45 years ago today

[Phil Blinkhorn]

My father and I had been to see one of his friends in Reddish and were returning home to Heaton Moor when it happened.

Stockport's #9 (Reddish Houldsworth Sq to West Didsbury) was a joint service with MCTD but all the vehicles needed (3) were provided by Stockport and in 1962 the regular performers were from the 1958 batch of Crossley bodied PD2s (333-342).

The schedule called for a quarter hourly service along Heaton Moor Rd which was achieved by one vehicle leaving each terminus on the hour and completing the journey - with the possibility of having to call at each of 22 stops in 26 minutes - via Didsbury, Parrs Wood, Heaton Moor, Heaton Chapel and Broadstone Rd, or vice versa, in time to return from the opposite end on the half hour, something easily achieved with conductor supervised loading and fare collection and the traffic levels of the time.

A "turnback" would leave Houldsworth Sq at quarter past the hour going as far as Mauldeth Rd which it would reach in 12 minutes, leaving at half past and returning to Houldsworth Sq in time to leave again at quarter to.

The #9, though it was regularly Stockport's and MCTD's poorest revenue earner, was renowned for excellent time keeping. The vehicles operating the full length service crossed at Heaton Moor at stops on the wide piece of Thornfield Rd adjoining the Thornfield Rd, Moorside Rd, Green Lane, Heaton Moor Rd cross roads. The time keeping was such that the vehicles often had a wait of a minute parked opposite each other before resuming their trips.

It was at this point that this tale unfolds.

My father was driving his 1962 blue and ivory Hillman Minx and I was in the front seat. Christmas Day had been frosty and the late afternoon of Boxing Day had seen snow flurries. Crossing the canal bridge at Broadstone Road the car had slid a little but was easily corrected. It was now after 5.40 pm and dark, the mercury vapour street lights Stockport preferred at the time cast deep and long shadows, only partly illuminated by the Minx's tungsten headlights.

Approaching the junction with Thornfield Rd, where we would turn right and, having passed the bus stop, would follow the road as it turned ninety degrees to the left, my father and I saw a bus driver and conductor out in the road waving madly.

There was no traffic coming the other way and my father slowed. As he touched the brake we started to slide but he corrected and we stopped by the busmen.

Winding his window down my father was informed that the road around the corner was a skating rink and a bus was across the width of the road. Now the road at the bus stop was around 40 feet wide and the bus was 27 feet 6 inches long.

As we slowly approached the junction we could see the Crossley bodied PD2 across the road, about three feet out from the nearside (Mauldeth Rd direction) kerb.

The few passengers were off the bus and one was at the point where Thornfield Rd swung left. He suddenly started waving in a similar manner to the busmen but, dressed in ordinary clothes with no torch or other method of signalling danger, he was totally ignored by the driver of the PD2 operating the Reddish bound service.

As the PD2 tried to turn right with the road to make the Reddish bound stop the driver saw the obstruction and took evasive action. Now, thankfully, he was moving very slowly, I'd guess around 7 -10 mph.

The almost empty bus described an almost perfect spin through 360 degrees, and as it regained its intended direction, the rear wheels found a piece of solid road and its 8 foot width slid through the just under ten foot gap left by the first PD2. As the rear end cleared the first vehicle, the rear wheels hit ice again and the camber of the road pulled the now almost stopped bus into the kerb. The driver, acting instinctively, applied a little power and this increased the slide, the front of the bus then slid out towards the middle of the road, the vehicle coming to rest across the road, at an angle to the first vehicle.

A shaken driver descended from the cab and ended on his backside as his feet hit solid ice.

The whole episode, from us seeing the waving bus crew to the driver ending on his posterior lasted only as long as, or less than, the time it takes to read the last 8 paragraphs. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed that the second bus could have been through such a manoeuvre without hitting the first one.

With the few passengers and the crews we stopped traffic in both directions suggesting they used Grosvenor Rd and Moorside Rd instead.

Eventually, after a number of calls from the two phone boxes by the bus stop, the police arrived plus a posse of Stockport Corporation inspectors. A gritter eventually turned up (not one of the automatic spreaders so well known today but a Stockport Karrier dust cart with a body composed of two compartments for rubbish, accessed by sliding, curved covers). Loaded with salt and grit, the load was spread by the expedient of a workman standing in one of the bins and using a shovel.

