Preserved ex-Northern General front entrance Routemaster EUP 405 B arrives in Stockton on Tees High Street for the start of the 1985 Tyne-Tees HCVS road run. (phot – author)

According to economists, my father-in-law and much of the media if you choose to believe it, there is apparently a north/south divide in Britain. Supposedly, just where the line may be drawn depends on one’s outlook. Perhaps it is somewhere north of Stevenage or maybe, south of Scunthorpe? As for those who reside in the huge swathe of England we call the Midlands, they don’t get a look in! Probably better off out of it actually.

In the bus world (or what for the purposes of this exercise, was once the real bus world), such a divide didn’t happen. Unlike much of the populace of the time, in the middle decades of the last century, buses that originated in the south often ended up working in the north. Conversely, buses that saw the light of day in the north found their way to the south and earned their keep as such for years. (Buses from both the north and south also found themselves working in large parts of the ‘Midlands’ and likewise, buses built in the Midlands would find themselves operating in both the north and the south. Let’s not mention Scotland – or Wales!)

To make matters even more confusing however, rather than a north/south divide there was often the north/south mix. Bus chassis were built in one region or the other, often to be driven to the other end of the country to meets their bodies, and, sometimes then as a complete bus, even driven back near to where they started from to begin their working life! Bemused? Probably – but it is, after all, what made this bus business all the more fascinating.

Not unexpectedly though, the Routemaster bus sort of bucked the trend. It didn’t have a separate body, fabricated in some far flung workshop to be united with the chassis at the whim of operators. It was a one piece bus, built in conjunction with London Transport at Park Royal, with London Transport’s drivers, engineers and even customers (sorry, passengers) in mind. Okay AEC made the important bits, the noisy, technical bits while Park Royal made the other bits, those that held it all together and the bits that people saw and sat in. In the main though, what you got with a Routemaster was, well, just that – a Routemaster. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It was London’s bus. Built by Londoners for Londoners. It shouldn’t, and indeed didn’t, work successfully elsewhere. Well, almost.

I met a Routemaster recently – a shiny, all over red Routemaster, proudly showing off its ‘London Transport’ fleet names and it was in Manchester of all places. It was a strange sort of experience. You can see RM1414 in the Manchester Museum of Transport,  smartly lined up in the middle of all the rows of the other buses of its time – those from the more local townships; Bolton, Bury, Leigh, Salford, Stockport. It almost has an alien feel to it, as if it has been beamed, Scotty-like, from another vector – a Tardis-wise kind of warping into Lowry-land.  

After the initial intake of breath however, our Routemaster friend doesn’t look that much out of place. After all, Manchester Corporation did have red buses once and at one time almost ‘standardised’ on one type, the Crossley (locally built of course, body and chassis in the same factory – for Mancunians by Mancunians. Later on they even had another bus called…the ‘Mancunian’. Not built in Manchester though.).

The descriptor on the sign in front of Manchester’s Routemaster tells us it is included in the Museum’s collection to demonstrate the comparisons between the city’s resident buses and London’s Routemaster. It sort of reminds those good people of the north-west just what they might have been missing out on – or not as the case might be. In fact RM1414, actually did run in Manchester, for about a month in 1966 when it was loaned to Manchester Corporation for evaluation trials.

It might have worked, if only in as much that Manchester is the cosmopolitan Capital of the North. It has a Piccadilly, and a Victoria Station. There’s even an Oxford Street in there as well somewhere and a place called Hyde (perhaps there’s a park nearby). Old Trafford and Deansgate might just have got away with it – Moss Side and Belle Vue even (very ‘60s Carnaby Street chic!). But Denton…and Dukinfield…?  

So, after its lonely Lancashire sojourn RM1414 was returned to London and, apart from a nod and a wink, and a knowing sort of tap of the side of the nose, never mentioned again in respectable bus garages in the north-west. They didn’t want it did they? Leylands, built just up the road in er…Leyland, were what they wanted – and Leylands were what they got. The Routemaster wasn’t for them. Until, after this one was retired in London and they were given it back to show off in their Museum that is.

