| Leyland Atlantean AN 53 |
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| Service History |
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From the formation of the company in 1970, London Country had a significant number of crew-operated vehicles, mainly double deckers of the RT and Routemaster families. The RTs dated from the 1950s and a number of other vehicles in the initial London Country fleet also dated from this era, notably the RF class. The company was thus faced with the dual priorities of eliminating crew operation and modernising the fleet.
There were a few rear-engined double deckers in the London Country fleet that were inherited from London Transport; three "XA" Atlanteans and eight "XF" Fleetlines, both types dating from the comparative trials of 1965. Although London Transport had opted for the Daimler Fleetline as its rear-engined double decker, admittedly with a mixture of Leyland and Gardner engines, London Country soon placed an order for 90 Leyland Atlanteans. These were chassis type PDR1A/1 Special, with Park Royal dual door bodywork seating 43 upstairs and 29 down. The new batch of Atlanteans were classified "AN", presumably an abbreviation of "Atlantean". AN 1 - 90 were registered in Surrey as JPL 101K - 190K. London Country's head office was in Reigate and all vehicles were registered locally. There was a lot of London Transport influence in the design, for instance the layout of the front blind box; even the seat moquette was the same as that in the LT "DMS" Fleetlines being built by Park Royal at that time! London Country was still developing its own identity at that time and the external livery was a medium to dark green shade ("Light National Green") relieved with bold Canary Yellow from the between-decks band down to the bottom of the lower deck windows. The London Country yellow "Flying Polo" motif was applied between the headlamps. By the time that AN 90 was delivered, the National Bus Company had imposed its corporate livery of Leaf Green with white relief and the "N" symbol and this lone vehicle appeared in that livery from new. It was deemed un-necessary to repaint the remainder of these new vehicles into the NBC livery so the old London Country colours lasted until the late 1970s! Web-editor's note:- AN90 was painted specially to appear at the Commercial Motor Show. Particular care was taken over the finish and the Canary Yellow band (which was a very difficult colour) in particular. I know this because the man who painted it told me. The pristine vehicle was then placed into a clean storage area until just days before the show opened, when he was told to pull it out sharp-ish and repaint the whole vehicle into NBC corporate livery of Leaf Green and White for display, as it simply wouldn't do carrying the 'independent' company colours. With its desire to modernise the fleet, London Country was grateful to be able to accept other operators' cancelled orders. Eleven Daimler Fleetlines with Northern Counties bodies were unwanted by Western Welsh and were instead adopted as the "AF" class at Godstone Garage. Midland Red had ordered fifty Atlanteans with Metro Cammell bodywork; they were the only other PDR1A/1 Specials built. Of this batch, twenty went to Maidstone and District while the other thirty came to London Country, as AN 91 - 120. AN 53 was registered JPL 153K. Delivered to Reigate headquarters in mid 1972, she joined the allocation of Garston Garage (GR) in July that year. One of Garston's trunk routes was the 321, which ran from Luton to Uxbridge, passing through St Albans and Watford on the way. The allocation to this route was shared with Luton (LS) and crew operated RTs were displaced. I well remember seeing these green and yellow Atlanteans in the centre of St. Albans; there was a mixture of Park Royal and Metro Cammell examples and I may well have seen AN 53 at some point in the 1970s. She served at Garston until May 1979, whereupon she was withdrawn and stored for a short while until overhaul. Freshly repainted in National Bus Company corporate leaf green, AN 53 moved to Hertford but within a year moved on to Stevenage where she gained "Stevenage Bus" branding. A farebox was also fitted at this time. In September 1986, ownership passed to London Country North East, with the division of the original London Country for deregulation. Under LCNE ownership, AN 53 flitted around Hertfordshire, with spells at Hatfield, Stevenage, St Albans and Hertford, before being withdrawn in January 1989. 53 was notable for passing into the ownership of John Farrow and colleagues at Hertfordshire Rail Tours, being used for promotional work and noted as such in mid 1991. Ownership later transferred to south-coast-based Leisurelink, who applied a green and off white livery. On at least one occasion, AN 53 was used on the free bus service at Cobham Bus Rally! Following technical problems, Leisurelink placed AN 53 into storage. Eventually its existence was made known to London Country AN enthusiast, Derek Potter, owner of AN 1. He went to look at it, to be told "the engine doesn't run and the gearbox is no good". I am told that he had the engine running within 30 minutes and then spent the next few days doing a gearbox swap. This enabled Derek to drive AN 53 back to the Luton area. These ex Garston engineers are good! Derek kept AN 53 in store for a while, although he made a few visits to rallies in AN 1, which was partly fitted out as a caravan and looked particularly fetching with net curtains at the upstairs windows. |
| Purchase for Preservation |
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I had always hankered after a London Country AN. After the first 120 of the type had been delivered, the chassis type changed to "AN 68" for the remainder of deliveries. AN 121-3 had dual door bodies but the rest of those delivered had single door Park Royal or Roe bodies. I was not really fussed about which variety I wanted, but any vehicle I preserved should ideally have a St Albans connection.
