stood at what to me was the rather daunting huge doors to the Langley Mill depot/ works a small boy of 14 it was the Tuesday after the Easter bank holiday 1946, having just left school, and after gaining an interview with the Chief engineer Mr, W Williamson a descendent of the old local charabanc firm of Williamson buses Heanor,  I was what  I counted as lucky to be granted an apprenticeship as a coach builder.

 He was a rather severe figure of the old school having just returned after the recent war where he served as a civilian advisor of some kind in engineering regarding military tanks

The two other heads of management were, along with Mr Williamson chief engineer- Mr K Lang traffic manager- and the top one a Mr Douglas Hayes general manager, a stern faced man who’s glare would have turned milk sour,  he on regular occasions would enter the works speaking to no one, dragging one leg in a kind of limp accompanying his icy glare.

All of these three had pet nick names - Willy engineer-  Kenny traffic- and old misery-Druggie with any appearance in the workshops, word would circulate in a phenomenon speed for everyone to be on their guard.

Willy  was a no nonsense strict employer who knew everything there was to know about the company and the buses, so my career began, with the small wage of eight and nine pence per week, all for working eight in the morning until five for five days and eight until twelve Saturdays.                                   

Life was hard you were the whipping boy (so to speak) for the older men in the body-shop run off your feet as what was known as the chit boy,  to write stores requisitions chits for items then run and fetch , whoa- betide if you made a mistake and brought the wrong screws or bolts resulting in a clip behind the ear.

I was assigned to and taken under the wing of a old coach builder ex Reeves and Kennings of the nineteen thirty’s,  under his guidance I soon became quite handy in between the task of running to the stores ext,  this was a intended chore  so that a sound working knowledge  of the many sizes and types of screws /materials and their uses  was gained.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

All this along with every type and size of bolt and the ability to recognise all kinds of the many thread difference used on these , Saturday mornings after 10.30 my job was to scrupulously clean the array of wood working machines in the mill which ran the length of the workshop, finally oil and grease then last thing apply a thin coat of oil and paraffin mix This was applied to all of the polished steel table tops of the machines  or come Monday morning a film of rust would cover them, until I reached the age of sixteen I was banned from using any and had to be satisfied with supporting  any of the timber being cut or shaped by the senior men.

The  whole of the garages and workshops covered a large area, known locally as the tram sheds , the two main garages fronted on to the main road, viewed from the front the right hand one which ran alongside the mineral rail line that was used to haul coal from the Bailey brook and Ormonde collieries, on the main road were level crossing gates and the small hut for the operative plus the coal sidings where merchants collected and bagged the same for sales, these stood on land that is now occupied by offices of the present Trent bus co. and  stand there today.

This garage housed buses both diesel and petrol and stored some very old single deck trolley buses I think there were six in all  the stood along the wall side parked tight together in single file (they were all still road fit but only used on rare occasions mainly in the summer at weekends on peak times) their construction in timber showed their age with the roofs made of wood slats covered with canvas , all of the other double deck trolleys were made of steel, the length of the garage was immense  and the above vehicles only took up a fraction , behind them were special coaches  again mainly used at weekends for tours all these were of different design and builders and all very old kept in service by the post war shortage, the total service fleet was made up a varied collection of a lot of different types well past their date for scrap, old wooden bodied petrol Tillings Stevens – some of the double Decker’s  had the old open staircase up from the rear platform,  all bus services were well used as private cars were very few post war,   the garage emptied late afternoon as crews departed for many of the works services to return mid –evening, there were quite a lot of the old Guy Arab- d/deck with utility wartime bodies again of timber construction with outer steel panels and hard wood slatted seats ( most of these were extensively rebuilt and re-seated in dunlopillow / moquette in the works in early sixties).

