London Buses 1929-1939

The centenary of George Shillibeer's first omnibus service in 1929, was marked by a great leap forward in London bus design which followed the appointment of George John Rackham as Chief Engineer at AEC. The following year saw the introduction of the Green Line coach services working across London from what were then sleepy country towns 30 or more miles distant on the fringes of the London General Omnibus Co's empire. The year 1930 also saw the first hesitant appearance of the diesel engine, quickly to be followed by the fluid flywheel, Wilson gearbox and hydraulic brakes. By the summer of 1932, a year before the formation of London Transport, some of the General's famous Bluebird buses had these features in combination.

London Transport quickly got to work replacing obsolete and non-standard buses and coaches. By the end of 1937 the General's NS type had all gone and by the summer of 1939 only a handful of the vehicles inherited from independent operators remained. The famous 10T10 type had replaced the first-generation Green Line coaches. New bus and coach designs of unorthodox layout - the TF type with the engine under the floor, the CR type with the engine at the rear - were already in service. The side-engined AEC Q-type had come and gone as a production model, even though most of London Transport's 200 examples were to last until the 1950s. The incomparable RT type double-decker which was to dominate the London bus scene for nearly 40 years also appeared in 1939.

In this book Gavin Martin takes the reader through these developments as they occurred, explaining their significance in language he or she will understand.