Elsewhere the Routemaster wasn’t being considered at all by other operators. By the mid-1960s, front entrances, doors on entrances, one-person operation and all that goes with it were being given the green light despite union protestations and, open, rear platform buses, or even buses with the engine at the front, weren’t being viewed as the way forward.

In 1962, in an effort to keep up with the latest bus operating trends, London Transport and friends had displayed RMF1254, a one-off long wheelbase, front entrance type of Routemaster at that year’s Earl’s Court Commercial Motor Show. It wasn’t met with the greatest of enthusiasm, not least from the unions, concerned with the requisite changes in working practices for their members. Operationally it wasn’t considered suitable for use in Central London either, requiring the opening and closing of doors which, it was thought, might slow down loading and journey times (obviously Mr. Livingstone and cronies never got to see that report. So much for progress!).

Someone from the Northern General Transport undertaking however, based on Tyneside, saw it and did like the look of it – so much so that they actually ordered 50 of them to work on long distance routes around the north-east. They were the only Routemasters built for operation outside of London and if nothing else, made interesting additions to an otherwise run of the mill sort of provincial BET fleet.

With its 30 foot body, neat rear end treatment and modern front entrance, in this guise the Routemaster finally appeared to gain an air of refinement and respectability. The ugly duckling had grown up, not quite into a beautiful swan but at least into a red (dark red mind), noble and dignified animal. What’s more, they took to it like the duck to water up in the north-east. It worked surprisingly well, being put to use on express limited stop services between Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland, and Middlesbrough. It became the mainstay of the Northern express routes twixt Tyne and Tees and was as much loved by the Geordies as its smaller cousins were by the people of London.

Unless you’re a football fan, with a pretty good team nearby that you want to follow to the ends of the Earth, Middlesbrough isn’t really somewhere you visit. It isn’t on a route to anywhere and really could be at the end of the Earth. It is somewhere in the north-east. Isn’t it? I once heard someone say (unfairly I might add) that if Britain was a human body then Middlesbrough would be a boil in the left armpit!

They’re a proud lot up there though. I should know. I married one of them. It really isn’t a bad place to go to and has a great deal to offer anybody with an interest in industrial, transport or maritime history. Don’t forget, the birth of the railway took place just six miles away in Stockton (you can still see the little original Stockton and Darlington Railway booking office. It nearly got knocked down a few years ago to make way for an MFI car park…or was it B&Q? Anyway it seems they’d forgotten what it was so somebody kindly reminded them before it was too late!).

Over the Tees in Middlesbrough, what they did have at one time as well were interesting buses. Trolleybuses even – right up until 1971. And they had Routemasters, visiting every hour from Newcastle and Sunderland.

I didn’t actually get to go to Middlesbrough until1978, when the time finally came to see who the future in-laws were going to be. By then it was just too late. I’d missed them by a whisker (the buses that is, not the in-laws). A few Northern Routemasters still lingered on at that time in places around Newcastle and Durham on some local services but regrettably, I never saw one in action.

As has often been the case in recent years, I did actually get to meet an ex-Northern Routemaster at a transport rally. It was one of the lucky ones which had escaped the breaker’s claws and made it into the realms of preservation. In June 1985, a weekend visit to the in-laws co-incided with the running of the annual HCVS Tyne-Tees Commercial Vehicle Rally, a road run for any preserved heavy and commercial vehicle, which began in Stockton-on-Tees High Street and wended its way northwards to South Shields.

That Sunday morning EUP 405 B  turned up in Stockton to join in the fun. It made quite an impression, both on myself and the other enthusiasts and drivers who were taking part. The slightly drab brick red livery didn’t really do it any favours, especially compared to some of the other buses there but it did seem almost to dominate proceedings somewhat. Compared with ‘normal’ Routemasters, you might say, this one was big – in your face big! I liked it. Yes, it was a Routemaster that actually, finally, did the business for me.

