Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

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Swift
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

You actually ignored the Leopards? I suppose the ERT Worldmasters wouldn't have got a look in either?
No accounting for taste.
Kind of like a generation Y kid going in during the 2000s and saying ahh no not those round roof things, I wanna take pics of the B12s only thanks!
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Ray »

Yeah I actually disliked them. My local school trip (689 ex Epping to North Ryde) had been permanently rostered as a Mk 2 Merc while the mainline 288 was operated by a brand new Mk 3. But to my annoyance, a change in roster meant that the school service became a Leopard run. To a kid in the 80s there was a big difference between a smooth notes of a Merc and the loud, jerky, smelly movements of the Leopard. Was very unenthused.

You didn't need to be a gunzel to know the difference. When Eastwood Public hired three Y buses every day during summer for the shuttle to Ryde Pool, often get a mix of Mercs and Leopards would turn up. All the kids would be peeved off if directed to get on the Leopard and there was muttering about whether the 'old bomb' would make it over the hill at Shaftsbury Rd. I remember getting on the Leopard one day and hearing howls of dismay when a shiny dark blue Merc pulled up behind.

In summary, Leopards were very unpopular in the 80s even though they weren't actually that old at the time.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by tonyp »

Swift wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:58 pm You actually ignored the Leopards? I suppose the ERT Worldmasters wouldn't have got a look in either?
No accounting for taste.
Kind of like a generation Y kid going in during the 2000s and saying ahh no not those round roof things, I wanna take pics of the B12s only thanks!
People can like whatever they want. I have my own preferences but I respect that others have their own favourite memories and experiences. Same with preserved transport history. I admire a beautiful restoration, even of something I didn't particularly like in the past. It should all be recorded. Just sad that private buses have been mostly bypassed and lost forever by the preservation movement, despite being such an important part of the history.

Fwiw, I spent nearly the first third of my life on the interface between the trams (for a too-short time), private buses (American petrol-engined commonly) and government buses. The trams and the private buses were a great ride experience, quiet and smooth. The British diesels of the government fleet were a horrible experience - loud, vibrating, smelly and jerky as Ray says. The Mercs were a profound improvement in ride at the time, though when I lived next to Randwick depot for a while, the high-pitched scream of Mercs heading out of the depot early in the morning drove me nuts. I can still hear that noise inside my head. Unfortunately the British buses lingered on for some time too, finding new customers in the private sector as well. I think diesel buses have only come good in the last decade or so, with the Swedes doing best imho. But all now too late - just at the end of their period of dominance as they fall to the electric rebirth.

So to me, when I was commuting via the southern end of the city, Ryde is the depot that was the source of those horrible ancient double-deck contraptions that provided such an unpleasant trip along Victoria Rd. When I went via Lane Cove, Willoughby provided the single-deck underfloors which were a very good design but still had that dreadful machinery underneath. That lasted less than a year before I realised that I could have a more pleasant trip staying on the great Reos until Chatswood, then taking a comfortable trip by train. Then along came double-deck trains to finish that pleasure off (V sets excepted)! Thus began the long period of car ownership and driving. There was nothing to look forward to on the public transport front for a few decades until the 2000s when it started to pick up again.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

I could well believe a lot of campers weren't happy when a Leopard turned up instead of the much more modern and totally different experience of a Mercedes with it's modern interior and refined drive line.
Two such divergent bus types doing the front line duties side by side for a decade.
One guy at Tafe told me he used to let a Leyland go by and wait for a Mercedes. He thought the buses you "pulled the cord" on were $### and embarrassing.
Another guy said they had "that smell".
They were very primitive even for a 1970s bus, not helped by their dodgy air suspension and ancient looking bodies, but as an enthusiast, I find them interesting looking and entertaining.
Lots of drivers loved them. As a driver, the Mercedes felt too effortless after a while and you felt like a navigator rather than a driver. Very well engineered though.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Ray »

Yes and I imagine the Mk 1 Mercedes were an anomaly, having the traditional Leopard-style body but the modern chassis. Confusing, but not something you'd deal with unless you lived east or inner west.

Tony, you reminded me of the old M v Y depot thing which one encounters as a passenger in that area. The peak was the 2000s when Y had the extremely comfortable Citaros while M had the very awkward low floor Scanias. No prizes for guessing which one I would choose if I had the option.

Nowadays, I am one of strange individuals who actually likes the Bustechs (say no more) so the pendulum has swung back in favour of M.

