The B51 Coach: The Day The Bottom Fell Out Of ECW.
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- Hello there!
Welcome to the second episode of Jake's Bus Bits. This episode I look at the woeful tale of the Eastern Coach Works B51 coach.
Do you remember the B51 bodied Leyland Leopards? I have fond memories of them and I genuinely like them. Some companies referred to them as the 'paper Leopards' whilst others called them 'Tonka Toys'.
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This series we look at the weird, wonderful and quirky things within the world of buses and coaches.
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I have fond memories of VHK177L, Eastern National 1404 which was featured in this vid, I had many happy hours and days driving it on various day tours and the old "Highwaynan" services around East Anglia, it was a lovely thing to drive, typical RE smooth and quiet and its nice to see that its still in good hands.
Wow, what a trip down memory lane! I remember well these being new to the Oxford City Link Fleet, and them looking SOOO modern at the time. These bodies were on the last batch of leopards that were acquired for the Oxford-London service before the switch to Leyland Tigers. I absolutely loved them! Something so nostalgic about the roar of those engines! I was far too young at the time to be aware of their reliability issues, but very disappointed when the next batch of new coaches for the Oxford City Link were back to Duple Dominant bodies, and Leyland Tiger engines....I missed that familiar roar! So good to see a photo featured, took me back!
I used to drive Leopards regularly in the 1990s. Loved them. These were the last generation of Leylands that had a proper weighty feel to all the controls; a feeling of quality and durability. The unfiltered exhaust bark of a Leyland 680 would set off car alarms. :-)
That East Lancs body looks interesting in a so bad it's good kind of way. I like the front clip in particular and I immediately thought of the Greenway. That bus made me smile.
They used to operate from the Midland Red North depot where i live. 5 of them kept the ECW coach seats and had them retrimmed
Would be great to see a video on Bedford Duple bodied coaches. I remember the Bella Vistas and Bella Vegas of my childhood. I was always fascinated by the Bedford VAL Chinese Sixes!
Me too - still have a boxed Corgi model.
They're beautiful coaches. I remember the ones at Southern Vectis in the early 80's or late 70's.
I was born in Beccles (in 1944) but I was raised in Lowestoft and Oulton Broad. ECW had their Works at the top of Denmark Road, where it turns into Rotterdam Road. These days it is part of an industrial estate. one of my uncles was a shop foreman! In the '50's and ''60''s the main production was single- and double- decker buses on Bristol chassis''. The chassis would be driven all the way from Bristol - with the driver in the open air, even in Winter. Some weeks later, that chassis would depart Lowestoft to some part of the UK as a brand new, shiny coloured bus, with the company or corporation name written along the side and a strange (to us collectors of registration numbers) number plate! For me (on my bike) it was possible to ride past the front of the Works on my way home from the town - quite often there would be a line of brand new buses lined up, ready for delivery to their respective operators. Sometime I would write down the name of the city or town on the side of the bus and then look at the road map in my dad''s AA book to see where the bus was going! And you could always tell an ECW bus - ECW was stamped on the rear of the clutch housing, just above the floor level , behind the driver''s cab on the lower deck! Sadly, I think the demise of ECW was not only because of Leyland but also because the unions became very bolshie ( a bit like the coal miners!). Anyway, thanks for the trip down Memory Lane!
Very lucky being able to view ECW in it's heyday. I'd have loved a trip around the factory. Oh for a time machine eh?
@@jakeyb2003You cannot attach all blame on trade unions ! Management are guilty of cutting corners as is very evident nowadays.
The reason for the demise was simple, the Thatcher government stopped the bus grant for local authorities and then de-regulated the industry. I was working at ECW at the time, like many coach builders we went from an almost full order book down to basically zero. Nothing whatsoever to do with the unions, in fact ECW had a dedicated, first class workforce.
The East Lancs body looks like the less known version of the Greenway was it the earlier or later version? It wasn't the ones LT & LCBS had it sort of had a Slab Front
My late uncle Den pictured here outside Sunderland Central Bus station driving the Redby bus
Always nice to have a personal connection with a picture and know a name to a face.
Blackburn Transport had some of these but with Tiger chassis, they looked smart in the one tone green and cream livery.
The LCBS Greenline TL's suffered constantly with serious cracking around their rear windscreens. The coachmakers headache was trying to keep these vehicles serviceable by rivetting ally plates to the surrounds.
This was no permanent solution to a fundemental error in their design, apart from a re-body.
I worked for LCBS South West in the 1980's.
BMMO, or Midland Red, Carlyle Works would be horrified.
The Wessex Tigers were absolute work horses, doing the daily Bristol to Newcastle 730 service, I believe these examples were rebodied by Duple. Great video.
Thanks.
I must admit, I did like those coaches. I remember seeing them as a kid with United Counties. In managed to track two down, and had planned to buy one, but I was a week late
That's a shame. I was offered one at the Oxford bus museum many years ago, an old East Kent one at that! Sadly I wasn't in a position to do anything about it. I kick myself now though.
