The Routemaster Bus - Part 1

[Music] [Music] it was built to last 17 years but the red RM rout Master bus is driving into its fourth [Music] decade in today's modern climate one of the major factors is cost and this old baby will cost you a third of what one of these new vehicles would they are a bus before the time really uh they're very very Built Well and they'll last another 30 years for the RO Master like many examples of London architecture it also has its critics well of course the root master is probably a member of the oldest uh working Museum in the world now well the thing is the root master has a very friendly face the the new buses are terribly square and not very welcoming but the root master you know it comes along it looks so friendly and when you you're getting on there's somebody standing on the platform ready to welcome you you go through a sort of Lobby can take then you go into the sitting area and it's all like sort of being at home and very reassuring please hold tight now the rm's got a very simple conventional layout you've got the engine two shock absorbers which are coiled front axle and then it runs through the flywheel fluid flywheel exhaust runs out and around and straight down the end of the bus prop Shar gearbox another prop shaft and then we come into the final bit the transmission the back axle on the right hand side which is a small back axle you can undo the bolts drop it down new one up finished not like the new ones where you got double reduction drives and Christ knows what where you've got a p off the bus apart to get at them that's about it really this bus is the last built to house an endangered species the conductor you take a seat sir please we G as far as us for traffic lights now manam be careful this is traffic lights be very very careful pleas 20 o for service now be [Music] careful we're all going on a summer holiday no [Music] week the root Master's predecessors made London's double decker an institution a mobile Monument as familiar as towerbridge and Trafalga Square recognized across the world in the ha when private cars were Beyond most Pockets buses in London were cheap to ride on and profitable for their owners the world's biggest Urban passenger Travel Authority London transport by its easily recognized visual characteristics London transport fine posts The Traveler and speeds him through this giant sprawl the circle and crossbar on every bus stop and station the bullseye symbol is there to reassure even a century ago buses have the same layout of driver high up at the front and two floors for passengers linked by a spiral staircase at the back before World War I buses were covering half a billion miles of London streets a year in the 1920s free enterprise flourished over 400 private operators touted for London passengers such unbridled competition was frowned upon and an act of parliament in 1933 created London transport its Chief Lord Asheville promised a properly coordinated system of Passenger transport avoiding wasteful and unnecessary competition in 1933 the city had 40 different sites of bus London transport wanted a single tailor made model after the war the need for a new bus was all the more pressing in October 1947 plans were drawn up the root master is a remarkable vehicle it uh it history goes back many many years it's really the ultimate development of the traditional London open platform bus when the root master was first developed in the 1950s an amazing amount of time and effort was spent on um producing a vehicle which in its day was staggeringly ahead of its time a very Advanced specification which even today Compares quite favorably with brand new vehicles one of the engineers on the design team was Colin Curtis it was decided that we should work on the principle of evolution and not revolution in other words we would utilize existing experience from previous models experience of development work we had done and tested in service so that we weren't creating a completely new and untried vehicle it might have looked like its predecessors but underneath it was a bus of the future a school boy dream come true the world's most up-to-date bus will be the first to have power steering hydraulic brakes automatic gears independent Springs and fresh air heating for the passengers features unheard of even on most cars of the day since London transport had been involved in assembling handy page Halifax aircraft during the war a good deal of experience was drawn from this particular work in the body parts would all be interchangeable on the bus it could be put together and taken apart like a meano kit extensive use of aluminium save weight carrying 64 passengers eight more than its predecessor the root master weighed the same materials new to buses like fiberglass were used for the Bonnet an emergency back door every detail was considered a cubby hole was made so the conductor could stand out of the way of passengers and the cockpit was designed around the driver Douglas Scott had designed everything from toasters to heaters to cookers he was responsible for the root Master's look though some of his early designs were thought too radical I think that any design comes off if attention is paid to every detail of it uh but the right attention Scott even designed the seat fabric you'll notice that the vertical stripe is a double bright yellow well now the idea of that was that when