I just want to hop on a bus
Page 49
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I was interested in Mr Gibson's letter (June 25) concerning manual transmission and British buses. After several years in the engineering side of the bus industry, I have been amazed that the semi or automatic transmission has remained in favour outside of the municipal undertaking.
For example, when the Bristol RE replaced the MW chassis the RE never compared to the MW in fuel consumption. Generally It was found the Gardner LX engine was required to improve tile hill climbing and performance against the smaller GLW engine. In the MW even worse came the Leyland National, again poor fuel consumption and expensive complicated maintenance and repair. The double deck field has the same comparison in the Bristol FLF Lodekka and the Bristol VRT both operating side by side on the same time schedules, the VRT having often the larger engine but being more expensive in fuel and maintenance. Britain led the export of single deck chassis but today we are often beaten by simpler chassis by foreign competitors.
Are the British chassis manufacturers building what the operators wants for provincial work ? Does the chief engineer have sufficient say in the type of vehicle he wants ?
All the passenger wants is the bus to be on time and not cost the earth to go from A-B.
J. GILL Hyde, Isle of Wight