.com - London Transport Service Vehicles on the webAn all-new version of this website is now available at www.ltsv.com/sv/. These pages are no longer being updated.
| .com - London Transport Service Vehicles on the web | |||||||
An all-new version of this website is now available at www.ltsv.com/sv/. These pages are no longer being updated. | |||||||
| Forum: | Vehicles |
| Topic: | LT Un-numbered |
| Post | Created |
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| LT Private Cars (pre-1985) added to the database | Fri 16/03/12, 19:29 |
3 Replies |
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| No fewer than 1,683 vehicles have been added to the database today, these comprising the 'Private Cars' operated by London Transport. Up until 1980, regular batches of cars were bought for use by individual members of staff (or positions). Although unmarked, they could often be recognised by their registration numbers, these being in batches either similar to, contiguous to, or intermingled with those on buses and numbered service vehicles. After 1981 such vehicles were leased and hence were no longer in distinct bacthes. The last owned cars appear to have been sold in 1985. The information on these vehicles has been added to the database since it is now obtainable from London Transport 'Variations in Rolling Stock' sheets that have been published on the internet. The next stage will be to use these variation sheets to capture the allocation histories of the cars, as well as of other LT service vehicles. This may take some time! Fairly comprehensive details are included of cars bought between 1944 and 1981. Some information on earlier vehicles has also been added, having been collated from lists in the LOTS SUP1C (1977) and SUP22 (1981) publications plus various other LT documents. The following vehicles were listed in SUP22 but have been omitted as they don't appear to have actually existed: KYV700D, SMK790F and WYU171T. Likewise FJJ583 from SUP1C. FJJ569 and JXC361 have been included, although they do not appear on the variation sheets. Many of the registration numbers used would command high prices these days, examples being SLT1, SLT2 etc, TJJ1M and THV1S. The 'special' plates were often applied to the more upmarket cars (such as Jaguars and Daimlers) that were assigned to senior board members. The bulk of the intake was of fairly basic cars, such as Austins, Hillmans and Ford Anglias, Escorts and Prefects. The Ford Escort accounted for 417 of the cars, though this does include a quantity of the rather different 1950s design that used the name. The service life of the cars varied quite a bit. The onset of World War 2 resulted in many of the 1930s cars being kept on longer than expected, while a life of 5-7 years was normal afterwards. Cars bought in the 1950s often lasted a lot less, with about 80 being sold before their first birthday. Record holder appears to be Ford Anglia WYL728, new in October 1959 and sold in the following July. 2-3 years was the average. The livery of most of the cars is not known. Early examples were often black, while white and red are known to have featured on 1970s deliveries. Very few photographs of these cars have been seen. At least 34 of the cars were given fleetnumbers in the Tram and Trolleybus service vehicle series (in the range 44 to 233), although these were probably not carried. To see the full list, select 'LT Car' from the 'Range' drop-down on the Fleet Data page. By the way, I have set the 'date added' entries to be 01/01/2012, this to avoid cluttering up the 'latest data' lists! I should also mention that some of the entries for chassis numbers may in fact be engine numbers. The variation sheets are not always clear on the distinction, and it would appear that a lot of the chassis numbers of service vehicles in the original SUP15 book (and hence also on this site) are also in fact engine numbers. |
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| Variation Sheets | Fri 28/09/12, 21:46 |
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| See also this posting for the links: http://www.ltsv.com/sv2/forum_post_view.php?post=411&offset=0. | |||
| Variation Sheets | Mon 24/09/12, 01:23 |
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| Cocker2, I've sent you an e-mail. | |||
| London Transport 'Variations in Rolling Stock' sheets | Sat 22/09/12, 10:49 |
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| You mention London Transport 'Variations in Rolling Stock' sheets, where can I view these please. | |||