Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
London Transport Buses in the 1960s: A Decade of Change and Transition

London Transport Buses in the 1960s: A Decade of Change and Transition

Blake, Jim

Hardcover

TrainsBritish History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1473867851
ISBN13: 9781473867857
Publisher: Pen & Sword Transport
Published: Oct 21 2022
Pages: 176
Language: English
Just as life in Britain generally changed dramatically during the 1960s, so did London Transport's buses and their operations. Most striking was the abandonment of London's trolleybuses, once the world's biggest system, and their replacement by motorbuses. Begun in 1959 using surplus RT-types, it was completed by May 1962 using new Routemasters, designed specifically to replace them. They then continued to replace RT types, too.

Traffic congestion and staff shortages played havoc with London Transport's buses and Green Line coaches during the 1960s, one-man operation was seen as a remedy for the latter, shortening routes in the Central Area for the former. Thus the ill-fated Reshaping Plan was born, introducing new O.M.O. bus types. These entered trial service in 1965, and after much delay the plan was implemented from September 1968 onwards. Sadly, new MB-types, also introduced in the Country Area, soon proved a disaster! Unfortunately, owing to a government diktat, Routemaster production ended at the start of 1968, forcing LT to buy off-the-peg vehicles unsuited to London operation and their in-house overhaul procedures. The decade ended with the loss of LT's Country Area buses and Green Line coaches to the National Bus Company.

Photographer Jim Blake began photographing London's buses towards the end of the trolleybus conversion program in 1961 and continued dealing with the changing scene throughout the decade. He dealt very thoroughly with the Reshaping changes, and many of the photographs featured herein show rare and unusual scenes which have never been published before.

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