This book looks at the wonderful variety of buses and coaches operated by British Electric Traction group fleets in the 1960s, featuring previously unpublished photographs from Jim Blake's extensive archives. Not only did these fleets, which served most of England and Wales, have a splendid variety of British-built buses and coaches with chassis manufactured by the likes of AEC, Crossley, Daimler, Dennis, Guy and Leyland – with bodywork by such firms as Park Royal, Weymann, Metro-Cammell, East Lancs, Northern Counties, Roe, Duple, Plaxton, Willowbrook and Leyland again – but they also had an array of distinctive liveries.
Many dated back to the early part of the century when the operators first started bus operation.
The smart maroon and cream of East Kent, the dark green and cream of Maidstone & District or the light green and cream of Southdown, for example, were supplemented by ornate fleet-names, often in gold lettering. These three fleets were just a few of those that served seaside towns, and will remind readers of holidays they spent in the 1950s and '60s. Sadly, the years covered by this book are the final years of the BET group, which was taken over by the nationalised Transport Holding Company in late 1967, as a prelude to the creation of the National Bus Company, under which the distinctive liveries of the BET group fleets, and even some of the operators themselves, would disappear.
The 1960's also saw the demise of many traditional types of bus that these fleets operated, owing to the introduction of rear-engined double-deckers, such as the Leyland Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline, as well as the spread of one-man operation. Many of the photographs featured in this book show the older types in their final days – pure nostalgia for the transport enthusiast!
About the Author
Jim Blake was born at the end of 1947, and he soon developed a passionate interest in railways, buses and trolleybuses. In 1961, he began transport photography, and throughout the 1960's and 1970's captured on film what are now very rare scenes of long- lost buses, coaches, trolleybuses and steam locomotives. These photographs have been published in various books and magazines over the past forty-five years, but there remains much unpublished material, which appears in his Pen & Sword books.
Jim also started the North London Transport Society and, in conjunction with the group, he compiled and published a number of books on buses, trolleybuses and railways between 1977 and 2013, featuring many of the 100,000 or so transport photographs he has taken over the years.
Industry Reviews
"A book full of memories, a song to the diversity and the colour, especially indicated for the lovers of transport"-- "Miniaturas JM"
"The pictures are presented largely in chronological order, so he takes us around the country and several times to Victoria and Wembley where his [Jim Blake] camera focused on vehicles that ranged from fleet standards to one-offs and other rarities"-- "Buses Magazine"
"This is a dream of a title for enthusiasts of bus fleets from the last century - I grew up in rural Gloucestershire, where all of the buses were made by the Bristol Omnibus Company, for obvious reasons, I guess. Jim's book is a celebration of the British Electric Traction Group's fleets of buses and coaches manufactured by some of the greatest names in the automotive industry. A brilliant celebration of bygone days!"-- "Books Monthly"
"Whether you can best recall the urban fleets that took you to work, shopping, or school or on outings to seaside resorts, it is an era now represented by bus preservationists and people like Jim Blake. The author has lovingly compiled 138-pages worth of black and white photographs and captions which will revive thoughts of the bus companies, their vehicles and the areas they served."-- "Best of British Magazine" (6/1/2017 12:00:00 AM)
