I bet Driver Bailey is a top manager now for a transport company

London Country, you had a depot in Guildford round the back of the Police station and courts. Ex Alder Valley driver here based out of Hindhead 👍. Bristols and Nationals NBC bread and butter.

Adrian did we know Alan bond?

@@leedorey1490 Arriva packed up in Guildford back in December 2021 and we all thought that Leas Road garage would close. It did, for a little while, now Stagecoach are in there. Sadly the same can't be said of Alder Valley's garage in Hindhead. I used to visit as a kid and the staff were always very welcoming and let me have a look round. National 131 (NRD131M) was my personal favourite based there, had a hellfire run from Guildford to Hindhead on that once in the late-80s. Driver gave it a proper caning. 🙂

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/brmYarOjlrXPiKc.htmlsi=SABux8S1Wi1e3EPp

Was this Lawrence Hill depot?

@@shaneraines2094 Hi Shane, the Bristol part was filmed at Berkeley House and the mechanical bits were CRW central repair works now a trading estate on the same site as Lawrence Hill depot.

good point that. If the buses never need repairing, there's no need for mechanics.

Less to do. But the buses are worse.

He didn't just narrate it, he was the producer as well.

He got out of all that bus stuff, bitter bastards....:)

But when Leyland buses found themselves needing a host for their annual awards party at the belfry golf club, Partridge got his own back and slid in like Torvill and Dean. Even Chris Tarrent was impressed after Patridge showed of the complimentary canadian pine sented air fresheners he got at the event.

the famous National clatter

I am only here as looking to buy a 1972 (mk1) Leyland National myself, why? well its tax exempt, mot exempt (if not carrying paying passengers) and my insurance quote is £145 for the year!

@@chrispartosbro4555 Where can I get an insurance quote for a bus?

@@michaelcallummayaka Sorry mate thought i had replied, Rigton on 01943 662 345, ask them about breakdown cover (cheep as chips if included with your insurance) as the likes of AA and RAC not touch you, they took a few days to get back to me so bare that in mind if you plan buy, insure and drive the same day.

I liked them until I had to drive them and realised what a pig it was, an engine that was unreliable and which could accelerate you in a cloud of blue smoke to the detriment of other road users and lets not mention the heating system which was temperamental

He was a classy presenter.

This is 1980s as the Leyland national is v reg, 79/80

For a minute I thought you said he was peeing out of the shop doorway.

@@Keithbarber 79 is the late 70's

I thought that 2nd gear stop was at Rownham. Remember it back in the 80's on the old Badgerline buses.

Tony Bastable was a proper TV presenter.

Imagine how the bus feels.

I remember them, they were fast, i can remember some passengers sitting up, taking notice and holding tight........

In the bus operator in my area, the people having a contract at them and not being from an employment service are all taught the ins and outs of the engines of the buses here (Scania Omnilinks and a couple of Scania Higers, though those are driven by a touringcar company, they have a truck-like gearbox and are very uncomfortable to drive on as a passenger). One of the drivers that once made a remark about that when talking with me, did mention that it was pretty weird given how basically it was like this "If we get a warning icon on the LCD, we call the maintenance guys and they figure it out, it's rare that we get to mess with it ourselves honestly, so it sounds pretty useless to give us that training."

@@Dutch3DMaster I must get a job there, I’ll fit right in haha. Where is your area?

Always a pleasure to watch him present.

It’s called Chance by John Saunders

What?

​@@train_-su6yv he meant something about deregulation. now commence the dribbling socialists...

Blame the Tories.

Me too, it’s shit, I miss my Titan and mcm metro buses in london

In my part of the world the National Bus Company drained money from unskilled County Councils and presided over the demise of higher density and higher frequency routes to prop up "social needs" services that never ever carried more than a handful of passengers. This policy of starving popular routes to fund useless ones had the very rapid effect of depressing demand and increasing car ridership. This is not theory...I was there - all the way from the early seventies until a few years ago... Deregulation actually saved the day for passengers...higher frequencies have been introduced/reintroduced on more populous corridors and the cost of providing "social needs" services has been taken off the backs of ordinary everyday passengers and placed firmly with the local councils. This has forced councils to think carefully about providing resources for "dead-dog" routes (I can recall, in those dim and distant days, services which carried only two or three passengers all day - what a waste - a shared taxi would've been far cheaper)... Ironically we are now seeing the opposite effect - Councils being forced to cut the last of those social-needs buses (and lots of other things) to pay for the cost of free OAP bus travel which central government has systematically and deliberately underfunded...and before any smart-arse suggests it, bus companies don't make a fortune out of OAP passes...the payment for each ticket is reduced as free OAP usage increases... Hopefully we'll never see the NBC back...it was a disaster...

