I used to love sitting in that seat as a young boy in the 60’s and try to learn what the driver was doing. Occasionally a driver would turn to his left and wink.
I remember the RMC on the 715 route through Camden Town as a child. We took it sometime to Epping. Love the older LT vehicles. There were Bus/Coach stops everywhere too, great memories.
Very nice, Live in Canada but spent many summers in England as a little boy. Whenever I smell Diesel I still automatically think of my time near double deckers in England 40+ years ago....Nice Memories.
I think the gears here were used very well and good timing aswell like on the roundabout dropping into second gear to go around it, a lot of drivers in service before didn't use the gears very well atall they would cause jolting on it massively
Thank you John. We still own RCL2233 and she still purrs along with that wonderful AEC 11.3ltr AV690 engine giving a superb performance. Cheers for you comment. Michael.
Driving like that is not good atall for the gearbox on Semi Automatics slammimg it through the gate and the Gearbox system thinks your trying to use two gears at once. And eventually the Gears will slip like a clutch slipping effect when changing into any gear. And coasting isnt good for the bus either
those were the days. I'd love to have a crack at driving one of them. I remember when one would have a driver change at Thornton Heath Bus Garage and I'd wait for the new driver to arrive and be so excited to hear the engine fire up. As I recall the starter was like a light switch at the level of the driver's head. Am I right ? I was like 3 years old at the time.
On many RMs there was an automatic option by selecting 4th (top) gear, so probably the auto-changing causing the jolts in some cases and not the driver!
Graeme Wilson yes the RM had the ability to automatically go through the gears if top was selected. However, if the gearbox was not well set up, or the driver did not lift off slightly between changes, they often jolted between gear shifts. I have been on buses when this became very pronounced. It was exacerbated by the fact the engine produced maximum torque at 1,000rpm, meaning it had considerable pulling power between gear changes if not driven correctly.
Great drive with a careful driver. Interesting about the gearbox; these "country area" (Green) Routemasters had a preselector gearbox, where you chose the gear first and then pressed the gear-change pedal (clutch to the ordinary mortal!) to activate the selected gears. Not as easy as it sounds, especially changing down. The red London Routemasters did have an automatic option, but this was not available on the country area buses. Hope this clarifies things a bit.
Brian Gentle The country area buses did not have pre select boxes, these were fitted to the RT and RF. The auto option on the Routemaster was isolated, so they were a semi auto.
Interesting; I always thought it was a preselector! You live and learn. If I could, I would scan what it said in my Ian Allan British Bus Fleets book, but I am sure you're right. Thanks for the comment.
Indeed... oops! I just went to take a look. You are absolutely right of course. BTW you aren't the John Piper I have known in Brussels via Scouting by any chance?
I’m 99.9% sure that no RM (or any of its variants) had a pre-select gearbox. The country RMs would probably not had the “auto” option though. The previous design to the RM (RT) had a pre-select gearbox. I believe all RMs had air operated semi (or including auto option using top gear selected position) using either Simms or Westinghouse electric control gear.
Excellent, but my only complaint about the soundtrack is that for obvious reasons owners/ drivers of preserved vehicles do not 'slam' the gears like regular drivers used to in service!
