As a young lad I wrote down a lot of Crosville bus numbers in the late 1960s, when we visited Grandma in Birkenhead in the school holidays. My dad was a Bristol nut, so Crosville provided the purest of bus spotting. Registration number (always with FM), fleet number, chassis number, ECW number, and seating capacity were all in my little book. Fleet numbers were exciting because the numerical digits matched the digits of the reg number. We went to Rock Ferry depot, and also to a larger garage with a lot buses in the open - on a Sunday morning you could collect whole sequences of numbers! Thanks to Jake for bringing it all back!

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Glad you liked it and it rekindled some happy memories.

crosville lodekkas were part of my childhood woodside to mill park on the a41 new chester road used to think i was a crosville bus driver riding along on my bike loved their green and white livery

I used to go to Stoke Gabriel from Paignton bus station with crossvile a big green single cab sounded great had a great wine in the engin a fantastic bus

Crosville mainly operated in Cheshire, and North and Mid Wales, most buses were ECW Bristols, unusual fleet numbering, three letters and three numbers.

Hi i'm viatron from Sheffield once again, but one bus what should had features were the rebodied pre-war Leyland Tiger TS8 half cab rear entrance single deck buses which were very unusual with SARO 4-bay single deck bus bodies of 1950 subjecting to the wide window pans on both the near & offsides of the bus via been fitted with a Leyland T-type 8.6 litre 6-cylinder direct-injection diesel engine & a Leyland GB9 4-speed constant mesh gearbox with helical gears, plus the series of low single tone sound on 1st gear & followed by the very strange middle octave double tone sound on 2nd gear & then followed after that were the middle octave A.E.C.-style double tone sound on 3rd gear while there is no middle octave double tone sound on 4th direct top gear in the process. Thanks for your co-operation on this very useful pre-war Leyland Tiger TS8 single deck bus subject from David Viatron Esquire of crookes in Sheffield.

@jakeyb2003

29 күн бұрын

Thanks David. I'll have to have a look at those

Thanks for the potted history which reflects the sad decline of bus services/companies/manufacturers over the past century. As Arriva is now owned by a US private equity firm who knows how long they will last before being sold off or split up. The future is not looking good with the announced closures of Arriva's depots in High Wycombe and Aylesbury taking place at the same time as the takeover of Arriva was confirmed. Fortunately private operators have taken up some services with the Oxford Bus Co ( Go-Ahead group) picking up the Oxford-Thame service.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Sad times now isn't it?

another fine vid Jake

@jakeyb2003

29 күн бұрын

Thanks

The Green Crosville RE with the Red Front shows it was on one of the Bus Gwynedd supported/promoted services that all operators were supposed to carry (I assume that welsh authority thought looking like a london bus approaching would attract more patronage

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Yes I believe it still requires red noses on buses operating on it's contracts even today.

👍

When you look @ Crosville Aberystwyth that was a sad demise especially in a University Town even tho the Park Avenue depot survived into Arriva Ownership it’s all gone now as has Arriva totally with Mid Wales Travel being the dominant company now for services.

@markcf83

Ай бұрын

Arriva has gutted the operations in North Wales, though not entirely of their own doing.

Perhaps the most oddest part of Crosville -as the pictures show - was the route numbering with "local" letter prefixes which on most 3 track number blinds looked somewhat messy. I suppose it was needed due to the sheer number of routes operated , the acquisition of the South Wales/Western Welsh Garages put those areas almost remote from Chester Head Office and seemed to act as a little law unto themselves, like most of the South West Wales independent operators.

Filled in a few blanks there, thanks 😀 They were the local operator when growing up in the 1970's/80's in Cheshire. RE's, VR's, Leopards on the Chester run. I used to prefer the Gardner engined Nationals for their growling sound. But nothing used to beat a VR turning up on the otherwise single deck local route, sitting up top at the front and having tree branches whack into the windows!

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Lovely selection of vehicles. I think they definitely sounded better in the old days eh? Glad you liked the video.

@Slider2732_

Ай бұрын

@@jakeyb2003 Yep, sound was a big thing back then... more than whether it was a Leyland or Gardner engined one. Could hear the bus go past the top of the street, knowing that I had about 5 minutes to go down to the shop fronts to catch it lol. Being scared witless too, every time, when standing next to a National at the bus station. The periodic but sudden air brake explosive hiss!

