Hi Nick here, my ‘Bus driver Nick’ Channel takes you the viewer on a journey around Dunedin City, it’s sights and the surrounding Otago Province with a focus on Coach specifications and driving a variety of buses.
You will enjoy entertaining commentary, sightseeing information and lots of Bus footage and driving footage!!
With a 23 year bus and coach driving career behind me, including 14 years driving tours between Queenstown NZ and Milford Sound, ‘Bus driver Nick is for like minded individuals who love buses and driving as much as I do!
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Keep an eye out for bus simulator game videos on selected Wednesdays!
Come with me on a journey and share some great adventures and a few laughs along the way!!
Enjoyed your drive through my old stomping ground of Dunedin and Mosgiel. Looks a great bus to drive. What would be the licence type to drive this vehicle? Again many thanks.
My uncle has the non hybrid version of this. Was a lot to learn after trading in a Holden Captiva. Was looking at a RAV 4 Hybrid, but waiting up to 2 years for delivery was a bit much when he could pick up a Haval immediately ex stock.
Hi Nick, I drove for Dunedin City Transport 1972 to 1976 , what great memories I've had with this blog driving this bus, the world masters wre from 134 to 142, and I remember specially the 142 advertising Tiger tea, great memories and a great channel, by the way I'm a pom, left NZ in 1976. Cheers Nick.
Love the exhaust brake on this. Sounds like the ones on Sydney's Volvo B12BLEs from the 2000s which have unfortunately been quietened or disconnected altogether. I don't know what you did there at 5:39 but it muffled the mic from then sadly. Beautiful bus, looks labour intensive to drive lol.
You mention the gearbox as being the same as the one in Bristol double-deckers, isn't it also in the AEC-branded ones from the 1940s (on the basis that pneumocyclic means "preselect"-move lever to 1, press gear change pedal, move lever to 2, get moving, press gear change pedal once going fast enough for second gear, move lever to 3...)?
Yes, looking at it, I'd say it's AEC/CAV Monocontrol gearbox, as opposed to the Leyland Pneumocyclic equivalent. The same type was fitted to Leyland Atlanteans, for instance, as well as AEC Reliances, Swifts and Regal VI( export) models.
Hi yudasgoat , it’s not a preselect. It doesn’t have to be a pre select to be Pneumocyclic, Pneumocyclic is a name used by SCG and later Leyland when the merged. This is the system which is low voltage electrically assisted , I.e similar to the Leyland branded system in the Bristol I mentioned vs the fully air controlled system non electric Pneumocyclic you will see in my Leyland Leopard and Anlantean videos. That was always my understanding, I maybe wrong
@@jamesfrench7299 It's not normal at all and it's not good for the engine either. It probably has a pneumatic governor, which is quite different from a hydraulic one that would be built into the injection pump.
@@jamesfrench7299 I remember. It wasn't until I came across an engineering manual years ago that explained it, including what goes wrong and how to fix it. It be that the system just needs a clean up to make it work properly. The idle is nice and smooth and the engine runs well when they're properly set up. From what I remember, it's the pneumatic governors that tended to do this although other types will 'hunt' like this when something is not quite right.
Highly unlikely, in fact almost certainly not. The reason for the 'spoked cross' steering wheel is that you tug the wheel round by it's spokes when very slow or stationary. I have seen a 'helper' assisting with turning the wheel in tightly spaced manoeuvring. The real pain is how many turns it is from lock to lock.
Wow, I never knew until today that New Zealand had Bristol VRs. It looks so pristine and well presented, and glad to see it has it's original engine and gearbox. Thank you for this video. That bus has better seats than any UK VR I've seen, though I've not seen many, when they were in use they weren't in my area (I was a kid so didn't travel too far with my mum).
I remember riding these Leopards when Ventura in Melbourne,Australia had them,they were a regular in my school run for a couple of years until they were replaced with low floor Scania's. The batch used most regularly on the school run I was on, were built in 1984, so not much different to this one,they had PMC Sydney bodywork.
Ventura Leylands are definitely iconic. I think they had more Tigers than Leopards though, the PMC batch that I think you’re referring to were Tigers. Many of the older drivers still say that they were their favourite buses to drive.
A great vlog. I remember the semi automatic Leyland's when I was in school in Sydney Australia, that was real driving. I like how you respect the gear selection, I've seen other drivers show no respect for how to change gears. I drive buses in Sydney, now a bit boring, fully automatic, air conditioned etc, but in Sydney traffic!! FYI, my first time visiting NZ was when I was 18yo to visit my Aunt who lived in Invercargill, Waikiwi to be precise, great memories!
