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