Nottingham City Transport (NCT) is one of the largest remaining municipal bus companies and is regarded as one of the best operators in the UK. In the early 1960’s City of Nottingham Transport as it was then developed a very strong corporate identity with an attractive “two tone” green livery and its own distinct standard double deck bus body specification for rear engined, front loading buses. The initial purchase of rear engined buses was a batch of forty nine Daimler Fleetliner’s in 1962/63. It then moved on to the Leyland Atlantean chassis and over the next four years would purchase ninty nine chassis fitted with either Northern Counties or Metro-Cammell bodies to the Nottingham specification. Through out this period NCT operated a dual sourcing policy and continued also to purchase Daimler Fleetline chassis and with the spread of one man operation purchased in 1966 thirty Daimler Fleetline CRG6LX chassis fitted with Metro-Cammell H45/27D bodies with one set of doors at the front for entering and one set of doors in the middle for exiting. It would be 1968 before the first dual door Leyland Atlantean arrived when a batch of twenty two (501 – 522) Leyland Atlantean PDR1A/1 chassis fitted with Northern Counties H45/29D bodies appeared. 520 (PTO 520G) is one of this batch and can be seen here on Long Row, Nottingham, 3rd June 1981.
Tags: 3rd June 520
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A rear three quarter view of City of Nottingham Leyland Atlantean 527 (STO 527H) Long Row, Nottingham, 3rd June 1981. It is one of a batch of sixteen (523 -539) Leyland Atlantean PDR1A/1 chassis fitted with Northern Counties H45/30D bodies which entered service in 1970.
Tags: 3rd June 527
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20161 leads 20047 approaching Attenborough station with an empty unfitted coal train made up exclusively of 21 ton coal hoppers, 15th June 1981. These empties are almost certainly heading for Gedling colliery. After nationalisation in 1948 British Railways continued to build London and North Eastern Railway design coal hopper wagons with both welded and riveted bodies. Over twenty three thousand were built between 1949 and 1958 to five diagrams 1/141, 1/143, 1/145, 1/146 and 1/149 with the vast majority (nearly seventeen thousand) to diagram 1/146. They finally disappeared in the late 1980’s.
Locomotive History
Following the failure of the class 17 Claytons British Rail returned to its initial Type 1 design and ordered another hundred class 20 locomotives from English Electric. 20161 is one of this later batch of class 20’s built by English Electric at the Vulcan Foundry. It entered traffic in September 1966 and was allocated new to the Nottingham Division (in reality Toton) and was withdrawn from Toton twenty one years later in February 1988 having (as far as I can tell) been a Toton engine all its life. It was broken up by Vic Berry, Leicester in May 1990. 20047 was built by English Electric at the Vulcan Foundry and entered traffic in December 1959 and withdrawn in the early 1990’s. However 20047 was subsequently sold to Direct Rail Services, overhauled in the late 1990’s and renumbered 20301. It is currently (September 2014) stored at Barrow Hill.
Tags: 15th June D8161 20161
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Longsight allocated 25145 approaches Attenborough station with a short Freightliner train I suspect bound for Nottingham Freightliner Terminal located a couple of miles further towards Nottingham at Beeston, 15th June 1981. Under the train can be seen the crossover associated with the connection into Chilwell MOD Depot soon to be severed.
Locomotive History
25145 was originally D5295 and was delivered from Derby works in August 1964, allocated initially to the Nottingham Division (Toton) before transfer in October 1964 to the London Division (Cricklewood). Over the next twenty one years it would be allocated to Toton, Bescot, Longsight Crewe, Cricklewood and Kingmoor from where it was withdrawn in January 1986 with multiple faults, the two hundredth and sixty eighth class 25 to be condemned. Following withdrawal it was dumped at Crewe for a year until January 1987 when it made its way in company with 25048, 25175, 25231 and 25303 to Vic Berry's, Leicester and was broken up during April 1987.
Tags: 15th June D5295 25145 Canon AT1
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31302 is stabled at Shirebrook MPD, 20th June 1981.
Locomotive History
31302 was built by Brush at the Falcon works Loughborough as D5835 in January 1962 but did not enter traffic until April 1962 with the Mirrlees engine up-rated from 1365bhp to 2000bhp. This actually made D5835 a Type 4 although never officially recognised as such. It was allocated to Sheffield Darnal MPD and used on Kings Cross – Hull duties. By October 1962 it had run 30,000 miles without problems but by this time problems were starting to appear in the older Mirrlees engines and D5835 was quickly de-rated to 1365bhp. In 1964 a programme of works commenced to re-engine the fleet with the 1470bhp English Electric 12SVT engines. On the side photographed 31302 still has the enhanced radiator area (the lower two sets of radiator grills on the right hand end of the locomotive) for the additional cooling required when it was up-rated to 2000bhp. These additional radiator grills were unique to this locomotive. Originally built with vacuum train brakes it was fitted with dual (air/vacuum) train brakes during a classified repair at Doncaster works in December 1974. After thirty seven years service (and over eight years after its last classified repair at Doncaster works in October 1990) it was withdrawn in March 1999. Following withdrawal it was towed to Wigan CRDC and quickly broken up in July 1999.
Tags: 20th June D5835 31302
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