Latest Updates - Jim Blake

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Comment by Pridesale:

Publisher Blurb
In this new photographic album from Pen & Sword, transport historian and photographer Jim Blake presents a fascinating selection of pictures of a form of public transport now sadly missing from Britain's streets trolleybuses. Most British trolleybus systems flourished in the inter-war years, particularly the 1930s. The biggest fleet was that of London Transport. But for the Second World War, it would have been bigger still if South London's trams had been replaced by trolleybuses, as intended. London, however, replaced these with motor-buses instead, influencing other operators to abandon their trolleybuses, too. By the 1960s, their demise was well under way. Fortunately, during that decade, Jim travelled throughout England and Wales, photographing buses, coaches, steam locomotives and trolleybuses. This book features the latter, beginning with their final weeks in London, then continuing to places as diverse as Bournemouth and Cardiff, Bradford and Maidstone. Most pictures have never been published before. Taken between 1962 and 1968, they transport the reader back to a wonderful land with many quaint forms of public transport, particularly trolleybuses! What will strike readers is their variety of liveries, manufacturers and so on. Britain's last trolleybuses ran in 1972. Despite many other world cities having modern trolleybus systems today, it will be a long time before they return to our streets, if ever! How sad when our cities are polluted by vehicles powered by internal combustion engines: trolleybuses are completely pollution-free

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Comment by Pridesale:

Publisher Blurb
LONDON'S FAMOUS RT-TYPE BUSES were an iconic symbol of our Capital city in the 1950s, before being superseded by the Routemasters. Most were built between 1947 and 1954 to replace worn-out pre-war and wartime buses, as well as our remaining trams.
More than 7,000 were built in all and although London Transport favoured A.E.C. chassis, which the first batches of RTs had, so pressing was the need for new buses that not enough could be supplied by that manufacturer to match demand.
Therefore Leyland Motors were contracted to adapt their Leyland "Titan" PD2 chassis to fit bodies that, for the most part, were identical with those on RTs. The result was the 1,631-strong RTL class, together with the 500 RTWs, which had bodies also built by Leyland to the same general design, were built between 1948 and 1954

Always in a minority compared to the 4,825-strong RT class, these Leyland buses had a character all of their own, perhaps personified by their louder engine note. They also had a reputation for being heavier on their steering than the RTs, making them unpopular with staff, and therefore general withdrawal of them commenced in 1958, taking almost ten years to complete (in November 1968), whereas the RTs soldiered on until April 1979.

During the RTL and RTW class buses' final years, Jim Blake was out and about photographing them throughout London. A selection of his photographs of them, most previously unpublished, is presented here. Nearly fifty years after their demise from London's streets, the RTLs and RTWs still have a firm following amongst bus enthusiasts and preservationists alike, and it is to them that this book is dedicated!

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Comment by Pridesale:

Publisher Blurb
British Buses and Coaches in the 1960s, is an overview of the bus and coach scene during a decade of great social and economic change in Britain's history. This volume looks at the interesting and varied number of bus and coach operators that still existed, before and just after the formation of the National Bus Company in 1968. Jim Blake has compiled an interesting collection of material from his extensive collection of negatives taken during that time, which give a flavour of how things were at that time of great change.

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Comment by Pridesale:

Publisher Blurb
This fascinating and informative book looks at the Tilling Group of bus companies during the 1960s. These operated approximately half of the inter-urban and rural bus services in England and Wales, and were nationalised by Clement Attlee's Labour Government in 1948 under the control of the British Transport Commission ( we should note this was due to British Railways constituents owning the shares of Tilling's Bus Operations)

