Bristol RE

292-5 was delivered to Cumberland M.S. as part of an order for 14 such vehicles on 28/11/71, 8/12/71, 30/11/71 and 7/12/71 respectively, all carrying Tilling Red and Cream livery with underlined ‘Cumberland’ fleetnames - the standard at the time. During 12/71 they received Setright motor units and trays for one man operation. They were not licensed until 1/1/72 when 293-5 entered service at Workington depot, but 292, different from the beginning, went to Whitehaven depot.In their early years 293-5 spent much of their time on Workington Town Services until displaced by new Leyland National 1s. They graduated to operate trunk service 30 from Whitehaven to Carlisle by 1974/5. They remained on this service until displaced by new National 2s around the turn of the decade. 292 worked similar duties, but at Whitehaven.On 1/8/83, 293-5 were delicensed for disposal, followed by 292 a month later. The latter was sold to APT, Bracebridge Heath, Lincoln (dealer) 11/83, where it was scrapped. However 293-5 remained stored until 12/83 when all 3 were sold to Bristol Omnibus Company as their fleet numbers 1260-2. They spent their time allocated to the Country Bus Division based at Marlborough Crescent Depot/Bus Station in the centre of Bristol. They worked a wide variety of services from there alongside original BOC Country Area REs.

The Bristol Country fleet was given the ‘Badgerline’? fleetname in 1985 and this became a separate company completely in January 1986.Up until September 1987 293-5 remained together. At this time, though, 294 was allocated to a new joint venture between Badgerline and Isle of Wight based Southern Vectis called Quayshelf Limited (trading as ‘Badger-Vectis’) where it was numbered 51. It returned to Badgerline 4/88 and quickly passed to Commercial & PSV Dismantlers, Barnsley 6/88 and on finally to AJS, Carlton (dealer), also in 6/88, for scrap.Back to 293/5. These were both sold by Badgerline in 11/89 to Edmunds of Rassau in South Wales. 293 was loaned to National Welsh in 11/89 and to red and White at Cwmbran during 9/92. Edmunds eventually sold it to Lane, Tredegar in 4/94 and to Phil Anslow Travel, Garndiffraith, Pontypool c4/94. 295 was immediately (11/89) resold by Edmunds to Evans of New Tredegar, whose livery it still carries in July 2004.In March 1995 John Burrow, Fred Scurr and Dave Radcliffe drove down to South Wales to see about buying 293 (or perhaps 295). No deal was completed but they had a chance to inspect and drive 293, and to visit Evan’s yard where 295 was resident at the time. Even at this stage the pair were only about 5-10 miles apart.In August 1995 295 was sold by Evans, along with similar ex West Yorkshire Bristol RELL6G MWW 751K, to Seddon and Millson of Chesterfield (t/a Peakbus) via a dealer. At this stage preservationist Nigel Frampton had taken an interest. He managed to secure both 293 and 295 for preservation, both in 11/95. 293 was driven from Pontypool to Basingstoke where it still resides today. Yet again 293 and 295 were together in the same ownership.

In early 1996 I took a half share in 295 along with a guarantee that it could live in Cumbria. Sadly, it had a serious accident on its last day in service with Peakbus which left it with substantial front end damage. Peakbus promised to repair the damage using parts from the aforementioned MWW 751K. This repair did not prove possible due to a number of factors such as the DTI accident investigation and the subsequent cessation of the Peakbus operations in late March 1996.So, no repairs. However, the parts were there. It was in this condition that John Burrow and I saw 295 at the end of March 1996 and it remained in this state when it was eventually towed from Chesterfield to Silloth in November 1996.

295 on tow from Chesterfield

John and I set about stripping down the front end to good metal and between us we rebuilt the front ourselves with the parts supplied plus some new. This was no mean feat and required brand new hardwood pillars on both front corners. This took 3 years as access to the location in Silloth was limited and also restricted to holidays from work.Batteries were obtained and an attempt made to see what life she had in her. She fired up, the gearbox worked and was then driven outside under its own power. All the lights, doors and blowers etc. worked too. This was indeed good news at the time.Since that time foot and mouth disease and the need to take precious holidays from work prevented access. Only this year, with the promise of local storage could work begin again... Bringing 295 back to life! In order for the tow-truck to pick up the bus, we had to get out from the back of its storage site. To do this we needed to start the engine and check that the gears are operational. Unfortunately, time had taken its toll on the bus's electrical system. Its once-new set of batteries had failed through lack of use, so spare batteries & a set of heavy duty jump leads were taken from Workington to start the bus. We connected the jump leads and switched the isolator on, but no panel lights came on. So press the starter button and there's no sign of life. So we crawled under the bus to check the starter motor relay on the engine. This was not too difficult as some of the panels are missing! Removing the relay cover reveals a pristine piece of kit looking as good as the day it left the factory. The conclusion was that this is not where the problem is, so fit the cover back on.Then we unscrewed some of the dash panels to get at the wiring. Unfortunately, in doing this we broke off other corroded connections, and were left with a number of leads hanging loose. Ooops! We have a wiring diagram, but it does not relate to the physical layout of the bus and is too small to make much sense of anyway, so this is no help! We rigged up a long "flying lead" with one end connected to the 24 volt battery positive terminal and the other end held in the hand poised to touch on various terminals to see if we could inject some life into the machine. Preparing for the sparks to fly, we touched a likely terminal and the engine turned for the first time in over four years. Joy! A little more persistence and the Leyland engine fires into life and ticks over.

The accelerator pedal is stiff through lack of use - press it down & it stays down unless you bend over to lift it by hand. But, at least, when it is down the engine revs harder so it still works. And the air pressure builds up. And the doors, heater blowers and saloon lights still work! But we can't coax the gears into life, time is short, so that will have to wait for another visit.On the next visit, we dismantled the gear selector switch to reveal some sound wiring. Again, the magic "flying lead" was put into action and, after a few sparks, we found the correct terminals to touch to select gears. Then, hey presto, the bus moved! A full wiring inspection will be made in due course at Workington.