Classic Bus Histories Episode 6: Leyland Titan (B15 & TN Series) 

Excellent summary of their lives. I grew up in the seventies near Barking Garage and watched my local route 62 go from RT to RM then T within a year. While nothing compares to the RT and RM, the Titan was a significant improvement on the DMS and within a few of years Titans and Routemasters were the only double deckers you'd see in East London. Then came tendering and a return of the DMS and, worse, new MK2 Metrobuses in Titan's East London stronghold. It seemed....wrong. It was weird being deep in Metrobus territory in North or West London. Same city, completely different buses. They may have carried on for longer were it not for the low-floor revolution. It's incredible that in less than 7 years, TfL replaced every double decker type with new step-less vehicles and while that change was necessary it was a period when it felt like the soul of London Buses was sent for scrap.

I drove the Titans at Catford Garage in the late 90’s, they stunk of damp must inside as they had no anti freeze/corrosion inhibitor left in them after continual topping up the header tank with raw water from a watering can at Victoria for instance on the 185’s , which was my main route, they used to glide although sluggish to accelerate, they were on the whole fit for purpose though, couldn’t believe how boring it was to sit on Stanstead Road in a rush hour at five o’clock on a summer’s afternoon though, they had firm steering but not heavy as such

A great bus to drive and ride in. I grew up with them in South East London in the 1980s. I drove them at Bromley Garage from 1996 to 2000. Also helped restore T1030 when it first entered preservation. Happy days!

Remember reading about this in the science magazine I got as a kid, it had a cut away drawing of it, described as the "Bus of the future". Never turned up in Coventry, around 79 we started getting MCW Metro Bus in Coventry to replace the Damiler and later Leyland Fleetlines.

When a classic bus histories appears in the notifications it's time to drop whatever else I'm doing, make a cuppa and enjoy. Absolutely loved the Titan, it seemed pretty space age when the first examples appeared, scary how long ago that is now.

I saw a Leyland Titan (A928 SYE) in Las Vegas, back in 2015.

Used to drive ex London Titans at MTL north, good bus and they made a nice noise, I've never driven a Leyland bus that I didn't like, first was the Atlantean, last was a Lynx that was very quick.

Re. Second hand use, I would like to mention that Reading’s 68 wound itself up at Thamesbus, an independent operator in southwest London and Surrey, and successors throughout the 2000s. It still survives but is derelict and not in good condition.

Two or three Titans still with Stagecoach Lancaster until the late Noughties. I don't know if any of those were preserved, having lasted that long! Hams Travel in Tonbridge had a few too, always impressive powering up the hill from the station towards Tunbridge Wells on the dreaded "Rail Replacement" service.

Well worth waiting for - please never fret about spending a little more time on polishing. Your audience is appreciative. Great video.

Such a beautiful bus ❤ is such a shame they stopped making them😢

Hi i'm viatron from Sheffield again, well done for coming up with a very good idea with the Leyland Titan B15 & the TN series integral rear engined double deck bus. But one very short lived bus type were the FODEN NC version which only five of them to be built via one of them didn't receive the standard Northern countries bodywork & instead it received an East Lancashire bus body for S.Y.P.T.E. back in the 80s & I hope you will come up with another Classic Bus Histories video titled "The Rise & Fall Of The Foden NC' including the older half cab Foden PVD6 versions. Thanks for your co-operation on this subject from David Viatron Esquire of crookes in Sheffield. So hold very tight please DING! DING!

Sheffield was alive with Titans not so long ago run by Mass Transit doing the School runs painted in a horrid green livery , and it's a good job they were built well with the rowdy kids of today lol.

I came across T51 in a Sydney backstreet near the airport years ago. It had been driven all the way from Perth. I took some brief video on my cheap phone. It's now a mobile cocktail bar in Sydney and is almost unrecognisable. Melbourne had a few being used as open toppers.

Good stuff 👍👍👍

One of my favourite buses.

Thanks for this excellent

Another excellent video. This whole series is supurb. Keep up the good work.

Great video, it was a great shame that the numerically last London Titan, T1125 (B125 WUV), after service with Stagecoach East Kent at Herne Bay, and becoming their Show Bus painted in the ‘swoops’ livery, now resides in a forlorn state in a yard in another part of Kent. Also, in your photo at the end of the video showing 4 Titans lined up, am I right in thinking that T348, in Nu-Venture blue/white livery was the former Stagecoach East Kent example that also received the ‘swoops’ livery and was then based at Folkestone.

