Love the national, my favourite bus of all. Used to travel on them regularly, as lived in Cheshire in the 1980s, so were all crosville livery. Some were Gardner engine converted, the acceleration difference was marked, you could hear it and see it..! And what a lovely throaty roar to that engine, but still loved the clatter of that original Leyland engine......
Used to loved seeing these buses at the Old Kilpatrick bus garage. They was all in kelvin scottish livery. Loved the ticking noise they made when they sat at the bus stops.
We had a couple of former Crosville Gardner engined Mk 1 Nationals at Runcorn while it was North Western, always remember them being nippy pulling away, and also very clunky if you didn't get the gear change quite right, more so than Leyland engined ones. This video brought back a lot of good memories. GREAT..
The engine in this bus is a Gardner. Crosville converted a large number of their MK1 Nationals using the engines from their batch of withdrawn Seddon RU’s..
Fantastic, not what I'd expect to see on RU-vid - thank you. I used to live near in Bucknell and know this route well (as a passenger). Those bends in the village really are too narrow! And the reversing onto the potholes at the Tyndings (listen for the sheep) could only happen in deepest Shropshire!
You made that driver's day. He played the semi-automatic gearbox to make it sound like a manual. I'm not convinced it was a Gardner engine though. Not enough smoke for one. The Leyland unit sounded to me very similar to me?
they had 4 nationals 2 of thm were cardner fitted one was an ex arriva midlands either 883 or 890 the ex crosville one in the video had in identity swap i think it was purely done as a favourite of the drivers involved, credit to their livery application.
It's definately a gardner, Crosville converted quite a few nationals. most worked pretty well,but some of the early ones were a little low geared, we had one at runcorn for a while that would only do 30-35 absolutely flat out.
its a gadner your supposed to drive them flat out, if you didnt you wouldnt get any where, and as for the clunking propshaft, probably the gears knocking in with a bit too much force thats all, nothing to do with the driver
yep the lovely throaty sound of the gardner engine, when i was at school there was 2 buses in my area had these engines & it was lovely to hear them & to ride on them
Strange..just wondering where the radiator is placed, if it's Gardner-engined. Mk2's had it in the front, but this beauty is a Mk1 and sounds very much Leyland-engined. Lovely video anyway! Just wishing that the guys treated the old girl a little easier..
Great vid, i knew most the drivers on shropshire link. i think its fair to say EMB 367S wasnt EMB 367S when Bought by "So an So" i can remember it as EMB 361S in North Western livery a mix of Red Blue and Yellow, unless Shropshire Link had 2 Gardner fitted ex NW nationals
But this footage was from quite a few years ago yes? seeing that The Cottage (old) has been demolished and they're rebuilding what's there now in Knighton. Nice footage but hope not to meet the driver coming the other way ;0)
The radiator on Mk1 Nationals was located on the offside rear, you can see the grille and through it you could see the fan rotating. The radiator on Mk2's was at the front.
Personally i have no interest in horses (like you have) but hey, if we were all the same it'd be a boring place. Leave us to our buses and you to your horses and we might one day get world peace (Yeah right!!!!)
