Product Description

A comprehensive and fully illustrated tribute to the classic London double-deck bus that saw service for many years on bus routes in and around the capital.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221398 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Customer Reviews

LONDON'S STANDARD BUS FOR THE EARLY 1980'S.
The Titan or the B-21 as it was known internally in Leyland bus which replaced the old B-20 Atlantean in 1979. It was designed for London as was the B-20 thus it featured the barrel windscreen. Other features were the AFC machine and the seat types only used in London. The all new Titan was a remarkable leap in design over the old unreliable Atlantean. It featured a new cooling system which sat above the engine within the rear bay. And took heated engine gases and converted them within the series of pipes and radiators. However in practice this wasn't adequate and lead to the buses overheating in service. Another first was the use of phenmatic suspension which gave the bus a much softer ride. The interiors had bright yellow and green facings rather than the drab aluminium of the old B-20 's. It was modern for it's time but LT had not been supplied all there order as Leyland had design and build problems. So needing new fleets LT turned to the ill fated MCW Metropolitain's which gave even worse performance. However the Bus still played a major part in the London fleets and only got phased out in the mid 1990's. I have many fond and not so fond memories of this great bus from going to work in my first job during 1986, To shopping trips. This book is a great insight into this classic and is well worth a purchase. The Routemaster has taken the limelight for too long and it's about time the Titan made the news. The book covers the inception of the bus packed with some 300 photo's both colour and black & white. Then to the buses demise as it was replaced by the newer larger buses with LT and beyond. This is a good buy but it is let down by some rather dull technical data and hard to read Titan route allocations over long paragraphs. This book is directed more at the die hard bus data collector than a casual reader. The photo's are very good and cover the bus while working and during overhauls.

Excellent value for the enthusiast
The best London bus books come from Capital Transport and sadly Ian Allan who started the whole thing have fallen behind in recent times, with the emphasis on picture books. This is an exception. It tells the story of the Titan from the original prototypes to the end of their days in London. There are plenty of good photos and a very great deal of detail about the routes on which the buses operated, but as with all enthusiast-written books, there is (contrary to what a previous reviewer said) actually very little technical detail. This is a pity as the bus was mechanically unlike contemporary vehicles in several ways to meet London's special requirements and it would have been nice to learn a bit more about the nuts and bolts rather than endless detail about which days the buses ran on which routes, etc. Again, as with so many books on London buses, there is very little information about the vehicles once they left the capital. Many of them served outside London for long periods, and quite a few still do, but you would never guess it from this book. However, taken by and large and in comparison with books of this nature from other publishers, this is a very good work with much useful information and at a reasonable price. If you are interested in buses post-Routemaster, and many of us are, this is well worth buying. Maybe a second edition in the future could address some of the omissions mentioned above.