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Best of British Buses, The No 9 Post-war Leyland Titans 1945-1984 by Alan Townsi
Best of British Buses, The No 9 Post-war Leyland Titans 1945-1984 by Alan Townsin
Hard Cover
96 pages
Copyright 1986
Contents
Introduction 4
1 The PD1 family6
2 Early PD2 models 18
3 London's RT style Titans 33
4 27ft. Titans 37
5 'Tin-front' variety 44
6 30ft. Titans - the PD3 era 57
7 Titans of the 'sixties 64
8 Twilight for the traditional Titan72
9 The rear-engined Leyland Titan80
10 Post-1945 Titans in retrospect88
Acknowledgements96
Introduction
Mention the name Leyland Titan to a person of almost any age interested in buses and, except possibly in London, the model which springs quickest to mind is likely to be one or other of the PD series, built in the 1945-69 period. This is hardly suprising when one thinks that, at one extreme, anyone old enough to have driven an early PD1 when new is bound to be in his 'sixties while, at the other end of the scale, there are still schoolchildren in Blackpool and elsewhere whose daily journeys are made in PD3 models.
In 1965, there were over 10,000 Titans, mainly PD2 or PD3 variants, in service with major British operators, easily outnumbering buses of any other single design family, and it was not until the 'seventies that this No. 1 position was lost, even though the numbers had almost halved by then.
Yet the image left by the PD2 in particular is far deeper than merely that of its onetime almost universal familiarity. `Character' is an overworked word, yet what other sums up the combination of passenger, driver, operator and enthusiast appeal it had? When first introduced, it could out-accelerate any other double-decker on the road, save its great rival, the AEC Regent III, yet the interior noise level was among the lowest, especially within the standard ruggedly-built Leyland body which also looked `right' in almost any livery. Operators' respect for the model grew as the miles piled up and it became evident that the 9.8-litre 0.600 engine would go on and on, far beyond normally accepted overhaul mileages.
By comparison, the merits of the PD1 are apt to be forgotten, yet with hindsight this too can be seen as a model well attuned to its era. Its performance was soon overshadowed by that of the PD2, yet both types would, if need be, stride along a country road at an indicated and, in those days illegal, 43 mph, if fitted with the most widely-used 5.4 to 1 rear axle ratio, even if the PD1 took longer to get there. Leyland decided not to continue production of the 7.4-litre engine and the PD1 faded into history, but it too could give 20 years' reliable service if required. The PD3 as introduced in 1956 was in essence a longer PD2 and it is a measure of the soundness of the design that it proved equally able to operate with 70 or more passengers instead of the original 56 and still prove vastly more reliable than most of the new generation of rear-engined buses of the 'sixties.
Titans for London Transport in this period steadily became more specialised, starting with the 1946 version based on the contemporary standard Leyland product and progressing to the hybrid between the PD2 and the London RT, of which 2131 were built in the forms best known by the London class designations RTL and RTW in 1947-54.
In more recent times, the success associated with the Titan name did not rub off on the complex rear-engined model at first known as the B15 and which was to prove to be another model built almost solely for London Transport. It was more truly the successor to the Routemaster in being an integral model with what would nowadays be called a high-tech mechanical specification and impressive standards of refinement and comfort. Yet delays in getting it into volume production dragged on long enough to make it seem too elaborate for most operators' needs in the more down-to-earth 'eighties. Only London built up the sort of sizeable fleet originally expected to have been almost as commonplace as those consisting of earlier Titans. Ultimately, with only one customer by then far less closely wedded to the concept than had applied initially, the economics became untenable and the short reign of this generation of Titan was over, with fewer vehicles built in six years (1978-84) than had been turned out in about eighteen months in the simpler and perhaps happier days of the beginning of PD1 production, despite immediate post-war material shortages.
However, it would be wrong to pretend that Leyland had no earlier problems. All the pioneer manufacturers who offered synchromesh gearboxes on double-deckers seem to have run into reliability headaches and Leyland, the first to put such a model into regular production, paid the penalty often associated with innovation. The temporary `retreat', when the PD1 constant-mesh gearbox was fitted to a high proportion of PD2 output during 1948-50, was kept remarkably secret, no reference to even the temporary availability of such an option appearing in Leyland publicity and virtually none in the technical press. Recent investigations suggest that over 1,000 examples of the apparently non-existent constant-mesh PD2 were built in that period, this volume being the first publication to give some indication of the extent of this exercise.
Yet the Titan name is one that will live on in the affections of bus people, professional and amateur alike, and this book is intended as both a record and tribute to a truly classic series of buses.
Basingstoke, 1986Alan Townsin
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