St Albans had seen various of these vehicles, not just the Garston based early examples; GR had also received later "AN 68" deliveries and I recall that Hatfield AN vehicles from the last batch (KPJ - W) had visited the City on occasion. In mid 1981, SA Garage received brand new AN 289 - 292, the last of the type delivered. (Note, there was AN 293, built to replace an earlier loss, but that arrived out of sequence). Brand new "LR" Olympians, from April 1982, soon ousted these four vehicles. I vaguely recalled the last four AN vehicles, and even rode on a couple of them during their short stay at SA. Of the 289-292 batch, 290 upwards (and even out of sequence 293) spent the later 1990s serving the City of Leeds, but they were scrapped before I even thought about having an AN. 289 appeared from nowhere, and I went after it to save it, but missed it by a few days, so that terminated any plans for a "new to SA" vehicle. My over-riding memory of AN's in St Albans was of Garston vehicles on route 321 (and the late 1970s route 327 variant), both early "PDR Specials" and later "AN 68s". I especially recall the dark green and yellow livery, how shabby this looked by the later 1970s and how much better the Atlanteans looked once repainted in fresh NBC green! One or two of the ex Garston AN 68s may have offered possibilities for preservation, but nothing seemed to be available. I was aware that Derek Potter owned AN 1 and subsequently found out that he also had AN 53. Some research had shown that AN 53 had the "right history" for a St Albans connection, but I suspected that Derek was not in the mood to part with either vehicle. As an aside, I had stumbled across AN 5 at Llandudno in May 2000; this had been one of the 1977 "Silver Jubilee" Atlanteans but was subsequently converted to open top. AN 85, once preserved, was believed to survive as a film catering bus on Merseyside, but that had no links with St Albans during its service career. By late 2003, I was beginning to think that preserving an AN would not happen. I had my "LR" Olympian and that would have to satisfy my London Country double deck needs. A Christmas card from Nick Larkin (of Bus and Coach Preservation magazine fame) had a note within: two AN's were advertised for sale in the edition due out within a few weeks! The magazine arrived and indeed there were AN 1 and AN 53 advertised as a pair. I arranged an appointment to see Derek Potter at a farm near Luton Airport. Although AN 1 was the first of the class, had been to the Motor Show when new, and had been specially decorated with "Atlantean" boot lid badges and "Leyland" front wheel trims for this, its history in normal service counted against it. The engine was a low mileage reconditioned unit, but the body was poor in some areas, not just because of its conversion to driver training use, which saw the cab rear partition and some of the adjacent seat unit cut away and a side window added. In summary, I had no interest in AN 1. AN 53 not only had a more appropriate history, being at Garston garage from new, the body was a good starting point and the gearbox was apparently a reconditioned item. The engine, however, made an unusual noise that could have been head gasket or valve problems. A deal was done with Derek Potter for the purchase of AN 53 only. On the day we went to collect it, the new owners of AN 1 were also to take away their new vehicle. Apparently, AN 1 was destined to be converted into a caravan or similar; this was actually a blessing to me as it yielded its seats and a number of fittings that would be useful in restoring AN 53. The journey from the farm near Luton Airport was certainly an experience. AN 53 is a lumbering great thing and the lanes from the farm into civilisation were sometimes narrow, with overhanging trees. I also had AN 1 following me. That Saturday afternoon in January 2004, AN 53 successfully made the trip from Luton to Royston. The engine note was subdued, due to the pile of cushions on the lower deck, and it certainly seemed to plod along. By the time we got "home" the possible head gasket noise was getting worse, possibly contributing to the lack of power. Most systems seemed to work, but we only had direction indicators on one side, and the selector switch was not secured to the cab. Jobs to sort out later. |
| A Start is Made |
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Due to being diverted onto Leyland National work, AN 53 had minimal attention until mid 2005. The first job was to investigate the low power and poor running of the engine. Also, not long after collection, there seemed to be a problem where the gearbox selected first gear and reverse simultaneously.
