Top Deck of an old Sydney Decker

[Tim Williams]

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This photo, which I took in the 70's or 80's is of a bus which has somehow utilised the top deck of an ex Sydney DD - the late Neil Mackintosh put me on to this. I will be most interested in any following comments and if our thoughts are not correct, so be it.

[The Inspector]

IMG_0005_edited-1.jpg

This photo, which I took in the 70's or 80's is of a bus which has somehow utilised the top deck of an ex Sydney DD - the late Neil Mackintosh put me on to this. I will be most interested in any following comments and if our thoughts are not correct, so be it.

I think there was 1 or 2 like this in South Australia, I remember seeing pics by Neil

[Tim Williams]

I think that both the innovative nature of these + their uniqueness made a favorite of Neil's - thanks for the comment Scott.

[Swift]

Typical Australian cheapness. All very third world.

[Denv12]

Interesting idea. I remember one of the old bus books showing that bus.

I guess some people didnt have the money to buy buses so they made their own. It happened a lot over the years.We should start a new topic to cover those buses.There would be a lot of them.

[Swift]

^ maybe they shouldn't be in the bus business if they are that hard up.
Wow, makes the Ford austerity bus look expensive!

[Tim Williams]

This bus is a very basic affair, but do remember this was many years and the standards of some of the larger companies (particularly home built and modified buses) was not always first class.

I think that, in any event that the front engined type of Sydney double decker was a fairly crude bus, with a design that went back to pre-second world war. Yes, they were robust, but were neither refined nor visually that attractive, through I have grown to like them over the years.

[Tim Williams]

I meant to say that this was many years ago!!!

[Swift]

I meant to say that this was many years ago!!!

Yes I knew what you meant, I don't see this flying any time after 1978!

[tonyp]

I was once sitting at a bus stop in Lane Cove in the 1960s and the top deck of one of the Kogarah trolley buses was towed past! I believe those buses were stored at the former Manly tram depot. I suppose they ended up as sheds etc.

The diesel deckers were truly terrible things to ride, as I had to do almost daily for many years after the trams finished. Cramped, noisy, vibrating their nuts off and the ever-present threat of an overturn or striking an awning. They weren't just a 1930s design retained too long but they kept building many new ones even after the war! Comeng had proposed a modern underfloor-engined design after the war, but it was rejected and they kept on with these. The American-inspired underfloor single-deckers were a much better and more efficient bus (with exactly the same passenger capacity incidentally), but still had that terrible diesel vibration. It was all a big let-down after the capacious, smooth trams or even the American petrol-engined private buses with very nicely done local bodies that were extremely pleasant to ride in the 1950s and 60s.

[boronia]

Top deck of a Sydney Trolley Bus.

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I can recall seeing another one on a truck chassis, but not used as a bus.

[tonyp]

The trolleybus top deck, being longer, might have made a better single deck body, assuming it complied with regulations.

[boronia]

Back in those days, there wasn't much in the way of "regulations". Even up to the early 1980s, the "HVIS" comprised an inspector coming to the depot, having a cup of tea and a chat, then driving the bus around the block for its "safety check". Usually, if it stopped adequately, and the body didn't fall off, it was passed.

[VIKing]

A Sydney metropolitan company that I worked for from 1976 to 1981 did look after their vehicles pretty well. One inspection time the DMT inspector did not turn up on the appointed day, we thought nothing of it (maybe he was sick ?). The district office rang about a week later querying the inspection reports lodged by the officer in the inspection the week prior. One of the vehicles logged as inspected we no longer had, as had been sold and was no longer registered in NSW. How was it inspected ? I quickly deduced the inspector had taken the day off and written up his inspections from his reports for the fleet he inspected on the prior inspection. So I bluffed away about when the inspector was there we had told him all the vehicles bar such and such were there (the one missing was the one bus that did the daytime run) and pointed out which one that was on the fleet maintenance board. I suggested the inspector had worked thru checking each bus in turn (all passed with clean bill of health) and then used the board for the rego numbers of the vehicles inspected to write up his inspection reports. Problem was that we had not update the board and yes m/o xxxx was no longer in the fleet, but he had inspected m/o yyy which had replaced it : but written up his report as m/o xxxx. I promised we would update the board so there could be no possible future confusion .... and that explanation was fully accepted ! Those were the days ....

[Swift]

A Sydney metropolitan company that I worked for from 1976 to 1981 did look after their vehicles pretty well. One inspection time the DMT inspector did not turn up on the appointed day, we thought nothing of it (maybe he was sick ?). The district office rang about a week later querying the inspection reports lodged by the officer in the inspection the week prior. One of the vehicles logged as inspected we no longer had, as had been sold and was no longer registered in NSW. How was it inspected ? I quickly deduced the inspector had taken the day off and written up his inspections from his reports for the fleet he inspected on the prior inspection. So I bluffed away about when the inspector was there we had told him all the vehicles bar such and such were there (the one missing was the one bus that did the daytime run) and pointed out which one that was on the fleet maintenance board. I suggested the inspector had worked thru checking each bus in turn (all passed with clean bill of health) and then used the board for the rego numbers of the vehicles inspected to write up his inspection reports. Problem was that we had not update the board and yes m/o xxxx was no longer in the fleet, but he had inspected m/o yyy which had replaced it : but written up his report as m/o xxxx. I promised we would update the board so there could be no possible future confusion .... and that explanation was fully accepted ! Those were the days ....

I had to read that a couple of times to fully understand what you were describing. Wouldn't they have known he was off that day? So you are saying he decided to have a bludge? Wow, those were some laid back days weren't they?! Yet, many of the private bus companies were well run outfits with vehicles probably better kept mechanically than today's buses, though you have to factor in the more maintenance heavy the buses were, compared to more modern equipment today, where they are more "set and forget" in design.
The bus company wouldn't have been this one now would it?

[VIKing]

Yes, it was pretty clear a day was taken "off" Sorry, it was not Deanes. And I totally agree with the comment that those being laid back times.

[boronia]

The less said about the industry back then, the better.

[Swift]

The less said about the industry back then, the better.

I have to disagree there! I love stories like that.