@jakeyb2003 I wish I'd been able to buy one. In fact, the company I'd approached, had two of them, consecutively numbered, both ex United Counties. I guess having a place to keep them is the awkward part
@jakeyb2003 I wish I'd been able to buy one. In fact, the company I'd approached, had two of them, consecutively numbered, both ex United Counties. I guess having a place to keep them is the awkward part
@@johnUB4478 That is indeed the problem
It’s nothing to do with the Leyland chassis, it was the ECW B51 body, initially designed for rear engined chassis, but adapted to fit mid-engined chassis like the Leopard and the Tiger
More videos please on different types of bodies and body builders, its a little covered subject.
East lancs would be interesting to me as we used to charter an east lancs bodied volvo frequently and it aways struck me as a bit of a thrown together 'bitser'
East Lancs had that reputation, but they would be 'bitsers' that would last longer than classier products!
@@robertwilloughby8050 I just remember the bolted on tabs to stop the windows falling out, I suppose those buses where 30 years old and still in every day service, I don't think the yutongs will last half that.
After designing such perfectly balanced and well built bodywork throughout it's history - especially the RELH mk1 - it was sad to watch ECW be influenced by Plaxton and Duple in it's designs......as they were far better than their garish competitors!
I agree. ECW bodies always had and still have something about them that their competitors didn't.
@@jakeyb2003 Glad you agree - we're on the same page! I think there was a reserved 'class' about ECW design - even as a kid being taken to school on Plaxton or Duple Bedford's I recall thinking how garish they were, with an over abundance of unnecessary brightwork and way too many different materials used on the interior.
'Mobile Jukeboxes' was how I thought of them.....not to mention the harsh sounds of front engined Bedford's. Wheras Bristol ECW's were proper 'serious' vehicles.
I've long tried to find if the RELH design could be attributed to one person? - as in my opinion at least, it was a true masterpiece of perfectly proportioned balanced design - exuding a kind of friendly 'I'll look after you' power.......crikey I'm anthropomorphising a bus now - shows what a fan I've always been!
The biggest problem with Leyland in the 1970s-1980s was that Leyland Motors making trucks and buses had been lumped with the former British Motor Corporation manufacturing cars to form British Leyland Motor Corporation. The truck and bus operation should have been totally separate from the car operation, but they were starved of investment because the car factories needed it to improve their unreliable rust bucket products. The Conservative government of the 1980s hated manufacturing and public transport, so, despite in the 1980s still exporting buses even to places like Baghdad, Leyland stood no chance!
such a shame
Always so much negativity towards the ECW B51 body 🙄. Much prefer a body with an aluminium alloy body frame.
Anyone who’s had a go a preserving a Plaxton Supreme / Paramount or Duple Dominant will be familiar rot prone steel body frames and, not to mention the wood. It’s why so few survive today. At least the ECW body frame doesn’t have that issue 👍
Not to forget in the quest to maximise rear boot space the chassis extension behind the rear axle disappeared. Hence all the bodies of this period had structural issues. Indeed that why many Plaxton Supreme bodied leopards have droop after the rear axle, which is an expensive exercise to resolve.
Totally agree Richard. I've seen a few Duples with the droop at the rear end too.
Typical British Leyland. They got far too big and overstretched themselves. Once proud motor vehicle producers destroyed by corporate greed.
Nothing to do with Leyland, it was ECW, adapting a body meant for rear engined chassis to a mid- engine chassis.
@@michaelkeen5010 Who owned ECW by this time?
I think blaming "corporate greed" is going a bit far. I thought in the early eighties BL was under public ownership anyway, with the sell off to British Aerospace not happening until towards the end of the decade. Regardless, it's not like there wasn't any competition in the coach bodybuilding market, and the cost pressures will have been intense. Across the company Leyland had a reputation for inefficiency and low productivity with plenty of union troubles as well. Not surprising they cut corners but with predictable results.
@@michaelkeen5010..and why was that? After a successfully-produced prototype, (a rebuild of an earlier ECW-bodied RELH), the original plan by NBC was to recondition and rebody some Bristol RE chassis, which had plenty of life left in them, with B51 bodies.
Leyland HQ got wind of this, stepped in at the last minute and offered to sell NBC Leopards at knock-down price to boost their flagging sales figures.
ECW were given virtually no time to re-jig the B51 body for Leopards, which ECW had little experience in bodying. It must be remembered that the Leopard was a much harsher-riding chassis than the air-suspended RE which ECW were well used to working with, and with completely different structural requirements at the rear end of the body.
To complicate the position, Greater Manchester had previously purchased B51-bodied Leopards which suffered rear end structural problems, but GM repaired them themselves but didn’t inform ECW about what had happened.
So, it’s not all the fault of ECW.