We stripped a lot of stuff from the engine to enable removal of the cylinder heads. The actual head gaskets were in good order, but it turns out that one injector was no good and most of the valves were not seating properly. Rob Knight worked some magic on the heads and the refurbished items were refitted. We were able to figure out how the rest of the engine fitted back together and were more than happy when it actually started and ran sweetly. The gearbox problem was next on the list to sort out. The electro-pneumatic control box at the rear of the lower deck all seemed ok, and we have reached the conclusion that lack of use has meant that the reverse gear is a bit "sticky". On occasions when the engine has been running, we have tried selecting reverse then neutral, to try and unstick the innards of the gearbox. The direction indicators apparently use three 8 volt bulbs in series, to cope with the 24 volt vehicle system. As this is an "odd" type, we have tried 12 volt bulbs. Initially, we were struggling to work out why we could only get the indicators on one side of the bus to flash, but not the other side; we could even get the other side to flash but not the first side. A return to first principles of how the system worked saw us find the problem in minimal time; the switch had been incorrectly wired! With this corrected, the 12 volt bulbs seem to be ok, so far. By September 2005, we had checked most of the electrical functions of the vehicle and had identified a few faults:- |
| Interior Restoration |
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At some point in London Country days, the seating had been retrimmed in typical NBC golden brown cloth; when new this would have been the same blue/green Celestra moquette as fitted to contemporary London Transport vehicles such as "DMSs". The interior had been in a fairly tidy condition when the vehicle was bought, which made a good starting point.
In the Summer of 2004, a start had been made on assessing the seating to see what needed done to return it to original colours. In a few places, certain types of "DMS" trim could be made to fit but much of the AN seating was unique. Certain cushions and backs were taken away to Hants and Dorset Trim in Southampton, where they received fresh Celestra moquette. By the end of the Summer, the lower deck had reverted to its "proper" colour, as had the bench seat at the back, upstairs. In the Summer of 2005, further attention was given to the interior, but only after a major reshuffle of my storage arrangements led to a number of DMS cushions being stored inside AN53. To save on retrimming costs, it was decided to convert the upper deck to DMS seating; although the DMS seats are a slightly different size and the gangway edge of the backrest has a notable taper (whereas the AN sets have parallel edges) it was felt that converting the whole upper deck was the way to go, especially as I have plenty of DMS cushions and back in storage. The DMS seats have a different fixing arrangement where they meet the side of the vehicle, so adaptor brackets are being made. From the latter part of 2005 into 2006, most of my attention was directed towards a move of house, and as part of this, the collection of buses and associated spares had to be sorted out, which distracted me from AN restoration, however during that time a few more jobs were progressed on AN53, including a repair to the front windows on the upper deck, to make them both open as intended. In the spring of 2007, without SNB312 and SNC168 to distract me, I was able to progress work on the DMS seat frames fitted upstairs. Rubbing down and painting with red oxide has been completed and all frames have had a coat of light grey paint. The whole upper deck needs a thorough clean, then it should be possible to fit the seat backs and bases to the frames; once this is done, the upper deck should be of a sufficient standard for MOT test, so all we will need to do is tidy the downstairs, check the vehicle over and see how it fares with the examiner. |
| Allocation History |
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New 7/72 - GR 5/79 - overhaul 7/79 - HG 5/80 - SV 9/86 - London Country NE (at SV) 10/86 - HF 10/87 - SV 4/88 - SA 8/88 - HG 1/89 - Withdrawn By 5/91 - Hertfordshire Rail Tours. |
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