In the third in an occasional series, we look at the vehicles of the recent past, from Bournemouth Corporation’s Alexander J Type to Sea View’s Noge Titanium, that have put on the style in Dorset, moving from last time's Optare Versa to the Alexander J Type itself… 
If the 18-seat Rootes-bodied 1979 Chrysler Dodge and the 1973 Strachan-bodied 27-seat Bedford VAS3s were Bournemouth Corporation’s ugly ducklings, then the Alexander J and AL types were its royal swans. For it’s actually hard to find a British double deck body as elegant as these Alexanders. Incredibly, this style first arrived in Bournemouth in 1964 and it was still appearing new 17 years later, in 1981, without a break.
While expediency forced Bournemouth to buy its first two rear engined double decks with unimaginative, square, flat-fronted MH Cars bodies, there followed 10 Atlanteans and 20 Fleetlines with handsome Weymann bodywork, to a design by Alexander, followed by a further 20 Atlanteans with the same bodywork by successor MCW.
Thereafter, a staggering 126 Atlanteans or Fleetlines arrived with the evolving Alexander J and AL bodywork itself. This perpetuated a remarkable fleet standardisation as, irrespective of the bodybuilder or chassis manufacturer, passengers would barley notice minor design detail changes.
The Alexander arrivals and their Alexander-inspired predecessors offered early flair in a world then of two-dimensional, dull, flat fronted rear engined double deck designs of the mid-1960s. The Alexanders, however, were not flat at all. They came with a deeply curved front upper deck window and an equally adventurously curved windscreen. The front windscreen’s slightly droopy top edge—most pronounced on older vehicles—was somewhat daring at the time and something other manufactures would adopt later. Its lines, height, proportions and the Bournemouth four way destination indicators all gave a pleasing contemporary indeed avant-garde feel. It was as if Bournemouth Corporation had somehow leapfrogged the anonymous flat verticality associated with early rear engined double deck designs.
What really set them apart was their modernity and style when judged against the products neighbouring Hants & Dorset were buying. While the Weymann- and MCW-built buses were arriving, H&D continued to receive double deck half cab Bristol Lodekkas. The ECW bodywork was splendidly classic along the side and across the upper deck, but the design suffered at the font in comparison with the Corporation’s vehicles because of the Lodekka’s pug nose appearance.
Back then, competition was unheard of but you could imagine that, had Bournemouth Transport and H&D been locked in battle as their successors are now, with its attractive and even aristocratic Alexanders, Bournemouth would’ve certainly enjoyed the advantage.
Photo: one of two ex-Bournemouth Corporation Alexander bodied Fleetlines withdrawn from Thamesdown service this year
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Putting on the Style 3
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3 comments:
Whenever that Atlantean thought crosses my mind, I picture Willowbrook, steep tumblehome, red plastic seatsquabs, three buttock cheeks to a double seat and cheap...
Sad I know, but I think it's to do with my home-town...In Deo Fiddle-us indeed!
Surely you could have found a better photograph than that to illustrate this piece? A ULJ-J or XRU-K in proper Bournemouth livery, with two maroon bands, would have been much better!
I have to say I always preferred the Alexander original version of these vehicles - the J type - though, thinking about it objectively, I'm not sure why. Let's be honest about it, essentially, the J type was just a restyling of the front end of the first Atlantean bodies built by Alexander, and the Weymann/MCW versions were similarly an application of the Alexander-style front to their existing model. (Roe did something similar as well). The shallower depth windows on the upper deck is a feature which always rates negatively in my book - but then, I grew up in a city about 30 odd miles east of Bournemouth and had to contend with the awful Park Royal efforts on Leyland Titan and AEC Regent V chassis from the early 60's. Perhaps the very rounded domed roof of the J types compensated for the shallow upper deck windows - they would certainly have been set relatively lower than on those Park Royal boxes. The driver's windscreen of the J type was the same as the single deck Y type, and, being designed for a single decker, didn't really fit so comfortably on a double decker - though perhaps not so much as later efforts to use the BET windscreen on double decks. Despite those failings, I liked the J types, and, although the later AL types improved the design in both of those respects, somehow, something of the originality and flair of the J type was lost - perhaps it was the generally more rectangular shape of the later model. The curvaceous style of the J type was certainly distinctive, and that approach seems to have been in and out of fashion a couple of times in subsequent years.
I cannot let your comparison with ECW go unremarked - I suppose it is an inevitable comparison, but ECW had been producing buses with deep windows, same depth on both decks for twenty years before Alexander got around to it. Bournemouth's J types and the Weymann and MCW look-alikes might have looked snazzier from the outside, but when you got inside and upstairs, there's no doubt you would have had a better view from the H&D vehicle. And as for the 'pug nose', well a distinguished snout is nothing to be ashamed of!
I tend to concur with much of what RC169 says about Bournemouth Corporation’s Alexander J and LA types. The shallow windows, for example, are at once a blessing and an affliction, depending upon which side of the glass you are. But since the short ‘Putting on the Style’ series concentrates more on the external form of the vehicles in question, to date at any rate, the merits of ‘shallow’ in producing a fine looking vehicle outweigh the possible disbenefits to passengers. At the time, I would doubt passengers looking out would’ve noticed, anyway. Alexander did remedy this in applying panoramic windows (e.g. in Lothian) but this produced a bus of a somewhat ungainly form.
My comparisons between Alexander’s J and ECW’s bodywork on the Lodekka are a little unfair, granted, as the Lodekka was an accomplished bus, looked best in rear entrance LD form, and in F form, the chassis really was ahead of its time. The ECW design lines can be traced both to predecessors and to the successor VRs.
RC169 refers to the J’s identical driver’s windscreen to the earlier single deck Y Type. This needs expansion, as I believe the Y was the first bus in Britain to develop a curved windscreen. Correct me if I am wrong but early Ys were flat fronted and it was Alexander’s simple arch that overnight set the Y apart and sparked a trend towards better looking buses—adding elegance to what was and still is basically a rectangular box.
Those who hanker after Alexander LA bodywork will note that ex-Southampton City Transport’s Phil Blair is currently selling its ex-Bournemouth no. 174, withdrawn from Thamesdown in December 2007 and now repainted into primose yellow. At some £3,231 including VAT, this makes a delightful alternative to a four year old Ford Fiesta, though the neighbours may not think so.
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