Plenty of passive aggression taken out on a company vehicle by a driver pissed off at a dictatorial employer.....

"Can we fault this man?" - no we can't

Driver was helping full auto machines to come in sooner 😀

Back then, most buses were owned by the state, paid for taxpayers. Bus subsidies are still common today. Poor driving technique, deliberate or otherwise, can result in expensive repairs, higher fuel consumption, shorter service lives and, ultimately, greater environmental costs. Broken-down buses lead to delayed and cancelled services. So, Driver Bailey was blowing off steam, but he was not being a good citizen.

A strange fella.

6LXB engines I believe

Music: Chance - John Saunders. Was also used on Prisoner Cell Block H.

@@justinpearson3926 interesting, thank you very much!

@@justinpearson3926 like the sad bstrd I am I recognised it from prisoner as soon as I heard it ...cue comments check 😂

V reg bus. So 79 as a minimum...

@@cjmillsnun that's about when I first encountered the Leyland National when I was six. Two of them in fact. I never forgot the sight.

In my city they drive all those automatic buses in manual mode and rev the shit out of the engines , keep them in drive at traffic stops. And what not. I have never seen one driver using the automatic mode..they always manually select gear for faster acceleration. As they can hold onto the gear for longer and mash the throttle. Many drivers don't like volvo due to their slow acceleration even with a larger more powerful engine. They prefer the older TATA & ashok buses with manual transmission. Those 24v cummins 5.9 & 6.7 engines accelerate faster than volvo.

@@KuntalGhosh They sound like idiots who should receive a warning. Sine bus drivers are intelligent, others the opposite.

I started a few years later and know exactly what you mean but the modern stuff is so much easier to drive. That box is just in front of the brake pedal on a VR, what's that all about? It's only when you drive one in service that you realise how little the driver was thought of in the design process.

How come poor old Olymnpians and Atlanteans don''t get apostrophes?

I think it could be by John Saunders aka Astral Sounds. ***Edit***. It's called Chance by John Saunders

I agree the twice a week service back then was a lot better then the dozen times a week service we get now.

So true, buses don’t have a sense of timing these days, always late

What do you expect when they have enemies on at least four fronts, the passengers, other motorists, other bus drivers and management?

Modern transmissions go into neutral by themselves when the bus is stationary with the brake applied. I remember the Voith box did that with the tell tale whine.

The Patron Saint of Llandudno

The 510 sounded more modern. The 0680 was very coarse and old as the hills. Nice exhaust bark though. The Stynx was a cool looking body that shook and rattled far too much.

I loved driving Cummins L10/ZF Ecomat Lynxes. If you could stand the rattles that is. Only bus I've ever driven that could spin its wheels in the wet, literally went like scalded cats. 🙂

@@LeylandFiveTen One of the Lynx I drove was F85 XCS, a Cummins engine example new to Youngs of Ayr, it was very quick off its mark, far superior to the Gardner engined ones. They rattled worse as a 20 year old National though !

Here in Australia there is an early Lynx demo from 1984 with Leyland TL11 and Voith box and I was told it's a rocket.

@jamesfrench7299 The oldest Lynx I drove was 1986, with a TL11. I also drove one with a Cummings engine it went like a rocket, but rattled worse than a 20 year old National!

Considering they were made by Leyland...yeah probably

No double sided sticky tape 🤣

Chewing gum duhh!

The power of prayer perhaps?🤣🤣🤣🤣

Probably, for the demonstration.

I have one for my Bedford MJ

Every engineer had a Lucas ignition switch as a spare in the van.

I’ve still got one from a 1617 Mercedes years ago along with a original tachograph key.

Ha!....... I've still got three or four in my work bag on a key ring, just in case. Mind you, you could always flatten the end of a nail if you were desperate...... ; )

@@pastymansixtynine I've a full set of plant and tractor keys, although a lot of them won't let you start the machine now without punching in a code or the key having a properly coded transponder. I've a set of lock picks, rakes and a snap gun as well but that's just a hobby for me lol

"Chance" by John Saunders. Also used in Prisoner: Cell Block H.

@@aaronholmes8568 thanks! And it's even on KZfaq. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gJ1kfMmrz9aaeIU.html

How? Do you think that buses got automatic gearboxes because of such abuse of semi-auto gearboxes? Interesting semi-autos were prevalent in the UK into the late 80s but automatics were used on European built buses since at least 1977 if not earlier.

