"The name's driver... Bus driver!" Yes 'The Brochure King' is back on Biglorryblog after a far-too-long absence. Rich Stanier says: "Hi Brian, I haven't had the chance to see much of the Blog as of late, but caught up yesterday and some things particularly caught my attention. The RFW off road bus brought to mind this impressive heavy duty bus above built by, of all companies, Scammell. I don't really know much about this vehicle but it looks like it is in South Africa, or possibly Australia, so I wonder if any of your Scammell experts can tell us more?"
Rich goes on to say: "Whilst locating the Scammell photo I came across this other shot of a Crusader, brand new at Watford. One of my all time favoutite lorries, and surely worth a blogging?"
"And here's a scan of a Robson Drive brochure, which shows the method by which the device transfers torque from the drive axle to a trailing axle, as seen on the 'air powered' Scania." Now click through here for more expert advice on how to take a nice truck phto... From 1909!
Rich continues on the theme of BLB's recent phtographic tips: "Apparently instruction on the most effective photography of commercial vehicles has been a staple topic for (former) Commercial Motor men for quite some time. Indeed 100 years ago 'Focal Plane' was dispensing very similar advice to your own regarding the attached Sentinel (captioned 'A good subject badly posed'). I'll say....where's the dynamic tilt eh?
"However," says Rich, "his observations upon the correct inclusion of the driver are particularly interesting. 'Many will urge, as an objection to the inclusion of the driver, that so few of his type can help being conscious of the fact that they are being taken, and that they either look at the camera, or turn the eyes aside; in both cases, the resulting picture shows an individual with an abominable squint. The driver should be looking straight ahead, or, better still, he should be allowed to wander about at his own sweet will doing any job about the wagon which strikes him as being neccessary, and, when the picture satisfies the operator, it should be snapped without any warning.'" Quite right too... You see I'm not the only one!
Regarding the Scammell bus -- note the little sign above the apparently blanked-out number plate
"SAS" which are the Afrikaans initials for "South African Railways" i.e. "Suid-Afrikaanse Spoorwee" who operated an extensive "Road Motor Service", particularly in rural districts. Many of their buses had "dual-purpose" body work, having a conventional bus passenger area in front, with the rear in the form of a van body for goods consigned on rail to country destinations.
For many years the two sets of letters were displayed on vehicles and rolling stock in the form of a cross -- SAR being horizontal and SAS in the vertical with the "A" being the centre point.
Thanks very much for the comment Bruce - I have quite a few photos of SAR - liveried vehicles, but I never knew the Afrikaans version.
I remember the Robson drive being featured in Comical Motor - would it have been about 1975? It was on an F88 on forestry work.
Regarding The Robson Drive:
That illustration of the driver sent me on a little stroll down amnesia lane, but not too far.
About nine years ago,I recall seeing a set of dollies designed for moving ISO shipping containers that could work as a trailer or propell itself using an onboard hydraulic pump to drive its tires with a metal wheel like the one in the illustration above.
I just wanted to share.
Aha! With a little googling I found a video of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziWmoEBI8mU
You can see the self-propelled option in the last few seconds of the video.
There is a reference to the Scammell bus on Roy Larkin's website, it was based on a Contractor which was usually seen as a 6x4 artic or ballast tractor for heavy haulage work in the UK. it appears that there was a fleet of 15.
I can also remember a Scammell 6x4 tractor with a Leyland Comet type LAD cab which seemed to be an early version of the Crusader, does anyone have any details on this?
Brian,
The bus in the top pic was based on a Scammell Constructor chassis and had dual bodywork for passengers and freight to outlying districts not yet served by the railways. As the Constructor was plated at 240 tons, is this the biggest bus ever produced?
Best wishes,
Roy
Hi Rich, Good to have you back again, I thought you had disappeared from the face of the earth, or at least from the face of BLB!
It was good to see the scan of the Crusader, a proper Scammell in spite of the fact that they didn't look like most people's idea of a Scammell and the fact that that many of them were badged as Leylands for overseas markets. Most of them here were fitted with GM 2-strokes and many Kiwis will never forget the sound and sight of Stan Williamson's fleet of Crusaders hard at work.
Don't go away for so long again!
Hi Dave
Like most people, I am a bit hesitant about commenting on Scammells with an expert like Bob Tuck around, however I can state with some certainty that there was a LAD-cabbed Scammell called the Trunker 1, but only 3 were ever made. They were very unusual 6x4 trucks which had a Gardner 6HLX horizontal bus engine mounted behind the cab and the gearbox ahead of the engine, driving the bogie by a shaft that passed under the engine.
This info comes from Nick Georgano's book "Scammell, the Load Movers from Watford".
Maybe the LAD cab should really be called a LADS cab - Leyland, Albion, Dodge, Scammell?
Vic
Many thanks for the reply, I knew that I wasn't seeing things!
Hi Vic - thanks for the comments and good call on the Trunker 1 - Readers can see a scan of the brochure for that lorry in the Archives of this Blog from July 2008.
Rich, I knew I had seen that LAD Scammell somewhere apart from Nick Georgano's book; I might have guessed it came from one of your brochure scans on BLB.