Very musical Eastern National Bristol FLF6LX coach SD 2614, AVX 975G Leigh-Southend
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Come with me aboard the historic last Bristol Lodekka built, FLF6LX / ECW coach SD 2614, AVX 975G as we follow the London Road all the way from Leigh, Thames Drive to Southend Victoria Circus and then to Southend Seaway 251 terminus.
Driven by experienced driver Ian Banks, happily every traffic light turned to red as we approached, so very frequent stops and starts all through this film demonstrate the extremely musical gearbox notes (in all gears) for which these 'semi automatics' were renowned.
What a glorious sound from that gearbox! Sounds like a Gardner engine? Pure music!
Thank you :) glad you liked it. Yes Gardner 6LX engine.
Much better than the boring buses we have now!
Nothing short of superb.
I travelled this precise journey hundreds of times in my time on a wide variety of vehicles too.
It is still, still and still the best sounding bus ever.
love the semi auto FLF's growing up in east london until i was im my teens I assumed all FLF's sounded like this unaware it was down to the semi automatic transmission. fantastic buses and brings back lots of nostalgic memories.
Beautiful!
Lovely sound when I joined eastern national the first bus I drove was the sister to this one in the driving school as I starting in Basildon it was the semi auto had a fine turn of speed as well
Thank you Kevin. Only drove one in service, on the last journey of the last semi at HH on 3 from Leigh Beck to Hadleigh.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Good buses culled before their time.
Remember them cream and green FLF’s at East Horndon at the original grass roundabout in Essex in the 1960’s, they were on the X service.
britishcomposers, I don't know about it being a supercharger. I think it's more likely to be the gearbox.
The distinctive whine came from the transfer gear box which took the drive from the fluid flywheel down to the propshaft.
Later REs and all VRs all have this transmission whine, "pneumocyclic" I believe. LHs don't. Music to my ears. I once rode on an Eastern Counties RE that didn't have it, and it sounded odd!
When the semi-automatic FLFs first started appearing on the 151/251 routes, they attracted the nickname 'screamers' as the scream from the flywheel could be heard long before the bus arrived. And yes, some of us are old enough to remember!
The whining noise is a supercharger, surely?
These Eastern National buses could shift along if the driver willed it so, but I remember them having pre-selector gearboxes; the driver would click the small gear-lever that was on the left side of the steering column into neutral and then the next gear up, (drivetrain still supposedly engaged), then dip the clutch (I assume) and the next gear would engage. Not the pause between the gears as heard here, - but then I was only an observant school kid watching through the drivers window! I'd get up and want to watch how the driver worked the thing. Seem to remember these having five forward gears and the drivers rarely using the low hill-climb first; using second for pulling away instead.
These buses had longer rears, identified by the longer 'last' side windows to those of the pre F-reg models with less powerful engine unit that seemed slower by some degree. Only the early rear-engined Bristols of the Eastern National fleet (on F and G-reg) were longer still but were so few and far between.
No such thing as a supercharger on the Bristol Lodekka.
This is a semi-automatic box, completely different to the Wilson pre-select box used on London buses. With a pre-select box, you have an operating pedal, which is in no way a clutch, and must not be used as such. You depress the pedal to change the gear in-out and that's it. :)
I assume the whine was pneumocyclic transmission.
Is this bus fitted with a Four Speed semi Automatic box or is it a Five Speed Box ?.
Five.
Engine idle way too high