Blimey, that brings back memories. I traveled on buses like that along the 227 route when I was a child. We lived a couple of hundred yards along Beckenham Road which the bus takes from the railway bridge on the line between Beckenham Junction and Birkbeck. This bridge was very low, and I always thought was the reason for the single deckers (which were always very crowded). At some stage the road was lowered, presumably to allow larger vehicles to use the road, which then formed a depression which would regularly flood.

 

Not very low, just a few inches lower than normal. When (/if) the bridge works are ever completed then standard double-deckers will be able to pass underneath without the risk of an impromptu open-top conversion.

 
"Should we cover buses in heritage and history topics":


Write-in subtexts - "Please - no more boards".  Agreed - I will subtly amend the text of the two boards in question from "rail" to "rail and other public transport"  with the expectation that added posts will be moderate, bearing in mind the overall rail bias of the Coffee Shop.  I do not see us being overwhelmed with posts about Optares, Lodekka and AEC, Scania and Wright!

 

I can't remember much difference between the upper deck of a highbridge KSW and an LD (or FS, for that matter, though we didn't have many of those in Bristol). The lowbridge ones with the side gangway were a different matter, but those were used on country routes so I never rode one. I did like the upper deck on FLF's though. I remember when brand new 'E' reg FLF's started running on the No.3, and it was very exciting to scramble upstairs and take the front seat ahead of the stairs. The whole family could squeeze onto it; it was like having a private compartment. There was also a solo seat just behind, where you could sit if you were feeling standoffish.

LDs had a rearward facing seat at the front downstairs, which meant you couldn't sit at the front and pretend to be the driver. But they did have crazy dangling handles there that you could swing on whlle the conductor was upstairs.

But for simple classical elegance, you really can't beat a KSW. RT's are OK, but you can't beat the real thing.

 

I thought that too.   I think I recall hearing about special buses for the Botley Road Bridge in Oxford - were they VERY low deckers, or just any bus from this family?  I also recall routes (and we still have them!) which are single deck only - the 227 from Chiselhurst Common to Penge and Crystal Palace via Bromley was a regular, due to the water tower (I think it was) that spanned the road with an arch to let traffic through.    Hadn't seen one of those in an age until Saturday ...

 
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Lodekka

 
You could possibly have seen more of a bus if it hadn't been a Lodekka!
Can't remember was it just top deck or both that were lowered. Sorry I came from a Leyland buses area.

 

Getting to this part of Grahame's first post on this thread, unlike Red Squirrel, give me any variety of Lodekka over a KSW any day!  Much nicer upstairs.

As for memories, for many years after they were retired I would come across them in all sorts of odd places overseas. I cannot recall exactly where, but I do remember some converted as double-decker campers, and I do clearly recall some in use as tourist "London Buses" in Halifax Nova Scotia in 1995. Sadly I did not think of photographing them.

I thought that the last one I could recall was in Greifswald, in eastern Germany, during a visit in 2011. However on checking the photo I did take, it was one of the later rear-engine Bristols. What is it about these buses that made them so popular for export (perhaps there were a lot of them, and being a little less tall than other types they could go places others could not?)

 
Image: bus crosses disused railway bridge.

Mark

https://www.twotunnels.org.uk/gallery/image_claude_ave.html

 

Although I have raised the topic of bus history and what should (or should not) we have on the forum, I did not suggest a new board. Unless ChrisB's suggestion gets a very strong wave of support, I would be reluctant (always am) to add public (or member) one - rather to tune.

Looking back, we have merged boards in the past, and do keep an eye on those which are quiet.  I can recall a series of Thames Valley boards becoming one , for example - but in practise when a board has become that quiet, a merger goes un-noticed.  I do look at the boards created during Covid ("Members Services" and "Looking Forward") and see no reason for the members services one any longer, which was to share Zoom codes with any members, including new ones, without have the links in public.  But needs checking with the moderator team.

"The Wider Picture - related rail and other transport issues" is locked to stop new topics - so it's not surprising it's not active. It got so busy that we split it into UK and rest-of-world, but the split involved a lot of work going through recent things thread by thread and redistributing them. There could be sense now, two years later, in just doing a blanket merge of the old board into "wider picture in the UK".  Something for the moderator team to discuss.

Others I am inclined to leave at present - perhaps clarify some descriptions.  we will always have issues on a network knowing where to post topics - where is Triwbridge - Portsmouth to Cardiff, Heart of Wessex,  Bristol Commuter or  TransWilts?   Actually for a while the SWR board was rightfully host to some very important threads!

Apart from "Across the West", we have no-where to post on the softer topics of the passenger experience and that concerns me - I wonder sometimes if that's where that stuff should go or if there's a new board needed.  Reluctant, mind.  And I do wonder about quieter places like "Smoke and Mirrors" which harks back to the protest rather than more partnership days.

 
I had never heard of the Bristol Lodekka but deduced it was a bus from the poll questions and the earlier comments.

I do not see a need for any boards beyond the existing ones.  We already have boards for current busses and rail history and the occasional historic bus can be fitted in them.  The Imber busses currently live in the diary.

 
We already have a "Buses and other ways to travel" board. Or if it's something more historical, we have both "Heritage railway lines, Railtours, other rail based attractions" and "Railway History and related topics" – and at least 40 other boards (I started counting them but lost track). Many of those boards overlap, eg "The Lighter Side", "The West - but NOT trains in the West", "Frequent Posters Club", "And Also", "Introductions and chat" and "Member Services" all overlap. The last hasn't been posted in for almost two years and "The Wider Picture - related rail and other transport issues" for almost one year. It's already hard enough to decide where to start a new topic or look for an already relevant one, so if we really have to have a new board, can we please get rid of one or more old ones?

 
Maybe on its own board?

 
I use a bus "virtual branch line" pretty regularly in the GWR region, usually but by no means exclusively to get to and from the railway station.
It's proven to be a significantly improved component of what is predominantly a rail based journey so I reckon at least some areas of bus travel certainly merit inclusion in discussions.
On a side note,  just yesterday after successfully avoiding using Bristol buses for some considerable time I once again decided to "give them another chance" for a little local venture.  Once again this decision proved foolish.


Note:  I accept that the example given above hardly relates to bus heritage as the service is current and relatively recent but the feeder service concept is an old one...and possibly undergoing something of a revival?

 
I went with ‘in moderation’. I think buses are inextricably linked with railways for many reasons - from early feeder services to modern Rail Link buses. And of course Beeching believed, wrongly in many cases, that they were a better option than railway branch lines. So let’s tell those stories.

As to the Lodekka - be it LD, FS, FSF or FLF (other variants were available) - those straight-cut gears in crash boxes were the soundtrack of my youth. But I’d rather have a KSW.

 
Bristol Lodekka were pretty much a standard (with varients!) with 5217 been built and no fewer than 775 idenfiredl as survivors and in the course of drifing around web sites, I came across what I found as fascinating data -  http://bcv.robsly.com/history.html and http://bcv.robsly.com/lodekka.html (plenty to explore from there). 

Is this sort of thing of any interest to members of The Coffee Shop?   Do you have any memories of Lodekkas or even own or assist with a preserved one?  Do they belong on the Coffee Shop?