There were a small fleet of old wooden bodied AEC regent coaches,  which were commandeered by the ministry of defence at the outbreak of W War 2  and used in France, for troop transport  several did not return  probably destroyed in the retreat to Dunkirk, these were recognised by the small pull down steps at the rear so that the canvas covered luggage rack at the rear top of the roof could be accessed , what was left of these were again altered in the works in the sixties by removing the rack and straightening out the sweep and curve of the stream lined body down to the rear skirt.

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For several months when I first started some of the old petrol Tillings Stevens single deck used to tow a small two wheeled trailer that burned coke to produce a type of gas that boosted the fuel ,    it was not uncommon to see the driver pulled up by the roadside stoking or raking the fire, the supply of the coke was housed in large bunkers built into the side wall of the garage at the very end at the back, later to become the electrical shop, there was a special small gang of men that lit the fires  and got the vehicles ready for the drivers in the mornings, the same men also went from bus to bus, that were parked ready for the afternoon departure, using a thick heavy length of rope with a loop on the end  and one man to dog in the crank starting handle and attach the rope, they   then using their combined weight started the engine leaving them all running , you can imagine the smoke laden atmosphere  especially in winter.

Langley Mill was low in a valley and over the winter period the wet and damp condition were a continual headache  at times the thick smog /fog was so intense that visibility in the garages was  down to a few feet,  meaning you could not see from one end to the other.

 The second garage ran alongside the one I have just described   and totally open to each other almost the same in length but wider, to the left side starting from the front, was the office side entrance, next  leading off a wide open passageway with the main stores to one side- then the drivers /conductors long desk with all running schedules and individual small boards fitted in a special custom built rack, one  for each run  with times ect and taken by the driver at the beginning of his shift, then came the main stores entrance , - wide racks of electrical control gear for the whole works , the clocking in and out racks and timepiece came  next before the wide expanse of the entrance to the engineering / mechanical workshop. This was again very wide, the centre and right hand side was a mass of open inspection pits, all linked together below the surface   so that a worker could move from one to the other without coming to the surface accessing any vehicle parked above, this was the old tram shed W/shop in fact the pits were topped with steel edge rails these were indeed old tram track , also the steel tracks were linked in some way to the electric supply, when electric welding a link between any vehicle  and the pit rails would enable you to carry on without the earth connection from the welding  kit.

The garage was  open at each end for vehicle entry to any of the pits and the end one nearest to the wall side had over head trolley bus wires, it was used daily on a rota of trolley bus servicing, all though there was not a lot of work required  just routine –greasing- brakes etc. and of course changing of the wheeled trolley heads at the end of the two poles if worn, these were made entirely of brass and quite weighty, the wheels themselves were deeply cut with a groove to engage on the thick copper wire of the overhead , they had to revolve freely and were precision made, around 5” in diam, imagine the amount of time each revolved in say a journey from Nottingham to Ripley and repeated many times per day from the first shift around 5 am to the last around eleven at night every day  week after week, there was a small w/shop that did nothing else but service and repair these,                                                               A later type of trolley bus used slides instead of wheels, very silent in running but the carbon inserts lining the heads had to be replaced every night by the night staff, to access any of these ends to the poles the rear upper deck emergency door sited at the top of the stairs and full width of the body would be lowered on it hinges  flat with the body to allow a wood platform (carried by each bus ) to be hooked on to brackets so that it protruded out at the rear supported by a chain at each side and forming a platform  to stand on to service the heads, the 2 long poles all steel and tapered from the swivel base unit placed just forward of the centre of the bus were attached to heavy coil springs which were adjustable and balance loaded so that the poles were kept pressing up on to the overhead wires, each bus had a ring at the rear of both poles enabling them to be pulled off the overhead wires each could be pulled down and slipped under securing bracket when the vehicle was not in use or under repair, there was an abundance of long thick bamboo canes with hooks  at certain points in the garages and one also on each trolley slung below the floor accessed from under the rear, each bus had a narrow platform which ran along the roof from the rear to access the pole pivot unit, if at times the wheeled end came off the copper overhead of these the poles whilst in service they would swing wildly and fly almost  upright , this could happen and often did at junctions-points -and hard bends , I can still see in my mind a certain area in Nottingham, this was where the A1sevice  terminated from Ripley,  it was at the bottom of Queen St.  here the bus had to turn sharp right to enter King St., The times that the windows on the first floors of buildings over the shops had been smashed by this happening was to frequent and on to many occasions, this forced the fitting of a high wire mesh screen between the poles supporting the overhead system on the bend to catch any flyaway pole.
 