I loved driving a T wish I could drive one again

Drove one of the 1st Reading Titans ( 68 ) and if I remember rightly you could drive them auto or semi auto. Leyland would only spec them in London Transport interiors as Reading only wanted 2.

A batch of these were being used as school buses by Z&S in the Aylesbury area until probably less than 10 years ago.

How about a video on the Volvo Ailsa? I always thought they were quite interesting, would be good to see what inspired the design and its pros and cons.

Great bus though did see then break down a bit, plus went on one as a special to see Shakespeares birthplace in 93' or 94' and on the way back it brokedown .... I remember knowing about them but only seeing them for the first time in brixton london in 1983.

Passed my bus test on titan at Plumstead before going to Catford garage.

Excellent informative video 👍 It was great to see the London Northern RML in route 10 livery, as a crew driver at Holloway I drove that route and the 139.

Another nice mini-doc on this type. Liked the Leyland lettering on the prototypes. Remember seeing them on route 24 back in '76 in Charing Cross Rd., wondering what they were. What is B15, could it be the 15th Leyland project? I saw one of the prototypes in Woolwich about 1990, possibly running out from Catford. They looked very shabby towards the end. I was indifferent to them, they were just boxed shaped and lacked the character of earlier buses. Would like to see you talk about Metro-Scania, possibly RM and RF types. Great stuff!

Had a ride on BCK 706 R. Back in 1979. Demonstrator for preston corporation.

The mock up photo looked interesting hint of RM in the dome area

Titan was to complex built like tanks Olympian was its simply brother

Thank you for another interesting video. A couple of requests if I may, could you cover the Leyland/Volvo Olympian and the Dennis Dart please? Thanks.

The top deck windows of tbe Titan used to leak like sieves if I remember.

The Titan was designed around the London Bus specification which included the very expensive power hydraulic braking system. When the time came for the order for production was to be placed, there was a change in top management in London Bus and suddenly Metro Cammel were brought into the frame with the Metrobus. This had non of the London Bus special features - using air brakes instead of hydraulics. In addition, the production difficulties at Park Royal were due ro the workforce realising that the design "de-skilled" construction and so removed the vested interests of the various trades within that factory. In addition, Leyland had recently closed the AEC Southall factory and the workforce saw the redundancy deal that the AEC staff got. When Leyland "threw the gauntlet" down to the works committee to either increase production or Park Royal is closed, the reaction was "fine lets discuss terms". Once this had been agrreed, production shot up overnight and when the factory finally closed it was reported that only one man hadn't found another job.

401S and 402S were based at Hornchurch I seem to recall

There is still one West Midlands pte still on the road

My Father always told me that a camel was a horse put together by a committee. I think the Titan falls into this category !

@ronmccullock1407 Hi Ron, I've seen your copy on Flickr but I assumed you had got it the same way I did! Mine came from a photo dealer at Detling a few years ago and has 'British Leyland' hand written on the back. If I'd have thought it was your picture I would have without doubt given you full photo credit for it as I do with all the pictures used on the video.

Metrobus next, or Ailsa / Volvo?

The Leyland Titan was ahead of it's time, for sure. You only need to look at an Alexander Dennis Enviro, or a Wright Streetdeck to see that many of the exact same design features are there, before the hybrid and electric version started. As for the downfall of Leyland, it has to remembered just how terrible the late 70's was for Union strikes, or Union busting, depending on which side of that picket line you stand. What is fact, is the UK was very close to bankruptcy, and there were two solutions, neither of which were ideal. Either workers were going to have us taking loans from the IMF (and we saw what happened to Greece), or having joined the Common Market (the disguise the European Union wore to fool everyone), allow the UK to fall deeper into their pockets. We know how this story still plays out today, and it's getting very much like the late 70's all over again.

Leyland atlantean best buses volvo

not something seen round these parts

Lt dead hand overengineered as usual.. Thinned out stupid things removed olympian ... Similar to dms sent to the provinces all idiotic things removed ...58 despite umpteen attempts still a titan virgin

why didn't the clowns use a leyland 0.680 engine ? so its not a true leyland

Personally any I drove were heaps of 💩