Search results for ""Author Michael Hitchen""

Across the country at numerous locations the government operated another railway, hidden from the public, behind high wire fences. These were the railways serving the Ministry of Defence. A fascinating collection of sites, with differing gauges, origins and functions. At its peak in the 1950 and 1960s the nation was covered with rail-served military locations, varying from a siding right up to huge storage locations, with self-contained internal networks. Each military service had its individual rail command, operating independently, with different locos types and even gauges. Recent history has seen these brought together, amalgamated as the Defence Rail Organisation. Unlike many industrial rail systems, a feature of military rail sites was the high standard of maintenance, not only of the rolling stock, but of the surrounding environment, well kept track formations were a usual order. Part of the fascination of these railways was the mystery that naturally surrounded their operation, use and stock. Some locations remain in use, but the large majority have been taken out of use, mainly as units have closed down, but in some case the abandonment of rail in favour of internal road transport. This book looks at rolling stock used at a number of locations, both standard and narrow gauge, and where appropriate the locations served by these largely unknown systems.

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The erstwhile National Bus Company was the largest bus company in the world and like any large organisation, it required auxiliary vehicles to support its core activities. Formed of around thirty-six local constituent companies and the ‘NATIONAL’ Central Activities Group, each company had its own Service Vehicle fleet to support its operations, varying from Heavy Vehicle Recovery to Driver Training and every other facet to keep the fleet operational. Well photographed and documented were the former PSV conversions, Driver trainers, Tree loppers or Towing buses, as these were based on a bus and attracted the attention of photographers and enthusiasts. In an era when film was precious, the commercial vehicles owned by the NBC were often ignored, making photographs very rare. In this second volume we look a more examples used by the NBC between 1972 and its demise in 1986.

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As part of the National Bus Company, Hants & Dorset Motor Service once served a large diverse area, stretching from the remote chalk uplands of North Hampshire, across Salisbury Plain through rural East Dorset to the coastal resorts of Swanage, Poole and Bournemouth, and the heavily populated areas of Southampton and Winchester. Its Poppy Red buses were a common sight on the roads of central southern England through the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1972 with the introduction of its corporate image, the National Bus Company merged the Hants & Dorset and Wilts & Dorset fleets. This created one identity, with the Hants & Dorset name retained along with the red livery from Wilts & Dorset. It was the one of the most interesting NBC fleets, with vehicles in their former liveries, numerous non-standard coaches, associations with Gosport & Fareham (Provincial) and variety from the former King Alfred Motor Services of Winchester. An early division of an NBC company, 1983 saw the company separated into four operating units – Hampshire Bus, Wilts & Dorset, Provincial and Shamrock and Rambler.

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In the 1970s the state-owned National Bus Company operated services across England and Wales, and one of the largest of its thirty-six constituent bus companies was the huge Crosville Motor Services. Though Crosville enjoyed similarities to other former BET companies within the NBC, initially with its fleet of Bristol/ECW buses and coaches, many other facets of this company made it interesting. It had a vast operating area, growing in the corporate era of the early 1970s to stretch from the hills above Macclesfield in Cheshire to the industrial area of Biddulph in Staffordshire, rural Shropshire at Oswestry, through the city streets of Liverpool, across all of North Wales and right down through remote mid-Wales to the far-off West Wales towns of New Quay, Newcastle Emlyn and Lampeter. From its headquarters in Chester, Crosville operated truly diverse services, ranging from rural market day-only routes and open-top holiday services to intense inter-urban services, even on dedicated busways, unique at the time. Here, Michael Hitchen looks back to a time full of variety and interest, with a wealth of fascinating and often previously unpublished photographs on show.

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