck charabancs to Lisbon Tramways and three to Cape Town Electric Tramways. It says something for the endurance of the British-built chassis when examples of the Daimler CVG in Hong Kong and the AEC Regent III in Lisbon both managed to attain well over twenty-five years of service for their respective operators. As London Transport found itself with a surfeit of serviceable buses in the 1960s, hundreds of redundant RTs, RTLs and RTWs were snapped up by the Ceylon Transport Board. Redundant Atlanteans and Daimler Fleetlines found favour with both KMB and CMB while sixty AEC Swifts saw further service with the Public Transport Association (PTA) and the Education Department on the island of Malta. This book features previously unpublished photographs of British buses in China, India, South Africa, Portugal and Hong Kong.

Read more less

Following on from his volume focusing on the final years of half-cab buses in the Midlands, Mike Rhodes looks at the major bus fleets employing half-cab buses in North-West England in the 1970s, including those located around Manchester, Liverpool and beyond.Packed with previously unpublished images, this is an evocative and interesting record of a fascinating period in the region's transport history.

Read more less

As electricity became more widely used to power and light Britain’s towns and cities a number of municipal boroughs built their own power stations. In the early years these were inevitably fed by coal, of which the UK had a plentiful supply. In the 1960s and early 1970s the government embarked on a programme of constructing new power stations. The majority of these were constructed with direct rail-connected on-site coal handling facilities and thus was born the Merry-Go-Round, or MGR, coal train. The book features a UK panorama of a wide variety of coal trains on the move, with previously unpublished images from across many years and locations.

Read more less

The AEC Regal IVs and Regent IIIs, or to give them their class prefix letters RFs and RTs, are among the most revered buses to have served London over the years. The RFs were maids of all work and were tailored for private hire, Green Line coach work and ordinary stage bus work in both the central and country areas. The first of the type were introduced in October 1951 and a total of 700 vehicles were built for the London Transport Executive. They replaced virtually all the other types of single-deckers then operating in the metropolis. The RT was first introduced to service in 1939 and production ran to 151 vehicles before construction ceased in early 1942. Following the war, the Park Royal factory recommenced building the type in 1947, with the last new chassis being rolled out in 1954, taking the bonnet number RT4825. Both types soldiered on throughout the 1970s as LTE encountered severe problems with their ‘OPO’ replacements before both finally bowed out within a week of each other in March/April 1979. This account charts the last years of operation of both types from the mid-1970s onward, focusing on North London.

Read more less

Covering the latest breaking news in Google Ads, this sixth edition introduces revised, expanded and new chapters covering Enhanced Campaigns, Google Ads Express, Google’s Product Listing Ads, and more. Changes in Big Data advertising are also revealed and expanded sections and necessary updates have been added throughout. Updates specific to this edition include: Powerful bidding strategies using remarketing lists for search ads New ad extension features Automation capabilities using scripts Bonus Online Content that includes links to dozens of resources and tutorials covering: registering a domain name, setting up a website, selecting an email service, choosing a shopping cart service, finding products to sell, and starting up an Google Ads account for your business Readers are given the latest information paired with current screenshots, fresh examples, and new techniques. Coached by Google Ads experts Perry Marshall, Mike Rhodes, and Bryan Todd advertisers learn how to build an aggressive, streamlined campaign proven to increase search engine visibility, consistently capture clicks, double website traffic, and increase sales. Whether a current advertiser or new to AdWords, this guide is a necessary handbook.

Read more less