Leyland TB3 with Massey B32R body, originally delivered to Teeside in 1936, entered service with Southend between 1945 and 1948.
| 139 VN9434 | 140 VN9435 | 141 VN9436 | 142 VN9437 |
| 143 VN9438 |
|
SCT '61 Southend Corporation Trolleybus Fleet Details 139-143 |
|
|
139-143
Leyland TB3 with Massey B32R body, originally delivered to Teeside in 1936, entered service with Southend between 1945 and 1948.
|
|
After the war Southend faced a vehicle shortage as traffic began to return to more normal levels. To assist, five second-hand Leyland TB3's new in 1936 to the Tees-Side Railless Traction Board (numbered 9-13 in their fleet) were bought from the well-known Leeds dealer, W. North for £250 each. They had 32 seat rear entrance bodies by Massey (a make then new to the Corporation but who were to become Southend's principal body manufacturer from 1946 to 1965, supplying 78 double deck bus bodies; Massey were later taken over by Northern Counties, from whom a further 77 bodies were purchased). The first of the Tees-Side trolleys entered service in Southend in October 1945 (142); three more followed in the spring of 1946 but 143 did not emerge until August 1948. It was planned at one stage to buy three second-hand Leyland bodies to convert three of these vehicles to double deck, but those bodies were found to be in poor condition and the plan was abandoned.
|
|
With their low seating capacity, 139-43 were generally employed on the Victoria Circus - Kursaal routes. The whole batch was withdrawn in 1952; 139 and 141 were dumped in the Eastern Electricity Board adjacent to the depot for a number of years while 142 was transformed into the 'Mighty Mouse Space Ship' in the children's playground in Priory Park and later became an office at Holland's waste paper yard in Prince Avenue; all five were eventually to end up as scrap.
|
142 near the Kursaal .. .. |
.. .. and 143 in the same place, in good English seaside weather |
|
Many thanks to Richard Delahoy for his kind permission to include extracts from his book in this page. |
|
|