Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul
Summary: Forms issued by Aldenham Works each working day, detailing the chassis and body combinations of buses entering and leaving the works
Coverage: Jan 1958 to Apr 1969, Jul 1970 to Dec 1971, Jan 1978 to Dec 1978, Jan 1981 to Jun 1981, Dec 1983 to Sep 1984
?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: For most of the London Transport years, buses were sent to works every 4-5 years for overhaul. Several document types were regularly issued in relation to buses being overhauled. The documents titled '
Overhauls' were about the 'input' to the works, advising the garages about which buses were due to be sent for overhaul. Three other document types were about the 'output' of the works, and were necessary due to the way the overhauls were undertaken.
The principal bus types in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were the RT and RM families. All of these types had their bodies and chassis separated during overhaul and, because the amount of time taken for each part to be completed was different, the completed bodies were usually re-mounted on a different chassis to the one that they arrived on. To complicate matters, bus fleetnumbers (often referred to as Bonnet Numbers) were not tied to either the chassis or body identity. Certain taxes and charges (such as the Road Fund Licence) were related to a vehicle's fleetnumber, and it made economic sense to avoid having a 'paid-for' fleetnumber out of use for the duration of a vehicle's overhaul (generally about a month). Hence fleetnumbers were moved from one vehicle to another. The system became so streamlined that it was normal for an overhauled bus with a particular fleetnumber to re-enter service on the same day that the previous carrier of the number was taken in for overhaul.
To give an example, on the 10th December 1968 a memo was issued advising that RT269 was to be collected from Hounslow garage on 14th January 1969 and taken to Aldenham for overhaul. Also in early December 1968, RT841 and RT4281 had recently arrived at Aldenham, been split into separate chassis and bodies, and had work started on their overhauls. On 1st January 1969, the completed body from RT4281 was mounted on the completed chassis from RT841 and the combination was allocated new fleetnumber RT269, even though this number was still in service at Hounslow. The overhauled 'new' RT269 was then finished, painted, tested etc, and was eventually released on 13th January and taken to Brixton garage. So, on 13th January, you might have seen RT269 working from Hounslow, while on 14th January you might have seen RT269 working from Brixton, and they would have been two completely different vehicles! Meanwhile the chassis and body that had arrived at Aldenham as RT269 both re-emerged in early February, the chassis now as part of RT4109 and the body part of RT4548.
Of the three document types issued in connection with overhaul output, the 'Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul' are perhaps the most useful. Issued by Aldenham every working day, most documents from 1958 to 1984 are available here. Each scan includes two sheets, usually from consecutive days, although there were sometimes two sheets issued for a single day. The form shows the chassis and bodies that were fitted together on the date covered. For each combination, the chassis and body number is shown, along with the bonnet number that these carried when they entered the works. The 'new' fleetnumber is also shown, along with the LT vehicle type code (e.g. 7/5RM5/7), although the latter was often not filled in. Later classes of buses (such as the DMS, M, T, LS etc) were also overhauled at Aldenham but did not have their chassis and bodies separated. These overhauls are included on the documents in the same way as RTs and RMs, except that the bonnet numbers stayed the same (e.g. body number D737 and chassis number 67084 from DMS737 were overhauled as a single unit and remained as DMS737).
The two other document types are the '
Daily Statement of Finishing Line Output' (issued by Aldenham showing buses that had their overhaul work completed and that were ready for testing and inspection) and the '
Buses Overhauled and Delivered' (issued by Chiswick to show completed overhauls and the garages that the buses were sent to).
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 |
AOBCCO1958.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1958 |
109 |
7.9 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1959.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1959 |
122 |
8.6 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1960.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1960 |
124 |
9.0 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1961.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1961 |
123 |
8.2 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1962.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1962 |
122 |
7.2 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1963.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1963 |
122 |
6.4 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1964.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1964 |
124 |
8.0 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1965.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1965 |
123 |
7.9 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1966.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1966 |
124 |
7.3 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1967.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1967 |
121 |
7.6 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1968.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1968 |
124 |
8.3 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1969.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1969 |
38 |
2.6 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1970.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1970 |
100 |
5.0 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1971.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1971 |
239 |
10.0 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1978.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1978 |
75 |
4.7 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1981.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1981 |
58 |
2.7 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1983.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1983 |
8 |
0.5 |
23/05/2020 |
AOBCCO1984.zip |
Advice of Body and Chassis Changes at Overhaul 1984 |
64 |
3.3 |
23/05/2020 |