Iâm curious whose body is on the bus chassis. Is it a mock-up by Seddon?
Itâll be a Seddon Pennine. The bodywork is probably their in-house body built by Pennine Coachworks. Seddon built single-deckers for many years.
Thank you.
Appears to be an AEC Regent V âBridgemasterâ - looks like Park Royal lowbridge bodywork at a glance.
Youâre right, it is a Bridgemaster but also one with what was called the âBeverley Barâ modification to the top deck - it slopes inboard (much more obvious in this photo on fickr.
I had to look up âBeverley Barâ and found this photo on wikipedia that explains a lot.
I suppose there must have been a demand for the Bridgemaster otherwise AEC/ Park Royal wouldnât have built it, but it does seem an expensive type given there were plenty of lowbridge deckers available (Dennis Loline, Bristol Lodekka)
East Kent bought a couple IIRC to run alongside their highbridge AEC Regent Vs.
There have always been lowbridge versions of double-deckers from most body makers. Typically, in the '50s they were 53-seaters with a sunken gangway upstairs.
10â 9"? I used to think 12â 6" up Old Oak Common Lane was tightâŚ
I think Barton of Nottm had the record lowbridge d/decker, which they commissioned specially for a low bridge route. It was a Dennis Loline 2 with a Northern Counties lowbridge body at a record 12â 5" high.
A skilled driver might not have had a âbrake failureâ in the first place?
But, allâs well, that ends well.
My thoughts too. When Jubilee Way first opened I used to eye that gravel-filled runaway emergency slip-lane on my descent into Dover and think to myself âI wonât be needing that!â Unless some lunaticâs tampered with your brakes or the brakes have suffered a rare catastrophic failure you shouldnât be out of control. I used to go down hills well within my capacity, in low gear and using whatever secondary braking system was available (usually exhaust brake).
Trouble is, in todayâs commercial vehicles you are reliant on engine brakes which permit high-speed descents. If your brakes completely fail, you cannot double-declutch your way down the 'box because itâs automatic and you are already descending at a âsafeâ 56mph; whereas years ago youâd having been doing about 10mph in first or second gear with the exhaust brake on (or Jake-brake if you were lucky enough to have one, in which case youâd have been travelling a bit faster). Times have changed and in Brazil who knows what kind of driver was behind the wheel. Sadly, you could sit in Rio today and say the same about drivers in Britain (Brazilian ones, of course 
)âŚ
Of course we donât know the whole story. Iâd like to think that the driver suffered a coronary and that a quick-thinking sixth-former whoâd just passed her test slid neatly in the seat and saved the day⌠Next comic strip please!
Indeed. You might call this âa learningâ (gone are the days of âlessonsâ).
There are many permutations in that (not the least being to know how to conserve service brake efficiency [is anyone taught that these days?]) and I canât discount the idea that the bus might have been overloaded. All that aside, nearly all modern rigids these days (in Oz at least) are one sort or another of âautomaticâ and they vary from bad to dangerous. The Isuzu AMT types Iâve driven and still drive electronically block the driver from a downshift even though doing so wouldnât make the engine over-rev or the diff go bang, and never mind some sort of emergency.
Absolutely.
I bet that bus in the video was getting great mpg when the driver intervened and ruined it all.