@@michaelcallummayaka As NBC was state owned their spec of buses like Leyland and Bristol had semi auto boxes as stand until bus operators went private in 1986 allowing them to have whatever bus or spec they wanted. Leyland was took over by Volvo in 1987 and dropped the semi auto. Automatic buses were around in the 70's-mid 80's but not as popular.

@@michaelcallummayaka I think Michael David is referring to the quick release valves the fully automatic Leyland pneumocyclic gearboxes had fitted to the air supply pipes where they entered the gearbox. Basically they dropped the air almost instantly so the band disengaged more quickly. Latterly operators fitted these valves to semi-autos in an effort to reduce the damage caused by slamming. My own semi-auto National had one fitted to 3rd gear only, you can tell as when you deselect the gear it lets go quickly with a hiss.

There must have been no driving discipline in the 70s and 80s that old Bastardball wasn't expert at. Such an omniscient onanist. And as one myself, i suspect he actually was a science teacher before he flooded our screens with his staff room moanings.

@@MartinvonBargen He was a history teacher and a cricket umpire, as well as a reporter..

It was used in prisoner cell block H and can be found on you tube

I think this is about as clean as you can expect from a 1970s video tape.

it got deleted by its first uploader, Busthrash

Leaving it in gear typically saves fuel as the momentum pulls the engine, instead of the engine pushing itself.

V PLATE Leyland national so 1979/80

Circa 1979/1980

London Transport introduced pre-select gearboxes with fluid flywheels in the 1930s. The semi autos were a development from that. Manual transmissions have a clutch to wear out, which it did, very quickly in urban operation. Automatic options were available on the buses featured but they were for the most part deemed unnecessary where most of the drivers of this era had come from crash 'box vehicles and new how to change gear. The early automatics weren't exactly smooth either, the technology wasn't available to make them better. The first properly smooth automatic bus came in 1977 with the MCW Metrobus with Voith DIWA automatic gearbox and integrated hydraulic retarder. It was a game changer for sure.

Think the lad that uploaded this, also uploaded a video of himself driving a semi auto bus. Everyone that had seen this video suddenly decided they were driving experts and ripping the way he was driving, so thanks to them he ended up deleting the lot. There's some sad people on KZfaq.

@@thebigbowler I believe that was our boy BusThrash

@@ElliottHurst Now you mention it I remember him , shame he gone quiet as he had some fascinating vids

@@ElliottHurst His video's are private now. All he had to do was just disable the comments on that video.

We used to make it last a whole shift, can't go cutting up the job, can we😂

No it was put on loose to fall off for filming purposes

Dramatic effect.

...lol 🤣, probably were having a bad day

It wouldn't surprise me if CMB were showing this training film to their drivers, back in the days of British Hong Kong. It was the same with KMB drivers.

@@michaelturner4457 But most of the CMB drivers would not interest for this film, they would be say it is unnecessary. Both CMB and KMB were adding a notch on the gear selector to prevent the driver shift the gear from gear 4 to gear 2 or gear 3 to gear 1.

If it had spring brake chambers, yeah. Not all vehicles had them back then.

It depends on the brake system in question. Nowadays, yes.

On a National the parking brake applies when you lose air pressure on the parking circuit as air is required to release the spring brake chambers, the parking brake is therefore failsafe. The footbrake (service brake) requires air to apply the brakes, if you lose air pressure you lose the footbrake. The service brake is not failsafe. This applies to every bus I've ever driven with air brakes up to and including current models. A phase 1 National has a 3 tank air system so as you lose air on the footbrake the parking brake applies. A phase 2 National (not to be confused with a mark 2 National) as shown in the video has a 4 tank air system so it is possible to lose the service brake completely without the parking brake applying.

They went backwards? The 1978 - 1987 Mercedes O305 I used to drive had full spring brakes.

Better than no rail service at all. Pacers kept lines open.

I'd hardly call any of them faults, just what not to do on account of the nature of that type of gearbox (fully auto boxes suitable for intensive bus use were still a thing of the future, though some, like the Routemaster, had gearboxes with an automatic function)

None. If you drive a manual car I have no doubt I can break it for you very quickly. The same is true of semi-automatic gearboxes. Fantastically long lived if not abused, but as with many things, if they're abused they break. The MCW Metrobus came along in 1977 with a Voith DIWA automatic gearbox with integrated hydraulic retarder. Virtually indestructible, and some of the first were purchased by the NBC for Bristol a good 6 years before the NBC ceased to be. That technology simply wasn't mature enough when the National was developed.