In the 80s, the fleets were similar but M buses seemed better maintained than Y, perhaps partly because the routes were quieter.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

As someone who experienced the mark 2 first, it was quite a revelation to see my first mark 1 in the original colour scheme with the same front and rear lower panels, but old fashioned roof and those doors!
Yet they had that same familiar sound. Discovering things like that made Sydney all the more multifaceted.
Can't get into the Bustechs you're talking about yet but have taken to the mark 3 version of the VST I see here in Ettalong Beach, even though I recently filmed a mark 4 on the MAN 18.320 chassis that looks outwardly similar until the headlights are turned on!
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

I'm not sure about Tony's "great ride experience" on the privates. :lol:

I grew up with Harris Park Transport!
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by tonyp »

Glen wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:53 pm I'm not sure about Tony's "great ride experience" on the privates. :lol:

I grew up with Harris Park Transport!
I used Harris Park in its final years and it seemed OK but can't speak for how it was before that. What type of buses did they have?
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

tonyp wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:40 pm I used Harris Park in its final years and it seemed OK but can't speak for how it was before that. What type of buses did they have?
In their final years they ran Bedford underfloor buses ex storage for tax purposes, Hino CMs and as their final purchases, MB 0405NH all with their trademark bullbar fitted to the front, to save on body repairs I presume.
They had a fewLeyland Tigers with the same body style as their Hinos but they disappeared in the mid 1990s sometime, probably due to parts prices and fuel consumption. They watched their pennies there.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

tonyp wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:40 pm
Glen wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:53 pm I'm not sure about Tony's "great ride experience" on the privates. :lol:

I grew up with Harris Park Transport!
I used Harris Park in its final years and it seemed OK but can't speak for how it was before that. What type of buses did they have?
In my day, mostly very old ones.

For a while I went to Cumberland High School and in the afternoon some of us used to have to get off at the bottom of one of the hills in Jenkins Rd to give the bus a chance.

By the time I started working their best bus came when they started to run half of the new Route 590 Red Arrow shared with Bosnjaks (now 630).

The regular driver was Alan.

Back then their only Sunday service was one shift on Route 165 from Epping to Parramatta. They always deliberately used their oldest bus on it.

It was a well known local story that their newest buses were stored in the shed and not used.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by tonyp »

I can't speak for private companies that were using their businesses for tax games or whatever, but I can only say that they might have been driven to creative alternatives as a way of surviving the increasingly dire viability situation from the 1960s onwards. Operating as they did without placing any burden whatsoever on the taxpayer (though I don't know how early subsidisation of school services began), being typically located in the middle to outer parts of suburbia, they were the hardest hit by growing private car use after the 1950s.

So, whereas the government services could be propped up from taxes, the self-funding privates had to increasingly make sacrifices to keep going, cutting of evening and weekend services and fleet renewals being a notable sign of this. The government operator also had the advantage of being able to offer taxpayer-subsidised concession fares. Another impact on the privates was the outcome of the industry's legal battle around 1960 to stop the DGT moving in to compete with private routes and the courts found that the government was entitled to do so under the original 1930s legislation, also adding insult to injury by being able to then tax the private operator for "competing" with the DGT service.

I suspect a lot of people whose experience of private operations was post 1960s only and was tarnished by a perception of decline, whereas if they had experienced the industry from the 1940s to 1960s they would have seen a very fine industry indeed, considerably better than the government operation. Of course the situation was finally all sorted out a couple of decades later, evolving into the system we have now.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

That's a pretty good summary Tony.

By the 1980s most of the privates were cross subsidising route services from their SSTS (school bus pass scheme) revenue, although it wasn't publically acknowledged just how great the extent of this was.

Of course the ability of individual operators to do this varied widely depending on the number of school children they carried, hence the attractiveness of getting into the growing suburbs with lots of young families.

A good example of the public benefits of this was the off peak and weekend rural services then provided by Glenorie Bus Company to the areas out beyond Dural, which could never have been commercially viable, and which still form the basis of the current network there.

Meanwhile in the older more established areas, in 1989 North & Western and Metro West approached the Ministry of Transport for a large fare increase to combat their financial difficulties and this lead to the Ministry instead providing planning advice to assist in their reorganisation of routes and timetables (in the area we now know as Region 7) that was introduced in July 1990, which neatly brings us back on topic. :)
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by hugh45 »

Growing up in the 50's and 60's near Hurstville all buses were privately operated. Narwee Bus Co was merged with Punchbowl Bus Co. Other operations were H.T,Saint,Peakhurst, Red Top Lakemba, E.H.Blythe to Earlwood and Kogarah, South Bexley took over the Kogarah service, C.A.Leach & Sons to Kingsgrove, Kogarah Bus Service to Miranda, Pioneer Coaches to Rockdale and Beverly Hills, Red Transit to Hurstville Grove,Jamieson's to Carss Park and A.H.Moore to Connells Point and Kyle Bay. I know this is off topic but follows on from previous comments on private bus operations.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

Glen wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:09 am.
Meanwhile in the older more established areas, in 1989 North & Western and Metro West approached the Ministry of Transport for a large fare increase to combat their financial difficulties and this lead to the Ministry instead providing planning advice to assist in their reorganisation of routes and timetables (in the area we now know as Region 7) that was introduced in July 1990, which neatly brings us back on topic. :)
I was living in Eastwood at the time of the great reset of 1990. First thing I noticed was a Coachmaster Leopard doing Parramatta services for the first time from the western side of Eastwood station. Then we saw North and Western's "famous" PMC progress Leopards a regular sight on the Parramatta runs as well as North Eppings. Wishing I went out and took pics of buses in that very interesting time.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by 1whoknows »