Great video mate, takes me back to driving NCS44 up and down Newlands hill to Wellington, coming down to Dunedin at the beginning of August, would be great to see the bus.
Hi Daniel, cheers , glad you enjoyed the video, it’s great hearing from ex drivers. I don’t own the bus but am involved with the OHBS a bit, keep in touch will see if I can arrange .
It's interesting seeing how the Leyland Leopard cab layout changes based on bodybuilder, my Dad and I owned 2 Leopards - one of which was the last built for a Scottish fleet in 1982. They were both Alexanders bodied, one a Y-type and the other a T-type. Alexanders had their own dashboard was more one-piece and they didn't use the classic silver Leyland switch-panel that your bus has - I think that must date to the 1950's? The steering wheel in your example looks like it could be a truck version. Regarding the leaf springs, I think the majority of Leopards were leaf sprung - the Tiger was available with both air and leaf suspension.
Thanks for watching 👍🏻, well not really, it was only non synchro in 1st to 2nd and vice versa. The position of the gears took a little getting used to, but they engaged smoothly, I don’t think you will see too many missed or rough gear changes maybe one in the hole video .
Actually you forgot to mention this Trident is a 10.3M low bridge with 4.19M tall, specially designed for Route 15 to the Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, equipped with the 11 liter ISM335 engine makes this the most powerful double decker ever made After 2008 Tridents changed the engine to the 8.9L ISL340 and it's nowhere near the power of ISM The driver's cockpit is already tight with the DM body and this low bridge version makes it even worse with little headroom
A bit of a niche question, but at first glance I thought it had a Volvo logo on front and thus being powered by a Volvo 6 litre turbo engine. Although not using the 'iron' Volvo logo (the circle with arrow) it shows the diagonal stripe across the grille, which is usually associated with Volvo. And older Volvo trucks also often had a similar shield depicting the engine volume (the 6) and it being turbo powered (turbo 6). The shield is sometimes in the centre, but when the Volvo logo is in the centre, the shield is placed somewhere else on the grille, usually bottom right. Do you perhaps know if this intentional or by coincidence?
One thing with these old buses, you certainly notice the bumps in the road (saw you take-off from the seat a couple of times😂). Our roads in the UK are generally shocking at the moment and even driving the modern buses around is painful at times! Thanks for the video, takes me back to when I was a kid, riding round on these for hours on end. I think I went in to driving about 20yrs too late! Still love every day but would absolutely love to do some of my routes in buses like this.
Gidday Kristen, thanks for watching mate and I am glad you enjoyed it . The road between Dunedin City and Port Chalmers is a bit bumpy in places where it can slump a bit , bit over all it’s not to bad , the area you mention is a bit bumpy and I edited a bit out where I almost went through the roof 🤣. However it’s fair to say the front shocks are in need of replacement, definitely a bit bouncier than it should be.
Hi Kristan, thanks for your message, ya good to get that perspective. And thanks yes Dunedin is a nice little city , everything is 10 minutes away 😜. Home of New Zealand’s first University’Otago University’ and some beautiful countryside .
Hey Nick, the gearbox is actually a Self-Changing Gears unit on the Bristol VR. The Gardner 6XLB outputs 180hp eventually... Nice to see it has the steering wheel centre cap! Would be lovely if it had the original ECW front - dunno if its been changed for compliance rules?
You could be pedantic and say that Leyland bought Self Changing Gears in 1951. Pneumocyclic was also a brand name from Self Changing Gears so the whole area becomes very muddy when deciding what is what. Probably one of the most widespread and successful types of gearbox around the World though.
Gidday, thanks for watching. Self changing gears was owned by Leyland by the time this bus was manufactured , actually since 1957 Leyland Motors too full control of what was Self Changing Gears. So this is in fact at the time of manufacture a Leyland transmission. The gear selector also has Leyland written on it .
yk something quite interesting is a fair amount of B58s in Australia are ZF 4SPD auto. there wernt many manuel ones in australia so definitely cool to hear a manual volvo B58' that engine sounds really nice as well good video!!
Thanks for commenting on the video, they are a great sounding motor . The 6 speed manual goes very well, actually a ZF too , apparently retro fitted to replace the original Volvo 5 speed manual s , according to another viewer and former driver .
