Variations in Rolling Stock
Summary: Issued every working day, these summarised the additions, disposals, transfers and other changes affecting the bus and service vehicle fleets
Coverage: Sep 1944 to Jul 1948, Jun 1949 to Jan 1950, Aug 1951 to Mar 1995
?This indicates the dates of the documents in this collection. The document type may have also been issued at other dates. Also note that the dates given are for the complete collection. Some of the documents may have not yet been added to the website.
Detail: Variations in Rolling Stocks (sometimes referred to as Variation Sheets) are the most numerous documents in this collection, accounting for about half of the 40,000 total. They are also perhaps the most useful and interesting. Issued each working day - and some weekends in connection with bus route changes - they detailed the changes to the road vehicle fleet that took place. The documents were usually issued on the following working day but for ease of reference they have been filed under the date/s that they relate to. The sheets covered vehicles added to stock or sold, transfers, modifications and other changes such as overhauls and repaints. The bulk of the content covers the main bus fleet. Up until 1986, miscellaneous vehicles (service vehicles) were also covered, although it should be noted that the leased vehicles, which formed a growing proportion of that fleet from 1982 onwards, were never mentioned. Trolleybuses were covered from March 1955 until their demise in 1962, while BEA (airport) coaches also featured.
The layout of the sheets changed several times over the years. From 1944 (the oldest in this collection) until June 1960 the sheets were typed but did not follow a fixed layout. Single sheets sometimes covered more than one date and content was laid out to best fit the page, often across several columns. From June 1960 a tabular layout was introduced, the sheets still being typed. In this format, each vehicle appeared on a single line across four columns (Vehicle number, From, To and Reason for variation). From the beginning of 1972 the documents were hand-written, though retaining the same tabular layout. From 1982, vehicles passing their annual PSV test were listed, initially as part of the main document. From July 1983 these were moved to a separate sheet with a revised set of columns. From November 1986 to June 1990, the variation sheets were produced as computer printouts with a rather awkward layout. In the final period covered (up to early 1995) changes are detailed on typed sheets, though it should be noted that the privatised London Buses units (from 1994 onwards) were not covered.
Download links
Virtually all the documents on this website are also available to bulk download, zipped up with related documents.
Zips for this document type are listed below.
Filename |
Title |
Size (qty) |
Size (MB) |
Added |
VIRS1944.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1944 |
73 |
5.8 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1945.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1945 |
253 |
19.8 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1946.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1946 |
228 |
17.9 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1947.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1947 |
297 |
18.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1948.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1948 |
214 |
11.9 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1949.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1949 |
241 |
16.5 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1950.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1950 |
30 |
2.5 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1951.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1951 |
135 |
8.2 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1952.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1952 |
438 |
24.8 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1953.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1953 |
498 |
29.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1954.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1954 |
424 |
22.6 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1955.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1955 |
458 |
24.5 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1956.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1956 |
447 |
26.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1957.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1957 |
381 |
20.8 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1958.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1958 |
398 |
22.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1959.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1959 |
439 |
28.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1960.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1960 |
350 |
21.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1961.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1961 |
348 |
19.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1962.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1962 |
363 |
22.0 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1963.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1963 |
397 |
25.5 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1964.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1964 |
397 |
29.0 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1965.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1965 |
390 |
28.6 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1966.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1966 |
444 |
31.4 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1967.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1967 |
422 |
32.0 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1968.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1968 |
413 |
30.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1969.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1969 |
469 |
36.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1970.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1970 |
409 |
28.5 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1971.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1971 |
448 |
32.2 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1972.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1972 |
400 |
30.1 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1973.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1973 |
450 |
34.6 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1974.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1974 |
449 |
34.5 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1975.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1975 |
513 |
41.2 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1976.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1976 |
516 |
40.9 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1977.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1977 |
470 |
38.3 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1978.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1978 |
476 |
36.2 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1979.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1979 |
476 |
32.2 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1980.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1980 |
491 |
29.5 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1981.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1981 |
416 |
24.7 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1982.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1982 |
568 |
34.2 |
02/03/2020 |
VIRS1983.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1983 |
537 |
32.4 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1984.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1984 |
553 |
33.7 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1985.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1985 |
561 |
33.3 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1986.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1986 |
662 |
37.4 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1987.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1987 |
640 |
33.8 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1988.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1988 |
576 |
28.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1989.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1989 |
473 |
26.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1990.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1990 |
434 |
19.2 |
06/06/2020 |
VIRS1991.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1991 |
63 |
3.1 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1992.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1992 |
65 |
3.2 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1993.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1993 |
55 |
2.7 |
23/05/2020 |
VIRS1994.zip |
Variations in Rolling Stock 1994 |
46 |
2.1 |
23/05/2020 |
Sample image
Image quantities
The table below shows how many of this document type are currently available, and what year they date from.
Click any quantity to view only those files.
1944 |
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1945 |
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1946 |
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1947 |
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1948 |
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1949 |
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1950 |
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1951 |
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1952 |
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1953 |
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1954 |
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1955 |
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1956 |
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1957 |
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1958 |
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1959 |
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1960 |
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1961 |
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1962 |
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1963 |
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1964 |
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1965 |
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1966 |
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1967 |
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1968 |
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1969 |
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1970 |
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1971 |
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1972 |
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1973 |
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1974 |
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1975 |
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1976 |
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1977 |
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1978 |
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1979 |
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1980 |
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1981 |
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1982 |
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1983 |
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1984 |
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1985 |
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1986 |
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1987 |
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1988 |
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1989 |
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1990 |
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1991 |
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1992 |
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1993 |
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1994 |
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1995 |
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