 The overhead wiring from Cinderhill   to the centre of Nottingham was owned and maintained by Nottm. Corperation transport and the Notts and Derby trolleys used this under some agreement and costs, to get back to the works-- to the left of this wide garage area were various engineering workshops , they ran the whole length of the building and housed sections each for different repairs and servicing  of components starting at the top first Gear boxes – differentials- hydraulics- brake shoe linings , radiators- machine shop with many types of apparatus  where all kinds of  lathe and precision work could be carried out  - next the servo bench—the large engine rebuild and servicing W/Shop also there was a lean to out building housing the trycoletheline  parts cleaning shop.

The next W/shop along opening off of the garage was where I spent most of my working hours was the bodyshop/wood machine shop/trimming upholstery, the whole was half the size in length of the adjoining  W/shops next door I have just described as the other half was the paint shop.

 The main garage that all the previous writing described above opened off the main garage, and was home to all the service trolley buses, there were so many that at night when all were parked both that and the service pit was full to capacity and the rear yard.

During the day only a couple or so would be idle and parked up,  this was the main thoroughfare servicing every part of this depot, for both operating crews – engineering – office staff and of course any deliveries to the stores, the roof was a mass of overhead  trolley supply wires, it may seem a little primitive today but when entering via the rear yard the incoming trolley had to stop short of the rear doors where upon the driver would holler                               “ TROLLEY IN” !  hoping that one of the garage staff would pick up two of the handy long bamboo poles , Hook on to rings on both overhead  trolley heads then with a equally loud shout “Right” as the signal to the driver to accelerate rapidly to gain enough momentum  to carry the bus into the garage, at the critical moment before the end of the wires and the front of the garage cladding over the doors he would weigh down heavily with each bamboo tucked under each arm using his own body weight  thus pulling both of the wheels on the heads down clear of both the building and off of the electric supply wires , running in this position to accompany the bus as far into the garage as the impetuous would allow and once clear he would then let the poles raise under the tension of the springs supporting them while he ensured that the  deep groove in the brass wheels  once more engaged on the overhead copper wires and the bus would then be parked some distance down the garage, this procedure had to be carried out at any point where there were no points system such as the service pit and the garage exit, just imagine how this could be carried out today with the bus owing to the lock and turning area required when leaving out on to the hectic busy main road of today having to use the middle and stand stationary while the re -connecting procedure was carried out.

This garage and the one at the top of the town at  Ilkeston  were the only two that were used for the trolley network   the latter was kept only the very old trolleybuses used on the Ilkeston –Heanor and Cotmanhay  sevices and in the later days it was a constant battle repair wise to keep them roadworthy, the best of the fleet were kept for the Ripley Nottingham A1 service,

 It was a really excellent service far superior to the much slower diesels, with no gears and so smooth the acceleration was incredible, to give an example , each lunch time one trolleyA1 and one diesel C9 would leave the bus stop outside the depot at the same time with the trolley first, it would arrive in Heanor market place unload and pick up and be on its way to Loscoe when the diesel was struggling loaded into the Market place.

 

 They were a far superior all round  vehicle, taking into account the trolley head maintenance  breakdowns were almost none existent , the large electric motor housed below the floor and central in the bus was easily changed and overhauled in the works at the set times when the bus was in for the usual two yearly overhaul, the large drivers cab which stretched the full width of the bus housed all the switch gear that responded at the touch of the accelerator plus the isolating switches above his head, the actual running controls Were only the accelerator pedal –footbrake, & handbrake , there was only one more device it was a small round topped pedal set in the floor that would move the vehicle in the works or in a emergency by batteries, this propelled the bus in short fast jerks and had to carefully controlled.

