semi-buses, coach's?

Swishy - Your family caravan sure looks like a dead-ringer to that Yankee Grummet! I wonder if someone copied the Grummet plans? .. or was a Grummet trailer imported directly from the States?

EDIT - Was your White/caravan a LHD? Perhaps it was a U.S. Army import during WW2? .. and the same one as in your last pic? Maybe a specialised military unit such as a dental caravan?

I managed to dig up some pics of the Fowler Landliner, from the Bus Australia forum. It was apparently the brainchild of a bloke named Roy Weber. These pics are public domain as far as I know.

The first pic shows the Landliner in Victoria, apparently when virtually new. Later pics show the PBL logo on the side of the trailer.
The second pic shows the Landliner in WAGR Road Services livery, and was taken in W.A., somewhere .. possibly the outskirts of Perth.
The third pic shows the Landliner trailer shortened up in 1948, and fitted to a DG model Foden .. in which form, it ran until the early 1960's.

The cruising speed of the Landliner with its original Ford V8's was stated as 45 mph, and the fuel consumption around 4 mpg.
The DG Foden certainly wouldn't have gone any faster, but I wager the fuel bill was a whole lot less! ..

An article in the "West Australian" in 1949 related to complaints about "speeding Railway Buses"!
A journo interviewed a "WAGR spokesman" about the claim, and the WAGR man stated it was a preposterous claim!
He went on to state that the Railway Buses were governed to a maximum speed of 43 mph (70 kmh), and speeding was impossible!
I seem to recall the open-road speed limit for buses back in the 1940's and 50's was 40 mph.
No doubt, the drivers kept the pedal to the metal through some country towns, when they were running late .. and even though you'd be struggling to find a dozen people on the streets in the country towns in that era .. no doubt, someone sighted a Railways bus travelling at what they thought was a terrifying speed!! ..

Those fancy curved windows in the front of the Landliner must have cost some serious money in the late 1940's! .. in the era when flat glass reigned supreme!

This is possibly the first semi-coach's by Nairn Bros, fascinating history, anyone know of a book about them, their father was a doctor in NZ, real entepenures.

Ron,

Thanks for starting this interesting thread - I always wondered about that futuristic Landliner and with the benefit of hindsight I suppose they ought to have known better.

The Nairn Bros were I suppose more practical and hence successful. Before the 1948 war this was the luxurious way to travel from Haifa to Bagdad (there were other services if you had an iron bottom - sitting on a wooden bench for 500K is no fun). One correction: The M-H had a Hercules diesel with 150 hp. It started as a 6X6 but at some stage was converted to 4X4 and conscripted by the RAF for troop transport during WWII. The Nairns also used GMC buses and Super Sixes (an obscure US make), by the way.

This is the M-H in it original form:



From here, with lots of Nairn Bros info: fuchs-online.com/overlandmail/articles/The_Nairn_Way.htm

and



From www.mideastimage.com

The White was obviously still working in the 1950s:



The pic is from a book called "First Overland" by Tim Slessor, first edition 1957.

and another:



From an article in Israeli internet site www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3486469,00.html about life in "our" colonies in the 1930s (Hebrew only).

More on this ATHS thread: forums.aths.org/InstantForum2010/27658/M...0-Series?PageIndex=5 (starts from bottom to top, page 5 to 1).

Hope this is of interest.

Cheers,

T

Thanks tatra for the great pictures and the web sites, Nairn's were really pioneers weren't they? thanks for the websites too, interesting part of the world, so much history.

Good pics of the Commer semi bus Cunning, I imagine it would be a task to rebuild that body, even harder without the trailer.
Great info and pics there onetrack, the Foden is a beauty.

Ron,

Thare's a pic (from an old Israeli children book) of the first Nairn semi-bus after it was converted to 4X4 and in RAF service:



and that's the Six-Wheel (not Super Six as I referred to before) which the brothers used in the earlier days:





Pics and more info about the make here: www.coachbuilt.com/bui/s/six_wheel/six_wheel.htm

The relevant passage reads:

"large number of bodies were built by Wolfington, including the famous Nairn Transport Company buses that ferried mail, freight, soldiers and oil workers between Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. Two New Zealand brothers, Gerald and Norman Nairn, founded a weekly bus freight and mail service between Haifa, Israel and Beirut, Lebanon in 1922. A similar Baghdad, Iraq to Damascus, Syria route was instituted on October of 1923, and soon afterwards the two circuits were combined, creating a 715-mile-long Beirut via Damascus to Baghdad service.

The Nairn

What is a Safeway 6 ?

Pete,

Update above - a US maker of coaches and buses, just follow the link.

Cheers,

T

...apparently there was a US made predecessor of the Landliner - I wonder whether any connection exists:



The rest of the incomplete story is here:

blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/03/30/t...s-overseas/#comments

Cheers,

T