History:
The bus was ordered in 1929
by the well known Kent operator Maidstone and District and was
delivered to them in May 1930 as their fleet number 321. She operated
in the North Kent area around Gravesend and Northfleet in the
smart green and cream livery that was synonymous with this operator.
On the 1st July 1933 it was
all change for London’s buses as an act of parliament meant
that all the buses in a specially designated area, (roughly the
area of today’s M25) would fall under the control of a new
body the London Passenger Transport Board, LPTB or London Transport
as it was known. These changes affected Maidstone and District
in that it had to give up its services in North Kent including
those that were the regular haunt of this particular vehicle.
So along with the routes on July 1 1933 KR1728 ceased to be an
M&D bus and started its like with the Board as a London one.
Initially the only visible change was the removal of the M&D
fleet names which were replaced by the General fleet names, this
being the name of by far the largest company that had been rolled
up into the new Board, the livery for now stayed the same.
By 1935 most of this batch
had been repainted into the new Country Area livery of green with
black dividing bands and a silver roof, they also by this time
carried London Transport fleet names that would be a feature of
Londons buses for the next 40 years. By 1937-38 again the livery
had changed to a much more pleasant two shades of green with black
piping whilst the silver roof remained.
In their London service they
got the class code of TD, which sometimes is reported as standing
for Titan Double deck, the M&D batch were numbered between
TD133-166 and joined many of the same class in service with the
Board all of which had been acquired in 1933 from numerous other
independent operators. General and then London Transport had started
to standardise on AEC products and so these Leylands were very
non-standard and were obvious candidates for replacement as the
1930’s due to a close. So it was in 1939 weeks before the
outbreak of war that many of these including TD161b were withdrawn.
By early 1940 the bus was
still unlicensed in London, massive cut backs in service due to
fuel rationing meant there was little chance of these buses being
required by London, so via a dealer they ended up in Liverpool,
with Liverpool Corporation who desperately required extra buses
to meet the demand of the many ships coming into the port as well
as the numerous munitions factories that were 24 hour shifts to
supply war weapons.
Following the end of hostilities
the bus ended up with a few different owners before being converted
to a static caravan.
In 1973 the vehicle was about
to be scrapped when it was saved for preservation before eventually
being passed to the St Helens Museum of Transport where it resided
for the next 25 years before being acquired by Ensignbus for eventual
restoration.
The vehicle today is in a
poor state and will not be tackled in the immediate future but
will one day again take to the road.
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