Old Postcards - Transport & Weather

[Ludo]

So, a few more odds and ends then - this one is the 60 Years of Service Poster. There was a big week of events in Macclesfield to mark the anniversary and special fare deals and promotional activities throughout the year. It worked quite well and generated a lot of positive publicity for the company in general - until the axe fell...



The company had a culture of tie wearing - quite the norm in those days, and I found myself regularly haggling with the weavers to find a compromise between detail and the constraints of the weaving process. Here are three examples, Town Lynx, EuroLynx International (very sought after this one), and of course the 60 years of service commemorative tie:

[Ludo]

I also found the original visuals for the dragon coastliner service designs. These were the actual drawings presented to the then General Manager David Meredith who I learned today sadly died far too young at the age of sixty in 2002. He was a thorough gentleman and was well liked and respected by the whole company. These were also the very same drawings which reminded Traffic Manager Tony Harrison of his mother in law!. As you can see, they were accepted pretty much as is:



This article in the week of the launch of the service was from no less than the respected authority 'National Bus News' 



I'll try and post a bigger one so it is easier to read...

[Ludo]

Bigger version of the 'National Bus News' article:

[Ludo]

and... these are the original drawings of the castles used on the Castle Class open toppers and the corresponding timetable books etc:

[DaveR]

Network Rail have just launched their online archive of railway drawings, designs etc:
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/VirtualArchive/

[Llechwedd]

Wish they hadn't done away with the Cymru Coastliner it was such a good service all the way to Chester and then onwards if necessary.  Now you have to faff around in Rhyl.

[DaveR]

Not too difficult, you get the 12 to Rhyl and then get the X11 to Chester.

[Llechwedd]

Yeah but why should you have to when the Coastliner had limited stops and was so much faster and more comfortable. Grrr

[coastal taff]

Ludo, I worked for Crosville in the 1980's and drove the coastliner and the 'castle series' open toppers , your drawings brought back some great memories.
   
       The open top you pictured was the only one in the Crosville fleet with a tachograph fitted , so it often went out on private hire to Chester races .

[Ludo]

Prynhawn dda Taff,

I remember the Open Toppers at Chester Races. I used to walk past the Roodee on my way to and from work every day. We had a single decker Bristol RE (two door variant) converted as a sort of mobile exhibition/publicity bus and most seasons we trundled that into the Roodee for the races as a publicity campaign.

I am sure you already know about these websites, but for all who don't - they may be of interest:

Crosville reborn:  http://www.crosvillemotorservices.co.uk/index.php

Crosville enthusiasts club website:  http://www.crosville-ec.org.uk/index.html

[Blodyn]

Ludo, I've only just caught up with this thread and your fascinating contributions - I love your dragon design.  Like Hollins, I never thought I'd be so interested in buses, so many thanks for posting all this.

[DaveR]

A new photo of an old car. Was Inspector Morse in Llandudno today?

[Merddin Emrys]

Very nice, that's the Daimler with the 2.5 litre V8. Many years ago I had the Jaguar mk 2 with the 3.4
6 cylinder XK engine. I sold it for £300! A year or so later they became fashionable and the price shot up!  Jaguar ownership is calling me again at the moment!   ^*^0

[crisparmour]

The L1 Coastliner - the new Dragon service was put into service on New Year's day 1985 (I think).

I'm enjoying reading through this thread, Ludo. Around the time you were designing publicity material for the Crosville I was eagerly lapping it up as a card-carrying enthusiast, travelling the length and breadth of the company on the "Explorer" and "Rideabout" tickets and capturing the scenes with my camera for posterity.

Many of those scenes can be seen today on my flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/crisparmour/

I have a special Crosville collection at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crisparmour/sets/72157608061467854/

and a "Buses in Wales" collection at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crisparmour/sets/72157611167557674/

At the specific time you mention the Dragon-liveried Olympian deckers going into service on the Coastliner I was training to be a driver with the company and I rode out of Chester on the first bus on the new service which was actually on the first Sunday of the New Year. It was the 5th of January 1986, not 1985. It was a long time ago but I remember it well for those specific reasons.

Now you get the benefit of me photting one of your buses at your end on the big day while you were off gallivanting down the other....



Another taken the same day...



As for your cut-out Lodekka, I think that a high resolution scan would be appreciated by the enthusiast fraternity. I've never seen such like before and its appearance would cause a bit of a stir I think. Keep your illustrations coming, they are of real historic significance to transport enthusiasts.

Thanks!

[crisparmour]

That nasty, simplified Coastliner livery upon which the model bus was based [sorry if location is a few miles off topic] - why couldn't they go for the more characterful one which would have been much more attractive and sold more IMHO. Or would it have been too hard to reproduce?