Once the gritter arrived we departed for home and a delayed tea. After tea I walked the half mile back to the scene to find Stockport's truly ancient Karrier breakdown wagon (YM9410 dating from 1926 and now in the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport) which normally lurked deep in the shadows of Heaton Lane depot, in attendance. At one time this vehicle had solid tyres though I think that pneumatic tyres had been fitted by 1962 (does anyone know?) but the wheels were very narrow and even with copious amounts of grit applied the truck was having problems straightening the vehicles.

Eventually order was restored, the buses were parked up and the service was abandoned for the night.

December 26 1962 was the start of the big freeze that lasted well into March 1963. There were thousands of incidents involving buses, snow and ice during the freeze but I doubt if many provided such a visual spectacle as one Stockport PD2 pirouetting in front of and then sliding neatly past another which had blocked its path.

[aidanorourke]

A very vivid and detailed description of an occurrence that tends not to happen these days, with the milder winters. The last time I saw buses 'on ice' was on Dublin in 1979.

[ken the manc]

reminds me of an open day i went to when my dad was a diesel fitter at hyde road depot, i was only a kid at the time. it was around 1976 we were watching double deckers on a skid pan and it looked unreal! we also saw how they tilt the busses to about 30 degrees to test the centre of gravity. a day il never forget!!

[Phil Blinkhorn]

MCTD was the only transport undertaking outside of London to have its own skid pan - which, of course, passed to SELNEC.

I did skid pan training there in 1967 - a scheme promoted by City of Manchester Police, MCTD and various companies who wanted their reps to be able to handle winter driving.

A wonderful experience. Though we only used cars - and without the fancy outrigger wheels used today - the experience was invaluable and the skills are never lost.

We were given a demonstration using a retired PD2 which the driver spun through 180 degrees, lifting the offside back wheels in the process.

Years later a picture of a similar event was published on page 242 of The Manchester Bus which brought back memories of just how skillful our instructors were and how spectacularly easy they made it all look.

[Orla Nutting]

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

My father and I had been to see one of his friends in Reddish and were returning home to Heaton Moor when it happened.

Stockport's #9 (Reddish Houldsworth Sq to West Didsbury) was a joint service with MCTD but all the vehicles needed (3) were provided by Stockport and in 1962 the regular performers were from the 1958 batch of Crossley bodied PD2s (333-342).

The schedule called for a quarter hourly service along Heaton Moor Rd which was achieved by one vehicle leaving each terminus on the hour and completing the journey - with the possibility of having to call at each of 22 stops in 26 minutes - via Didsbury, Parrs Wood, Heaton Moor, Heaton Chapel and Broadstone Rd, or vice versa, in time to return from the opposite end on the half hour, something easily achieved with conductor supervised loading and fare collection and the traffic levels of the time.

A "turnback" would leave Houldsworth Sq at quarter past the hour going as far as Mauldeth Rd which it would reach in 12 minutes, leaving at half past and returning to Houldsworth Sq in time to leave again at quarter to.

The #9, though it was regularly Stockport's and MCTD's poorest revenue earner, I've wondered about that statement. In the M/cr Bus there is a picture of a revenue table used in the days of Stuart Pilcher that shows the No 9 route as the producer of the lowest revenue. However, as late as 1950 and possibly later, Stockport used two other route numbers for short workings on this route before the use of the route number 9x. These were the No 19 for the short working from Reddish to Mauldeth Road and the No 39 for the short working from Reddish to Parrs Wood. (These route numbers eventually were used by Stockport on other routes in the town.) When determining revenue on Joint Services I wonder if it was policy to exclude the income from short workings that didn't cross the border into M/cr? it was renowned for excellent time keeping. The vehicles operating the full length service crossed at Heaton Moor at stops on the wide piece of Thornfield Rd adjoining the Thornfield Rd, Moorside Rd, Green Lane, Heaton Moor Rd cross roads. The time keeping was such that the vehicles often had a wait of a minute parked opposite each other before resuming their trips.

It was at this point that this tale unfolds.

My father was driving his 1962 blue and ivory Hillman Minx and I was in the front seat. Christmas Day had been frosty and the late afternoon of Boxing Day had seen snow flurries. Crossing the canal bridge at Broadstone Road the car had slid a little but was easily corrected. It was now after 5.40 pm and dark, the mercury vapour street lights Stockport preferred at the time cast deep and long shadows, only partly illuminated by the Minx's tungsten headlights.

Approaching the junction with Thornfield Rd, where we would turn right and, having passed the bus stop, would follow the road as it turned ninety degrees to the left, my father and I saw a bus driver and conductor out in the road waving madly.