EUP 405 B again in Stockton High Street in 1985 turns heads as it waits for the start of the HCVS Tyne-Tees Road Run. The former Halifax AEC Regent V, a ‘real’ bus if ever there was one with its Glasgow inspired orange and green livery, would certainly have brightened up many a grim North Yorkshire morning! (photo – author)

Maybe, though it wouldn’t necessarily be immediately obvious, it was the Leyland 0.600 engine, gently throbbing away under the bonnet that made it sound all so grown up as well. None of that moaning, whining Middlesex-made malarkey for those Northerners. They wanted Leyland engines under their bus bonnets. Engines they were familiar with. Engines they knew what to do with. It sounded like a bus – a proper bus!

Images of this Routemaster making its way along the byroads of Durham and Northumberland were easily conjured up. I could picture it negotiating an early evening climb out of Sunderland, having swallowed up to 72  workers with ease and rushing them home through the suburbs, or see it swinging into Middlesbrough’s bus station to greet Saturday shoppers and late running football supporters.

There were some regrets that I had never made it to the north-east in time to catch these monsters in action. They must have been a treat to see and to travel on. Lucky folk, those Geordies. So lucky in fact they even got to buy everything they wanted in a shop called Binns. Well, they had to. Every bus they saw told them to!

Thankfully, a handful of these giants are still doing the rounds.  In addition to EUP 405 B, another of the type, PCN 762  is preserved in the North-east. I met this one as well at a more recent HCVS Tyne-Tees run, displaying Northern General’s post 1969 red and cream livery, resulting in a very eye-catching vehicle. Originally registered RCN 699 this one spent some time on school shuttles in the Midlands in the 1980s with well known independent operator Stevensons of Uttoxeter. After being bought for preservation by the Northern Bus Enthusiasts Association it is now also in private hands in Newcastle with its future secure.

The later Northern General livery, seen here on preserved RMF PCN 782 in 2002 really suited these larger Routemasters. An imposing vehicle if ever there was one! (photo – author)

RMF1254, the original prototype also went to Tyneside to join the other 50 of its kind after the initial evaluation in London. It returned, following retirement from service in the north and, having been privately preserved in its original LT guise – a sort of reminder of what might have been – is now in the hands of Essex operator Ensignbus.

In an intriguing mix of irony, RMF 1254 did finally get to run in revenue service in London after 43 years (not counting a short period doing the Heathrow Shuttle for BEA before it went north). Its first day of ‘normal’ passenger service in the Capital was actually on 28th October, 2005, the final day of Routemaster operation on route 38. Along with a number of other significant vehicles it was brought out to help to commemorate the day’s events by working on the route for much of the day and to mark the occasion with style.   

Another couple of surviving RMFs have also occasionally been seen earning their keep in London in recent years. The (appropriately named) Big Bus Co. retained two of them in their sightseeing fleet. They weren’t open toppers either, having been kept in original condition for private hire, promotional work and as ‘wet weather’ tourers. A glimpse of one of these striking vehicles could sometimes be had when they made an appearance in town and, with Big Bus’s superb livery they certainly looked the business. Admired wherever they went they were, deservedly,  the flagships of the Big Bus fleet. Only FPT 592 C remains with the company now however and it still makes an occasional visit into town, menacingly intimidating the traffic queues and ranks of black cabs, as if to make its presence felt in the congestion filled food chain.  

To my mind, the Routemaster gained an air of distinction in the RMF. If it had only been given a chance in London things might have been so different. Size in the bus world matters and if, as it has turned out, we do have the need for large capacity double deckers with manually operated doors, then why not have a front engined, front entrance vehicles such as this and keep a conductor on board as well? It would certainly save time loading at bus stops and there wouldn’t be any fare dodging either!

It just seems that while the powers that be in Newcastle were somewhat astute in seeing the RMF variant as a way forward the opportunity was wasted in the Capital and as was often the case, too little was learned too late – all of which might just go some way to proving that there probably is a North-South divide after all!  

Big Bus big bus! This profile of FPT 592 demonstrates the size of the front entrance Routemasters  – and Big Bus Co’s excellent livery style. (photo  – author)

For further Routemaster related articles and photos see links below:-

http://www.trifter.com/Europe/United-Kingdom/The-Routemaster-Bus-Why-All-the-Fuss-Introduction.443691 

http://www.trifter.com/Europe/United-Kingdom/The-Routemaster-Bus-Why-All-the-Fuss-1-The-Real-Bus.448101