Ownership passed to the Transport Holding Company Ltd in 1963, though the fleets remained under Tilling Group control. During the period covered by this book, the operators within the group had very standardised fleets, with the vast majority of their buses and coaches having Bristol chassis and Eastern Coachworks (ECW) bodywork. This was a result of these manufacturers also having been nationalised and controlled by the BTC and THC. However, some Tilling Group operators still had earlier vehicles with, for instance, AEC or Leyland chassis, which were acquired prior to the requirement for them to buy only Bristol products, whilst some also had coaches with Bedford or Ford Thames chassis built in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike the BET fleets throughout England and Wales, most Tilling fleets also had highly standardised liveries, either of red with cream relief, or green with cream relief for their stage carriage buses, or the reverse of this for their coaches. There were some exceptions, though. The most obvious ones were Midland General and Notts & Derby, whose livery was an attractive dark blue and cream; as well as the Royal Blue coaches of Southern and Western National and the maroon and cream coaches of Thames Valley subsidiary South Midland. All Tilling Group companies became part of the National Bus Company in early 1969, and before long their traditional liveries became just a memory when the NBC imposed standard red or green liveries(exceptionally blue). Throughout most of the 1960s, Jim Blake travelled to these operators and photographed their vehicles, and spent many summer Saturdays at London's Victoria Coach Station, where their service buses as well as express coaches could be seen. He was fortunate to capture much of this changing transport scene on film, and presents some of these photographs in this volume. Many have never been published before.

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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
London's Historic, iconic Underground railway system in the period from 1968 to 1985 was a very different place to what it is in the 2020s. Much of its rolling stock dated from before World War Two, and with the exception of the new Victoria Line and the isolated Woodford to Hainault shuttle, trains were all two-person operated as the 1970s dawned.

Transport photographer Jim Blake recorded most of the system on film before it would change forever, concentrating on the older rolling stock as well as other items of interest due for replacement or modernisation, during this period when, regrettably, London Transport was often starved of much-needed funds by central government. The eminently sensible transfer of overall control of London's buses and Underground system to the city-wide Greater London Council at the beginning of 1970 was snatched away by the Thatcher regime in 1984, after which things rapidly went downhill.

This book covers the years of GLC control, including the months prior to their taking charge in order to set the scene. Many rare and unusual scenes are included in this volume, especially of the then still basically intact portion of the uncompleted Northern Line extension between Drayton Park and Highgate, which had been so close to completion when work was halted during the war, but then abandoned in the early 1950s, incurring much wasted work and expenditure. For anyone with a serious interest in London's Underground, this book is essential reading, including as it does many pervious unpublished photographs.

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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
During the 1960s, a large number of independent bus and coach fleets existed, which varied enormously in size and scope of operation. They ranged from major operators such as Barton Transport (Nottinghamshire); Lancashire United and West Riding who operated stage carriage services as well as coach fleets; or Wallace Arnold Tours of Leeds, a major coach touring company in Britain and Continental Europe; to small operators who possessed just a handful of vehicles. The latter were sometimes involved only in private hire work, for such things as outings to sporting events or theatres, school or industrial contracts or often a combination of both. Smaller operators were based throughout the country, sometimes in tiny villages but also in the heart of large cities. Often the smaller operators bought redundant buses and coaches from major operators, whether BET, BTC (Tilling) or municipal concerns, or London Transport. Many got bargains from the latter, with surplus RT and RTL double-deckers sold following the disastrous bus strike and service cuts of 1958.

Conversely, redundant vehicles bought by independent fleets often brought types that came from as far away as Scotland to London and the south east. In the 1960s, the oldest buses and coaches with independent fleets were those employed on school or industrial contracts. These were not subject to the rigorous tests governing those carrying fare-paying passengers, so could be kept going until they were literally falling apart! These were known as non-PSVs', i.e. non-public service vehicles. On the other hand, some very small independent fleets, often with the title Luxury Coaches', took great pride in their fleets. They would purchase new coaches every two or three years and keep them in immaculate condition. The net result was that British independent bus and coach operators in the 1960s had a fascinating variety of chassis and body makes and styles, as well as liveries. This book shows many of these as they were between fifty and sixty years ago.