That was some area crosville covered ,I miss the NBC leaf green ,I was thinking imagine if the VR production carried on for a few more years and ECW stayed open a VR with Olympian style bodywork,nice bec one of the prototype Olympians had a VR dash panel ,sorry just my imagination but as a VR owner what do you think ,once again great series and all the best Mark 😊😊

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

It's an interesting thought isn't it Mark? I would have imagined that any VRs receiving a faclifted body would have got the new front panels too like the Olympian as that had a front radiator too. I'd have loved to have seen an ECW bodied Titan. The differences would have been subtle but they would have been there. Glad you're enjoying the series.

The TBAT and Railway Ownership seems a little complex. I thought that (unless it was the 1942 tidying up) the big four ended up with shares in Tilling (unless Tilling managed the railway shares in the "local" bus companies) in lieu of holding shares in the local bus companies themselves, generally if a bus company - or depot - had had railway control (or at least 50:50 participation) you would find road staff were NUR rather than TGWU, which made life interesting .

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Until I started researching I didn't realise how complex it was!

Brilliant. Quite a history that I knew nothing of. Can’t wait for the next episode and eagerly awaiting the episode about United Automobile Service known simply as United.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Glad you liked it 👍🏼

Rather unique in being both English and Welsh in its operating area.I think that most of northern and mid Wales came under Crosville with the other Welsh NBC's being right at the south of Wales.I didn't realise that some Crosvilles carried PTE livery in Merseyside.I wonder if any Ribble ones carried that PTE livery?

Involved - loosely - with the National Welsh/Crosville "trawscambria" services - I think there were two north to south one via the coast and one up the middle of wales, vehicles (mainly semi-coach grant doors Bristol REs) worked through drivers went half way and came back taking on the service/s from the other end. I dont think South Wales was involved ? (South Wales did more NatEx work- though National Welsh had two routes it covered) and SouthWales / NationalWelsh and Bristol jointly operated the "expresswest" service (which somewhat grew out of the neath and cardiff coaches Swansea-Cardiff service) between West WestWales (Haverfordwest) and Bristol via Swansea Port Talbot Neath Cardiff Newport Chepstow - I dont think services were interlinked timetable or fareswise significantly with TrawsCambria.

Would be good to see a video about London Country Buses

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

They're on the list to do

I think Crosland-Taylor wrote two (?three?) books on Crosville - The Sowing and The Harvest and "State Owned Without Tears" , I think there may even have been a follow-up into the privatisation era. I wonder if the Liverpool dispute was engineered to avoid additional losses as it was probably no hardship to concede the driver was not necessarily in the wrong - OMO full deckers with no power steering are not fun to drive and take fares on.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

That's interesting. I remember the book but not the author. Yes you can certainly see the argument for power steering can't you? No job is worth damaging your back for.

Out of curiosity would you consider doing a similar project on the SBG?

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Funny you say that, I was thinking about it the other day. I've got the PTE fleets penciled in next but I think there's definitely a series to be made about the SBG.

Drawlane not drawline...🤙🏻

That's a bit jolly off, isn't it? Sacking a bus driver just because he refused to drive a bus that wasn't fitted with power steering.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Unfortunately it used to happen.

Err, can't hear your commentary. Sorry.

@neiloflongbeck5705

Ай бұрын

Now working. Did you do some YT magic?

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

@@neiloflongbeck5705 you may have been the first viewer while KZread were still tweeking it. Pretty impressive being the first at the front of the queue even if you did need subtitles at first 😁

Please.... if you're going to make a video about Crosville, at least make an attempt to pronounce Georges Ville correctly. Anyone will tell you it isn't Jorjiz Vill.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

Apologies. Not good with Welsh or French so Crosville was a bit of a nightmare to be honest!

@reynardbizzar5461

Ай бұрын

Actually you did pronounce George’s Ville correctly. It is a French name and you had the correct inflection.

@jakeyb2003

Ай бұрын

@@reynardbizzar5461 thank you sir. I'm glad I didn't get into pronouncing Welsh names as well. That could have opened up a whole new can of worms!