(07/11/2016 17:05)Dentonian Wrote: [ -> ]I didn't realise their collection was so big. One or two amongst those may be obvious in terms of attraction (last Olympian, last TN15 Titan) etc, but a couple of others might be worthy of additional info:
7147 was one of just five AN68/NCs amongst the first 500 production SELNEC/GMT "Standards", before that became the preffered combination in 1975.
Iirc, 3225 was the very first "salmon pink" Express bus. Six of these standard seated Olympians were painted pink initially to mainly work the 400 Trans-Lancs Express, before the brand rapidly expanded after De-reg, with coach seated Olympians and Metrobuses - a far cry from today's sub-10 mph running times. It is also worth noting that Tameside operations are totally unrepresented in the Preservation world, with Prototype EX1 (now 46 years old) being easily the youngest preserved bus representing the borough. As well as 3225, Fleetline 8124 was a Tameside bus.
Was GNF15V formerly in the Village group tours of Liverpool fleet? I know they did have a GNF V Manchester Titan but forgotten which one. The restoration of GNF15V would be quite big if someone takes it on as have heard many parts were stripped from it for use in the restoration of Titan ANE2T.
(08/11/2016 07:28)MX12CFE Wrote: [ -> ]Was GNF15V formerly in the Village group tours of Liverpool fleet? I know they did have a GNF V Manchester Titan but forgotten which one. The restoration of GNF15V would be quite big if someone takes it on as have heard many parts were stripped from it for use in the restoration of Titan ANE2T.
From what I understand was 4015 GNF 15V was not fit to be restored as there were many mechanical issues with it, hence why 4002 ANE 2T was purchased instead, interestingly if things had of gone to plan GMPTE should of had around 60 Titans and possibly more after that. Merseyside PTE also should of had 5, but resolved to buy 5 of the ACM---X ECW bodied Olympians instead.
The Titan was always a nice solid vehicle, but it was too over engineered for what operators wanted and didn't allow a municipal in say Blackburn, Accrington or Preston to go to East Lancs etc for the body or an NBC operator to have a low height body to pass under low bridges so was always destined to fail, also the over engineering led to a high purchase price from new.
On the subject of the SELNEC preservation society I believe few vehicles are now left in the collection, only those that had a complete restoration done on them seem to be safe, some have even gone for scrap. Really the lack of volunteers and the death of Anthony Weir didn't help matters. Its a shame as matters on Merseyside are now very much better than Manchester with NWVRT at Kirkby and Merseyside preservation Trust at Burscough having several MPTE vehicles of that period under restoration.
Greater Manchester's later Atlanteans were pritty much spot on and when I spoke to a senior figure in the industry in Greater Manchester he confirmed that they were better than the later Olympians mechanically even at around 15 years old, although of course there was an overlap with earlier Olympians of about two years besides the prototype Olympian B45.
Does anyone mechanically know what the issue was with Dennis Dominators they never lasted as long as Olympians anywhere????