I can recall many incidents regarding trolleys, one that I remember to well was in the most severe smog or fog  we all too frequently endured, this particular day there was a real pea soup’er!  and services almost ground to a halt it was so dense that the only way for the bus to travel was with someone slowly walking in front with a hand held torch to pick out the kerb, a very arduous and slow process , the incident in question  the trolley took 7 hours to travel from king street Nottm to finally reach Heanor market place where the suffering  and overheated motor burst into flames  causing heavy damage to all the lower deck floor, I know all this to well as I was the person that completely rebuilt the lower deck, I am not too sure but I somehow recall it was bus no. 337.

I cannot speak to highly of my experiences,  some funny like especially when the vehicle was wet and standing on a wet garage floor with the poles still engaged on the overhead wires, if you were working say on some part of the exterior blue sparks could be seen from the end of your hand held screwdriver between that and the screw-head you were engaging, or when grasping  a platform handrail you sometimes felt a tingle like shock , I suppose it was some kind of leakage which was tolerated in those days, the actual step edge of the rear platform entrance/exit was wide thick rubber to protect the travelling public.  

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                                                                                                                                                               From 1946 my start date up to 1953( when the disastrous in my estimation) decision  to scrap the whole system and dispose of all the vehicles was taken, these buses played a vital part in the passenger transport from before I was born in 1932 , both during and after the second world war until the date above, I cannot help but think what a wonderful asset they would be today, two sub power stations served the network by transforming the power to 500watts DC, one at the bottom of loscoe rd, Heanor and one situated at the rear of the garages at Langley mill were both maintained and operated by Midesco the private electric company

 At the time of transition from electric to diesel, one excuse was that the overhead cable system was worn out and prompted the closure, this was entirely wrong as when the mammoth  task of dismantling was underway the overhead wear was almost non-existent, the system of points at junctions  where all built of the hardest wood known to man Lignum Vita, so hard that after the demolition any attempt to cut this on the wood machines met with failure, after the change over and all the power source was disconnected work began  using  the works buildings maintenance team and the overhead maintenance crews of both the two overhead tower wagons  which incidentally had a key role, to play before they too were to be made redundant, the  actual dismantling started at the Ripley end and at the opposite the Cinderhill finishing point before joining Notts city overhead line, first the copper was cut loose in 1 hundred yard sections then using heavy duty bolt cutters it was chopped into more hand -able lengths of around  a yard or thereabouts to be loaded on to the old very long bodied Dennis lorry.

 After this length /section was cleared the tower lorries dismantled all the supports from each of the tall round wide green poles at either side of the road, these were to be left until a later date, when all the copper and supports were cleared( in the end some of these were left in situ and sold to the local authorities as overhead lighting columns) the gangs worked very quickly clearing several sections each day and the pile of copper on the playing field behind the Langley Mill garages grew steadily bigger and bigger, actually at the end it was immense at a rough guess at least 50 ft, in diam and the same in height, the scrap value even in those days must have been colossal , it took many months before all the overhead lines were down, any railway bridges that the lines passed under(such as the line that ran across the main road at Kimberley) had an elaborate timber platform attached to the underside, made of pitch pine the wood was as sound as the day it was first installed, it was of no use to the company   and was left to the gangs to dispose of as they wished, these heavy balks of timber were more than most people could handle resulting in a constant bonfire behind the works.

When at last after many months of hard work  all the evidence of the overhead had disappeared all of the two tower  staff where relocated to find employment inside the works, mainly on what was known as semi -docking –routine servicing using the old trolley pit area , long before the demise of the trolleys the fleet of double deck diesels  had been steadily built up  with quite a number of A.E.C. buses with Metro Cam Weyman London built bodies one of the services that proved popular and a good income was the A4 a limited stop run Ripley to Nottingham, very quick and with the last pick up at Hilltop Nr Eastwood, and on return this was the first setting down stop, all double deckers used were pre select gear change A.E.C.

