Historic buses

...no wonder you and your mates had an 800 can esky Graham !!

This was the pride of the fleet, and was used for Wangaratta - Mt Buffalo transfers.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

770716Sa Mt Buffalo (Vic.). VR GM Denning MZR834. R Smith.

Upper Esplanade, St Kilda (Melbourne, Vic.). Melbourne Tour sightseeing bus (3796AO?); Esplanade Hotel. Wed.26.11.03. (Jeff Bounds) In Apr.14 put up a photo of another, with information 'MCW Metrobus model D115, classed MC by CMB'. By then, this company was no longer operating in Melbourne.

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCW_Metrobus
The MCW Metrobus is a double-deck bus model manufactured by Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) between 1977 (over 35 years ago) and 1989 (over 25 years ago), with over 4000 built.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

During an ambitious Eyre Peninsula tour by Victoria-based Rail Tourist Association, the organiser (Geoff Cargeeg, a professional bus driver) took delivery of a bus from Allens Wallaroo Coach
Service. It was then used by the tour group, and the photo shows it parked alongside BHP's Port Lincoln - Coffin Bay railway (SA), on Sun.23.2.86.
It was a 1959 Freighter-bodied Leyland Tiger Cub which was new to Yorke Peninsula Road Lines and passed with that business to Allens.
I can't remember if it had a manual gearchange or a preselector.
Brought back to Victoria, it was used to support various RTA tours: both carrying tour groups and bringing supper to tram or train tours. The bus was well preserved, and in original condition.
During a family feud when Geoff was incapacitated (~2000?), his brothers sold it, apparently for conversion to a mobile home.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Have a Greenline photo on St Patrick's Day.
861213Sa Caulfield (Melbourne, Vic.). Greenline mystery, plus a glimpse of the 1959 Leyland Tiger Cub owned by the Rail Tourist Association tour organiser. (Roderick Smith).
The Leyland was there to serve refreshments to an RTA tour pausing there.
IIRC Greenline was there because this was a day of buses replacing trains in one of the directions. I can't guess the make/model.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

This belongs with the photo in reply 71.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

770717Su Wangaratta station(Vic.). Victorian Railways GM Denning MZR834 on a transfer from Mt Buffalo Chalet to the evening train to Melbourne. R Smith.

Bundaberg (Qld). Duffy's City & Coast Buses 1957 Leyland Tiger Cub. Thurs.2.7.87. (Roderick Smith)
I sent a copy to the company, which provided this history: The bus was a Leyland Tiger Cub powered by a 375 Coin engine. The gearbox was a pneumo cyclic four-speed semiauto without a clutch.
This bus was the first owned and operated by a private company in Queensland. The body was built by Watt Brothers (Brisbane) in 1957, and was one of the last wooden frames to be built. After it completed service with Duffys it went back to Barry Watts for restoration and was used on Movie World sets in the early 1990s.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

...what's a Coin engine Rodders?...hopefully not COunter INsurgency for the military...

I thought 'coin in the slot': every time a passenger paid, another cup of fuel would be passed to the injectors. I was lost by the term, and suspect that it was one of those horrible automatic replacements when Bill Gates thinks that the whole world should think his way.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyland_Tiger_Cub .
The reference must have been to the Leyland O375H 6.15 L engine.
I not that there was a preselector option, and this one had that. My memory of the Leyland Tiger Cub from Wallaroo is that it had preselector, and that could well be correct.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

...thanks Rodders .. with government spending the way it is, maybe we will see Coin operated military machines with recycled Leyland engines on thrust and parry missions....run by the unions!!