There was no traffic coming the other way and my father slowed. As he touched the brake we started to slide but he corrected and we stopped by the busmen.

Winding his window down my father was informed that the road around the corner was a skating rink and a bus was across the width of the road. Now the road at the bus stop was around 40 feet wide and the bus was 27 feet 6 inches long.

As we slowly approached the junction we could see the Crossley bodied PD2 across the road, about three feet out from the nearside (Mauldeth Rd direction) kerb.

The few passengers were off the bus and one was at the point where Thornfield Rd swung left. He suddenly started waving in a similar manner to the busmen but, dressed in ordinary clothes with no torch or other method of signalling danger, he was totally ignored by the driver of the PD2 operating the Reddish bound service.

As the PD2 tried to turn right with the road to make the Reddish bound stop the driver saw the obstruction and took evasive action. Now, thankfully, he was moving very slowly, I'd guess around 7 -10 mph.

The almost empty bus described an almost perfect spin through 360 degrees, and as it regained its intended direction, the rear wheels found a piece of solid road and its 8 foot width slid through the just under ten foot gap left by the first PD2. As the rear end cleared the first vehicle, the rear wheels hit ice again and the camber of the road pulled the now almost stopped bus into the kerb. The driver, acting instinctively, applied a little power and this increased the slide, the front of the bus then slid out towards the middle of the road, the vehicle coming to rest across the road, at an angle to the first vehicle.

A shaken driver descended from the cab and ended on his backside as his feet hit solid ice.

The whole episode, from us seeing the waving bus crew to the driver ending on his posterior lasted only as long as, or less than, the time it takes to read the last 8 paragraphs. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed that the second bus could have been through such a manoeuvre without hitting the first one.

With the few passengers and the crews we stopped traffic in both directions suggesting they used Grosvenor Rd and Moorside Rd instead.

Eventually, after a number of calls from the two phone boxes by the bus stop, the police arrived plus a posse of Stockport Corporation inspectors. A gritter eventually turned up (not one of the automatic spreaders so well known today but a Stockport Karrier dust cart with a body composed of two compartments for rubbish, accessed by sliding, curved covers). Loaded with salt and grit, the load was spread by the expedient of a workman standing in one of the bins and using a shovel.

Once the gritter arrived we departed for home and a delayed tea. After tea I walked the half mile back to the scene to find Stockport's truly ancient Karrier breakdown wagon (YM9410 dating from 1926 and now in the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport) which normally lurked deep in the shadows of Heaton Lane depot, in attendance. At one time this vehicle had solid tyres though I think that pneumatic tyres had been fitted by 1962 (does anyone know?) but the wheels were very narrow and even with copious amounts of grit applied the truck was having problems straightening the vehicles.

Eventually order was restored, the buses were parked up and the service was abandoned for the night.

December 26 1962 was the start of the big freeze that lasted well into March 1963. There were thousands of incidents involving buses, snow and ice during the freeze but I doubt if many provided such a visual spectacle as one Stockport PD2 pirouetting in front of and then sliding neatly past another which had blocked its path.

Just a thought above on the possibilities for revenue attribution on Route No 9

[Phil Blinkhorn]

That photo isn't the only evidence. Somewhere in the loft - along with all my business documents and heaven only knows what else - should be an early Xerox copy of a report of the proceedings of the Stockport Transport Committee from late 1959/60 financial year (February or March I think) which I had made in 1965 when doing a piece for an essay on the role of local government in transport as part of the Local Government Project segment of British Government A level.

A question had been asked of a Councillor by a Heaton Moor domiciled ratepaying passenger as to why the #9 was only served by old buses (at the time 1946 and 1947 Crossleys on the full journey and a mix of Crossleys, Guy Arabs and the odd pre-war Leyland on the #9x).

The minute noted that the route was a shared route with MCTD, though Stockport provided the vehicles and the main revenue was half fares from school journeys (many of which the council returned to parents under the subsidy scheme) - evening trips being particularly poorly patronised. It goes on to say that the choice of vehicle used was an operational matter for the General Manager.

It looks as if they were using written down vehicles to service a poorly patronised route as, from memory, the buses observed during the day during school holidays were often well under half full at Heaton Moor Top.

Someone or something must have had an influence however as within a month or so the Crossley bodied PD2s took over the through workings and the #9x workings weren't far behind. Indeed my first ride on a Longwell Green bodied PD2 was on the 16.55 #9x from Parrs Wood (344 during its first week in service).