If I recall correctly, the great Bedford influx of the early 80s at HPT, many of which sat in the sheds for up to a decade, was mainly about taking advantage of some special double depreciation tax rules which were available at the time.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

Old fleet age must have gone by inception date on the road because they were doing front line service in the late 90s and maybe later. No complaints from me. Very smooth and quiet with a nice whirr to them, but very slow up any slope. I heard they had their governors set very low to save on wear. Drivers must have loved that. They never sounded like they would stall as there was plenty of slip from the Allison transmission.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

I can remember that story too about their buses being heavily governed.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Special_K »

The Harris Park route structure was unbelievably complicated with the old Route 624 Parramatta to Epping having 23 variants. I think it was the Route 629 loop service between Epping and North Rocks that operated three daily variants depending on the time of day iuncluding right turns onto Pennant Hills Road without traffic lights.

The now Busways Route 553 Beecroft- North Carlingford peak service contains some remnants of the old 623 Parra-Beecroft service with different route options throughout the day. Finally, the existing Route 546 Epping to Parra via Everywhere combined a number of HP routes way back in 2007.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

Glen wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:08 am By the time I started working their best bus came when they started to run half of the new Route 590 Red Arrow shared with Bosnjaks (now 630).
I remember catching a Red Arrow bus with my nan to Carlingford Court in the 1980s along Carlingford Rd. Would that have been a 590? I remember it was a stepdeck CC bodied Bedford like what Harris Park typically operated, but with a dedicated white Red Arrow livery.
If that was it, when did they discontinue it?
It's a long standing memory from childhood.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

Special_K wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:39 pm The Harris Park route structure was unbelievably complicated with the old Route 624 Parramatta to Epping having 23 variants. I think it was the Route 629 loop service between Epping and North Rocks that operated three daily variants depending on the time of day iuncluding right turns onto Pennant Hills Road without traffic lights.

The now Busways Route 553 Beecroft- North Carlingford peak service contains some remnants of the old 623 Parra-Beecroft service with different route options throughout the day. Finally, the existing Route 546 Epping to Parra via Everywhere combined a number of HP routes way back in 2007.
Yes indeed 629, what was originally the old 90, did do some traffic defying right turns by following alignments that had become dangerous as traffic in the area grew.

The 553 is best described as a glorified school bus as it picks up remnants of the original 181 into Beecroft for school students there and at nearby schools.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

Swift wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:46 pm
Glen wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:08 am By the time I started working their best bus came when they started to run half of the new Route 590 Red Arrow shared with Bosnjaks (now 630).
I remember catching a Red Arrow bus with my nan to Carlingford Court in the 1980s along Carlingford Rd. Would that have been a 590? I remember it was a stepdeck CC bodied Bedford like what Harris Park typically operated, but with a dedicated white Red Arrow livery.
If that was it, when did they discontinue it?
It's a long standing memory from childhood.
Yes that would have been the 590.

Robert's Sydney Bus Routes web site would give you the details of when it changed. Eventually CDC took over full operation of it as current 630.

(It got renumbered I recall so that 590 could be given to Shorelink's Chatswood to Hornsby service along the Pacific Highway).
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

Finally know what that bus was. I think it was 1986.
My nan took a liking to the handsome bus driver!
What would Bosnjaks have likely put on, a Leyland Leopard or rebodied Worldmaster with Custom Coaches or SmIthfield Euro bodywork?
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Fleet Lists »

Bosnjakhttps://www.busaustralia.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=18196 could possibly be it.
or possibly https://www.busaustralia.com/gallery/di ... ?pid=18195
But i dont understand the 1986 number as m/o 1986 would have been a Government bus registration.
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Swift »

:lol: I meant "bus" as bus service and 1986 was the year I believe I rode the Harris Park Red Arrow service. I can see how that was confusing :oops:
Thanks for the links. The Entrance Red Bus Services had a JBJ bus like in the second link. Was it the very same one they acquired later?
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Re: Ode to Willoughby and Ryde

Post by Glen »

Swift wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:49 pm Finally know what that bus was. I think it was 1986.
My nan took a liking to the handsome bus driver!
What would Bosnjaks have likely put on, a Leyland Leopard or rebodied Worldmaster with Custom Coaches or SmIthfield Euro bodywork?
In my vague memory I think Bosnjaks put one of their better buses on it perhaps a Volvo? I know it featured heating, how luxurious, and made easy work of the climb up from Carlingford Court towards Epping.

Like most of their shifts then, the Bosnjaks trip that passed my stop at 7.30am was run by two drivers depending on the day and the 8.30am was Alan in the Harris Park bus.

It was quite novel in those days (1981) to actually be given a direct bus from the North Rocks end of North Rocks Road to Epping Station.

Strange how these days what was once the premier route in the area is now the lowest patronised.
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