One thing I must mention before my story of the Trolleybus ends, was the actual change over itself, this was carried out on a Saturday night each driver was given instructions where his shift would terminate depending on the type and age of the vehicle he was driving, this was to segregate the buses for disposal, certain of the newer ones had been sold to Bradford Corporation Yorkshire , and finished as usual  at theL/Mill garage  

                                

All that were scheduled for scrap and breaking up, including all of The Ilkeston Garage buses were diverted to Heanor via the  Market Place, after unloading all passengers and the conductor, each bus would continue down to the start of Market St., then stop at the beginning  of the sloping downhill -road where  the two roof poles were detached from the overhead power supply and tucked under the holding hooks, by releasing the handbrake and using the batteries to gain momentum until the vehicle gained speed running freely downhill , instead of continuing right at the Red Lion junction for Loscoe it would take the left fork at speed to continue up Derby Road as far the momentum would carry it,  then stop and apply the handbrake to prevent rolling back down the hill.

A tow truck  would then be quickly attached to continue pulling the bus up the hill and as far as the junction of Ray St.- Thorpes Rd. where the main road levels out.

The destination was the old site and garages of one of the old private companies that was taken over pre –war by the Midland General,  it was accessed by a narrow drive between properties  which opened out into a wide yard with coach only low garages, but the added bonus of a large tract of land behind made a excellent storage area, formally it was Williamsons  coaches owned by the forbears of the present ex chief engineer/ now general Manager, at a later date it was completely re-furbished with the idea of using it as a depot for touring coaches, but for some reason this never came about and was used for storage of new coaches before they were licensed, after the formation of the Nat.Bus the whole site was sold to the local  council and became their transport depot.

I remember vividly the Sunday after the mass change over,  previously 14 new Double Deck buses had been purchased  from the Nat bus coach builders ,Eastern Coachworks Lowestoft,

They were Bristol “K” types. The first all tempered alloy construction, although a conventional  highbridge bus with  open rear platform they were entirely different to any ran by the company at that time, this make and body construction were the first of many different types to appear at the garages over the next few years, both double deck and single, to mention a few – lodeka’s  much lower in height,again with open rear access but later we converted them to electric doors, --single deck service coaches—followed by the ever increasing in length R.E. the first with single entrance door at the front , then the front entrance plus  a midship rear exit doors, and of course special up market touring coaches.

 

To get back to that first Sunday that the new “K” types came into service, some of the old trolley bus drivers had never driven anything else but the electric automatic no gears vehicles and were not used to double de-clutch crash box gear change now required, at that time I lived in a flat overlooking the main road High St. Heanor, sitting inside I had never heard such crunching tunes played on a gear box ever before, in fact in the first week of service 7 gear boxes were wrecked with chewed up gears, luckily the specialist staff were able to quickly exchange them for the stand bye couple of spare ones whilst the damaged boxes were quickly repaired.

There are many tales I could tell about those first early years but are too numerous to recount now- like the time terrible floods closed the road outside the L/mill depot for trolley buses, so that amused passengers were taken in through the pump entrance through the rear yard to proceed through the main garage and emerge out to rejoin the main road through the front exit main doors, the floods also completely filled all the inspection pits to the top.

So that any work was not at all possible  and it took at least a week with pumps going flat out to clear them, it was quite common for this area of Langley Mill to flood  owing to mining subsidence  and the narrow brook tunnel under the main road.

