Pennine's parent Seddon Diesel Vehicles Ltd must have noticed the
forward orders for rear-engined single decks because in 1969 it
launched its own. The marketing people at Seddon were astute; they
had the metal-bashers reverse-engineer the Bristol RE, clearly the
market leader and built by a firm straining the limits of their
productive capacity. The salient features, 33ft or 36ft length,
Gardner 6HLX engine and Self-Changing Gears gearbox were the same.

From 1969-74, from a standing start; in one of the greatest hit and
run raids ever staged on bus operators; the Seddon Pennine RU (for
rear underfloor, their Mk V was also rear engined but a Perkins
powered Albion Viking clone for the third world) sold 275 to
municipals, independents and one NBC subsidiary; from just north of
the Antonine Wall, down to the English Channel; from the Irish sea
to the Yorkshire Wolds.

One hundred and eighty-three were sold with Pennine bodies, a round
one hundred of these went to Crosville, fifty EPGs (Express Pennine
Gardner) DP49F, and fifty SPG (Saloon) B45D, these were all 36ft
long. Crosville had refused to take Bristol VRs and clamoured for
REs: this order smacked of frustration. Municipal Pennine bodied RUs
went to Huddersfield (eighteen 33ft examples), Burnley Colne &
Nelson (twenty @ 33ft), Doncaster (fourteen @ 33ft) Darlington
(eight @ 36ft, the last), Fylde (six @ 36ft), Morecambe (six @ 33ft)
Southampton (five @ 33ft) and Lancaster (an ex-demonstrator). There
were five for independents, two for AA Motor Services (Dodds) and
one each to Graham, Paisley, Garelochhead Coach Services and
Reliance (York). A battery-powered version owned by Chloride, saw
service with SELNEC PTE but ended up at the Manchester Museum of
Transport.

Oldham was in east Lancashire but for some east Lancashire
municipals only a genuine East Lancashire body would do. Blackburn
had six RU/East Lancs and Accrington's nine were also bodied in
Blackburn. Their last was an East Lancs coach (one of only,
thankfully, three!).

Plaxton put bodies on sixty-seven RUs, more rear-engined buses by
the Scarborough coach specialist than any other model. (Then, the
Dennis Dart was a long-forgotten model by a firm who'd stopped
making buses.) RUs accounted for 37% of Plaxton bodies on these
chassis. Fifty of them were 33ft Highways (what else?) for
Lancashire United Transport. Plaxton's only sale (then) of rear-
engined saloons to local authorities accounted for the other
seventeen. All 33ft Derwents, nine went to Rotherham, five to
Huddersfield and the other three to Calderdale JOC (which was half-
NBC anyway).

Finally Roe bodied the last eleven of Doncaster's RUs. Their bodies
looked similar to those on Leeds' last Swifts, incorporating
features of the flat-screened double-deck body Roe built at that
time.

The one thing all eight chassis had in common was a low entrance for
the passenger, although the great majority had two-pedal semi-
automatic gearboxes to make the drivers life easier. The first
thing the fifteen coachbuilders had in common was a desire to stay
in business. In the early days of this survey one was taken over by
a near neighbour (EEK!) and of the rest only East Lancashire
survives today under the same name. The other thing they had in
common, was structural stress, and not just in the boardroom. The
frames of rear-engined chassis are prone to flex and structural
analysis was in its infancy in the 1960s. Most coachbuilders allowed
for this but suppliers to London Transport were told to attach the
body rigidly to the Merlin/Swift buses, London's buses were prone to
structural failures but so were many others, including some Bristol
REs.

As well as being less reliable and heavier on fuel than their
forebears, they also proved difficult and sometimes even dangerous
to handle. Tom Dalton wrote movingly some years ago about his own
near-death experience in a Bristol RE. Personally I don't think
early radial tyres, then also new, would have helped.

The early post war half-cabs these buses replaced had set a gold
standard for reliability but, needing a two person crew were proving
impractical at a time of staff shortage. 1968's New Bus Grant
(initially a 25% subsidy per bus, later raised in 1971 to 50%) was
meant for the replacement of crew operated vehicles, but its effect
on the economics of bus purchase was that it became cheaper to
dispose of Rodliners, RUs, Panthers and Swifts when the initial
Certificate of Fitness expired and get a new Fleetline, AN68 or
National than rebuild the bus you had. Often these buses were only
worth scrap value as the few independent fleets who ran bus services
were also making full use of New Bus Grant and major operators did
not want second-hand buses when they cold buy new. There were only
two major exceptions, Ulsterbus/Citybus and Chesterfield.

As a result, remarkably few of these buses survive, one of the most
troublesome but also most interesting and varied groups of classic
buses.
Article ends...
Tables soon!
stephen