the when the the material was new uh the stripes were there and they could be seen as part of the design as the material wore down although the colors did fade the brightness of the exposed cross yellows kept the whole seat looking clean and wholesome to sit on and brighten the interior of the bus the root master was designed inhouse by London transport staff with a view to being an attractive piece of Street furniture and at the same time serve the public of London building the first root master prototype took 3 years and there was another 5 years of testing before it went into full production nearly 100 people were involved in its development their attention to deto was more appropriate to a spaceship than a bus when the design has been approved the bus is tested again this time for 6 weeks at full speed 200 m a day over a special Proving Ground bumps and bends are there in abundance and if in all conditions the bus behaves itself according to plan it will at last be judged thoroughly fit for public service in London the Revolutionary design of the root master ensures that it is not only safer and easier to drive than the older buses but also more comfortable to ride in demanding standards were set for new buses the Tilt test result delighted the designers oh she passed that with flying colors there was no problem whatsoever went way over the figure and it pleased us no end so in addition to day-to-day care in the garage after 3 and 1 half to 4 years on the road every standard bus of the 8,000 in the world's largest unified bus fleet comes into the largest public service vehicle overhaul Factory in the world world all in [Music] them a greater initial cost but a more efficient and in the long run more economical way of carrying the load into the future convinced that their Monopoly would last forever London transport had created a vast service center in anticipation of expanding its [Music] Fleet first it loses its identity it's rotated like a toy on this inverter 3 and a half years accumulation of oil bound road dirt is pressure hosed away everything must be progressing continuously towards the reassembly the root master was built with alderham in mind in the 50s the labor shortage made attractive working conditions a high priority a job to be done and a man to do it again a principle in practice first bring him into a suitable space to perform his task next provide him with every possible Mobility offer him a fair incentive and you can reasonably expect that everyone the man the works the bus concern and the public will get the benefit of a good fast job at the time our chairman wanted to advertise the bus and on the prototypes he put this is the bus of the future we thought we could do it quietly we didn't want to make a big show of the thing because we knew something will go wrong but the biggest problem was for Cruz who had to adjust to the modern lightweight design well it was a bit of a sensation uh they only gave us an hour to uh get used to it and uh on our first trip up into Crystal Palace as we rounded the roundabout into the first stop I found that the uh so light in the front wheels that when I fly the brake it skitted and it's it frightened the life out of me I must admit frightened the passengers waiting at the stop as well I know when I was first in London and the root Masters were all new you know we all knew that it had been specially designed for London and it was obviously so good for it work we used to travel on those lovely long routs right right across London and you could look at I mean I always used to try and get the front seat on the top deck and the 73 was absolutely super he used to go from Oxford Circus to the Albert Pool for the uh PRS every year night [Music] after it was 1959 before the RM went into full production over 2,700 were built during the 1960s on the streets they were a hit buses were were traveling 20 million miles a year it was a tribute to British craftsmanship suppliers were proud of their association with the route Master everything's pip pip and ticky boo in San Francisco for its London week don't you know and a double-decker bus hob knobs with the cable cards the Union Jack flies but back home the London bus had a competitor the car in the ' 50s the car population in London had tripled slowing traffic to speeds little faster than the horse bus era but planners made the car's needs a priority revolutionary new measures are announced to cope with London's parking problem and this is one of them the 2-hour parking meter it's no good smiling sweetly at a police Constable these things are glamour proof and quite infallible and both the time and the Char can be adjusted not of course by the motorist according to local circumstances in fact the darn things just aren't human despite the publicity by the mid-60s London buses were losing 5 million a year when Cuts were made bus Crews made their feelings known in the traditional British way here's a picture of 8,400 buses not being there and that's quite something but it's 21 years since London's buddies were completely stopped by an official strike so London Walks new economies meant revolutionary new designs which threatened the RM

Channel: Hotrodngaz

Views: 95,858

Keywords: Routemaster Bus, london, red, double decker, 1970s, 1980s, classic, on the buses, London Buses

Id: 745LOxblHmI

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 02 2011