 Venturing out into the main Garage in the most severe winter I have never known 1947 was a endurance test to carry out running repairs, and as the youngest it was almost me who drew the short straw, the main job was to replace the wooden guard rails that ran along the lower sides on all vehicles they were intended to ward off anyone that fell against the bus from getting underneath, these ran from a couple of inches behind the centre of the front  tyre to finish well outside the tyre edge of the rear, in theory to push anyone away to clear the rear wheels, in the harsh snow conditions it was a ongoing  task to keep on replacing smashed ones caused by the frozen piles of built up snow pushed to the side of the roads by the snow ploughs , if you were lucky the irons that hung down carrying these wooden rails were only bent under and by using  a tool known as a twisting dog which had a long handle for leverage the irons could often be realigned , on the other hand if your luck was out it meant removing them for the blacksmith to heat them in the forge, this was by laying on your back on a piece of ply on the wet slewing slush covered concrete, and then attempt to release the  iron from the bolts that held it on the body pillar ends and usually finished up getting covered with large lumps of built up snow which were dislodged from the underside by any blow of a hammer and chisel sometimes needed in a attempt to loosen the rust. The cold was so intense that to be able to use my fingers I would carry a block of steel in each of my pockets,  they were pre heated by the welding gas torch then wrapped in cloth, by continually sticking my fingers in the welcome warmth of my pockets I managed to work,  the intense cold meant that all parked buses had to have their engines running continuously  and at odd time some of them froze on service , there was a mass hurried fitting of exterior radiator blinds to give some protection, these were a simple leather cloth rolled on a flat spring steel strip, secured at the rad. bottom with alum blocks set at various heights up each side, by bowing the steel strip each end could be slipped into slots in each of the side blocks, so that the amount of freezing wind cover could be decided to suit the conditions that day from full complete -to covering all the front to being set at the lowest with all the blind rolled up.

In the works to try and maintain some kind of warmth at  various points old forty gallon oil drums with the tops removed and holes cut in the sides then set to stand on bricks  they were turned into coke filled braziers  and kept going night and day by  cleaners and labourers , this was to boost the hot water blown air heaters set high up off of the floor, and were totally inadequate , the boiler a huge ex-locomotive apparatus set in a below ground  room and hopper fed with small coal nuggets could not cope with the constant below freezing temperatures.

This was a exceptional  winter, the worst that I can ever remember in my working career  but I survived, gradually all the fleet of buses began to show the influence of the Nat Bus who now completely owned the whole company and all the many buildings and depots except for one thing, all road tyres on all of the buses belonged to Dunlop and were rented from them , there was a tyre shop at Langley mill staffed by their own fitters who maintained and kept records -changed renewed etc. and even re-cut the tread whilst on the vehicle, there was enough depth of rubber to allow this procedure, but could only be carried out on front tyres - at full lock , the rears had to be removed.

 

As new buses were delivered, all the old faith-full’s disappeared, and over the years every bus became a Bristol of various kinds with Eastern Coachwork bodies, I became very competent at their repairs , mainly severe accident rebuilds, but the wages were far behind what could be earned elsewhere, and I had no option but to part company after 20 years, to work for a specialist firm of coachbuilders, but that’s another story.

I worked in the private sector for around another ten years during which I became very competent in the accident repairs of special and expensive cars both sports and saloons, but once more I was contacted with a offer of re- employment with the Nat Bus, by now the old Midland General and Notts. and Derby traction had disappeared being swallowed  up by their arch rival Derby based  Trent buses, both being companies within Nat Bus .

 However conditions and pay were far- far better than when I left, as a bonus scheme now operating made it possible to earn more than the pathetic wages which caused me to part company ten years previous.

 I did a great number of specialist conversions using old vehicles now longer required, these were used for various purposes within the company and also for outside such as schools/ colleges /disabled charities etc./ mobile publicity office, a special conversion that will always give me fond memories was the design and building of a heavy duty tow /recovery truck on a ex military Militant chassis, which I now believe all these years after is owned by a private enthusiast  somewhere in the Nottingham Leicester area.

I sincerely hope that this collection of memories has not bored you too much, there cannot be many people still left  that can remember let alone have worked on those old vehicles .           

     I myself am now aged 83 with 50 years in the motor trade & 40 of them on buses, there are far- far to many experiences I could recall over the years to be written and I have tried to recount some of the few and try to give some kind of insight into life in those distant years.

 

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Yours  sincerely 

John Powell