Local Transport History Library

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Please note this is purely a social history site and we do not hold any personnel records of former employees and regret we are unable to help with family research or related enquiries.

We are always grateful for further information or archive and historic photographs for inclusion in second and future editions of our PDF booklets. If you can help then please email us. If you spot any mistakes or typo errors please get in touch. If you have anything you think might be of interest to us that we can publish in PDF format please let us know - we are always interested in unpublished material - as long as you have copyright.

For any other enquiries please email us: lth.library‘at’gmail.com (replace the ‘at’ with @).

About our PDF booklets

The enactment of the 1985 Transport Act on 26 October 1986 (de-regulation) effectively ended municipal operations throughout the country and this date has been used as a convenient cut-off date for the municipal histories, even though operations may have continued in the private sector after this date. We have also used this date as a convenient cut-off date for most of the companies in the private sector, although some leeway is given to companies and undertakings that have or had a substantial history before that date.

The body and seating codes used in our publications are the standard PSV Circle codes and can be viewed below if you are uncertain about any of them.

Centre entrance (if there are two or more
pairs of seats in front of the entrance)
Dual entrance/exit (or more than two)
Front entrance
Wheelchair lift (shown after entrance)
Open staircase (shown after entrance)
Rear entrance
Rear entrance with doors fitted
Rear entrance with open platform
(early vehicles)
Toilet fitted (shown after entrance)

Articulated Bus
Articulated Coach
Single-deck bus
Single-deck coach
Double-deck highbridge coach
Double-deck lowbridge coach
Convertible open top vehicle
Charabanc
Single-deck dual-purpose vehicle
Full fronted vehicle (where not normally fitted)
Double-deck highbridge bus
Half-deck coach
Double-deck lowbridge bus
Minibus
Permanent open top vehicle
Airport/Observation coach
Toastrack

Body and Seating Codes

All our PDF booklets use the standard PSV Circle seating codes when describing the body and seating arrangements for double and single deck buses and coaches as detailed below:

The seating capacity of a double deck vehicle is usually expressed as the number of seats in the upper saloon 'over' the number of seats in the lower saloon - for example 30/26 indicates a vehicle having 30 seats on the upper deck and 26 seats on the lower deck. Highbridge and lowbridge refer to the body layout and not the overall height of the vehicle (i.e. lowbridge has a sunken gangway on the upper deck or part thereof).

Letters placed after the seating capacity:

C

D
F
L
O
R
RD
RP

T

Letters placed before the seating capacity:

AB
AC
B
C
CH
CL
CO
Ch
DP
F
H
HD
L
M
O
RC
T

Contributors | About the LTHL | Codes/Contact Us

Abbreviations

We normally use standard PSV Circle abbreviations for coach/chassis builders and the more common are listed below:

ACB     - Associated Coachbuilders
  EEC     - English Electric
  MCW    - Metro-Cammell-Weymann
  MCCW - Metro-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Co.
  NCB     - Northern Coachbuilders
  NCME   - Northern Counties Motor & Engineering Co
  RSJ      - Ransomes, Simms & Jefferies
  SARO    - Saunders-Roe