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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
This book looks at the wonderful variety of buses and coaches operated by British Electric Traction group fleets in the 1960s, featuring previously unpublished photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives.
Not only did these fleets, which served most of England and Wales, have a splendid variety of British-built buses and coaches with chassis manufactured by the likes of AEC, Crossley, Daimler, Dennis, Guy and Leyland - with bodywork by such firms as Park Royal, Weymann, Metro-Cammell, East Lancs, Northern Counties, Roe, Duple, Plaxton, Willowbrook and Leyland again - but they also had an array of distinctive liveries. Many dated back to the early part of the century when the operators first started bus operation. The smart maroon and cream of East Kent, the dark green and cream of Maidstone & District or the light green and cream of Southdown, for example, were supplemented by ornate fleet-names, often in gold lettering. These three fleets were just a few of those that served seaside towns, and will remind readers of holidays they spent in the 1950s and '60s.

Sadly, the years covered by this book are the final years of the BET group, which was taken over by the nationalised Transport Holding Company in late 1967, as a prelude to the creation of the National Bus Company, under which the distinctive liveries of the BET group fleets, and even some of the operators themselves, would disappear. The 1960s also saw the demise of many traditional types of bus that these fleets operated, owing to the introduction of rear-engined double-deckers, such as the Leyland Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline, as well as the spread of one-man operation.
Many of the photographs featured in this book show the older types in their final days - pure nostalgia for the transport enthusiast.

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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
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 programme 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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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
Continuing with photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the second half of the 1970s, when both London Transport and London Country were still struggling to keep services going. This resulted both from being plagued by a shortage of spare parts for their vehicles, and having a number of vehicle types which were unreliable the MB, SM and DMS classes. In 1975, both operators had to hire buses from other companies, so desperate were they. Many came from the seaside towns of Southend, Bournemouth and Eastbourne. This continued until the spares shortage began to abate later in the decade, particularly with London Country.

As the decade progressed, the two fleets began to lose their 'ancestral' vehicle types. London Country rapidly became 'just another National Bus Company fleet', buying Leyland Atlanteans and Nationals common to most others throughout the country. Having virtually abandoned the awful MB and SM-types, London Transport had to suffer buying the equally awful DMSs well into 1978, but had already ordered replacements for them by that point the M class Metrobuses and T class Titans both of which would finally prove successful. However, plans to convert trunk routes serving Central London to one-person operation were largely abandoned.

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Comment by Whyperion SUBS:

Publisher Blurb
Using photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives, this book examines the turbulent period in the history of London's buses immediately after London Transport lost its Country Buses and Green Line Coaches to the recently-formed National Bus Company, under their new subsidiary company, London Country Bus Services Ltd.

The new entity inherited a largely elderly fleet of buses from London Transport, notably almost 500 RT-class AEC Regent double-deckers, of which replacement was already under way in the shape of new AEC MB and SM class Swift single-deckers.

London Transport itself was in the throes of replacing a much larger fleet of these. At the time of the split, it was already apparent that the 36ft-long MB class single-deckers were not suitable for London conditions, particularly in negotiating suburban streets cluttered with cars, and were also mechanically unreliable. The shorter SM class superseded them, but they were equally unreliable. January 1971 saw the appearance of London Transport's first purpose-built one-man operated double-decker the DMS class. All manner of problems plagued these, too.

Both operators were also plagued with a shortage of spare parts for their vehicles, made worse by the three-day week imposed by the Heath regime in 1973-4. London Transport and London Country were still closely related, with the latter's buses continuing to be overhauled at LT's Aldenham Works. Such were the problems with the MB, SM and DMS types that LT not only had to resurrect elderly RTs to keep services going, but even repurchased some from London Country! In turn, the latter operator hired a number of MB-types from LT, now abandoned as useless, from 1974 onwards in an effort to cover their own vehicle shortages. Things looked bleak for both operators in the mid-1970s.

This book contains a variety of interesting and often unusual photographs illustrating all of this, most of which have never been published before.