Leyland Tiger (front-engined)

The Leyland Titan TD1 was unveiled at the Commercial Motor show at London's Olympia exhibition hall in November 1927, it was then unique amongst double deckers in having a light enough frame to run two-axled on pneumatic tyres (two at the front and four at the back) yet carry 52 passengers in a bus of 25 ft (7.6 m) overall length, with such refinements as a six-cylinder overhead-camshaft petrol engine and an unprecedentedly-low frame. The Tiger TS1 was its single–deck counterpart. The wheelbase was slightly longer at 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) allowing bodywork up to 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m) long, with up to 35 seats. The first Tiger TS1 (chassis 60001A), bodied by Leyland was loaned in March 1927 to H.M.S. Catherwood Ltd of Belfast, it was purchased by them and, sold to other firms, it worked in Ireland until 1940.[1]

At the time the Tiger was launched there were no rules across Great Britain on a bus or coach's overall dimensions; these depended on what a local council empowered to license vehicles to an operator would allow.

In response to varied demand, the TS1 was curtailed to become the TS2, which had the same wheelbase but an overall body length of 26 ft (7.9 m), and then the TS3 was introduced for the same body length, but with the Titan's 16 ft 7 in (5.05 m) wheelbase.[1] Later, the TS8 was revised with a shorter bonnet to become the TS8 (special). SMT and Alexanders especially favoured that type as it could seat 39 rather than 35 in the 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m) maximum length allowed for two-axle single deckers (see later).

Not only did the Tiger catch the imagination of British Isles fleet-owners looking for better performance from their buses and coaches it also sold overseas to Sweden, South Africa, India, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina and Australia, the Canadian versions being lengthened to a 19 ft (5.8 m) wheel-base, for a 30 ft body and having the engines uprated to 100 bhp, geared to a top speed of 60 mph (97 km/h).[2]

TS4 was a type-mnemonic given to an interim Tiger with Titan TD2 features. TS5 was omitted as it was felt this would cause confusion with the contemporary Leyland Lion LT5.[3]

The next thoroughly new type was the TS6 from January 1933; this had all the improvements afforded to the contemporary TD3 Titan, including the neater front radiator and bonnet assembly, but the same wheelbase and overall-length as the TS1. For operators requiring 30 ft long single–decks a TS6D or TS6T Tiger was made available from 1934, the TS6D was 6x4 and the TS6T 6x2 with only the leading axle in the rear bogie powered. The TS7 and TS8 (and three-axled variants) were similarly derived from the TD4 and TD5 Titans, adopting their features. The suffix c (e.g., TS8c) indicated a torque-converter transmission. The TS9 and TS10 Tigers were never released for sale but the TS11 was equivalent to the TD7 Titan although very few were built, most during World War II. During that war, the SMT group of bus companies in Scotland, converted many of their two and three-axle Tigers to Titan specification and fitted double-deck 55-seat bodies to them.

During the 1930s, the Leyland 8.6-litre diesel engine became more common in bus and then coach Tigers and by the end of the decade, very few operators were taking full-sized Leyland buses or coaches with petrol engines. Leyland did not offer a full-size petrol engine after the war.

Very few of the initial Leyland Tigress (TB1) were built; instead Tiger running-units in the existing Leyland Lioness frame produced the Leyland Lioness-Six, model LTB1.

In the mid-1930s with Lioness frames exhausted the later full-size Normal-control Leyland-built single decks were called Tigresses, an L prefix was added for left-hand drive versions, such as the large batch of LLTB3 ordered by Riga City Council. 71 of the ordered 90 of which were delivered to Latvia before the outbreak of the Second World War. The only UK customers for Tigresses were exclusive up-market coach-tour firms like Southdown Motor Services who took the LTB3 (equivalent to the TS6) or the LTB5 (equivalent to the TS8).

In conjunction with London Transport from 1937 Leyland developed the Tiger FEC, the initials stood for flat-engined coach. The Leyland 8.6-litre engine (with revised sump) was mounted horizontally in mid wheel-base driving through a Wilson fluid-flywheel and an air-actuated AEC mechanical pre-selector gearbox. The gearbox was basically the same as used in the STL but it was fitted with an externally mounted air cylinder which actuated the bus bar to engage and disengage the gears. It worked in the opposite way from that in the slightly later RT type double decker in that air pressure was used to disengage the gears instead of being used to keep them engaged. When the gear change pedal was released it allowed the selected gear to engage by means of spring pressure in that same way as the gearbox in the STL. The system caused problems in that if a vehicle was left with a gear engaged and as the air pressure leaked off, it was not possible to disengage that gear until air pressure had been built up again. Because of this, there were a number of garage incidents caused by vehicles being left overnight with a gear still engaged. 88 of this type were built but 12 were destroyed during World War Two, the rest serving until 1954-5 as Green Line coaches.

These were 30 ft (9.1 m) single deckers with twin-steering front axles. The Gnu had a front-mounted vertical engine and either front or central doors. The TEP1 sold three, two to Scottish operator Walter Alexander who built 41-seat front entrance bus and coach bodies, the first one a 1937 Earls' Court show exhibit. The other one went to City Coach Company of Brentwood Essex, who fitted a centre-door 43-seat Duple body. City had bought large numbers of three-axle Tigers and was the only customer for the TEC2 Gnu, designed for centre-entrance bodywork, and having much more in common with the Leyland Steer lorry.

The sole Leyland Panda entered service with Walter Alexander in 1941, it had an underfloor engine, like the FEC, but lacked the forward entrance of that operator's Gnus, it was bodied by Alexander with 45 seats and a central entrance to a semi-utility outline.

BFU225, entered service with the Lincolnshire Road Car Company in early 1941, the operator called it "Leyland light-six prototype model LS1".[4] It had a 6.2-litre push-rod overhead-valve Leyland engine and a radiator shell of Tiger outline, but as thin across as a Lion or Cheetah's radiator shell. It ran with its 35-seat Leyland body until the mid-1950s.

BFU225's engine-design was bored and stroked for use in tanks, and it then became the 7.4-litre 100 bhp E181 engine used in early post-war Titans and Tigers.

One Heaver-bodied coach for City Coach Company, Romford and two deck and a half airport coaches bodied by the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board for their own use were built to a twin-steering three-axle specification with the second steering axle, which had 17-inch rather than 21-inch wheels, designed to be readily removed once 30 ft length on two axles was legal. City had pre-war operated the largest fleet of the Leyland Gnu twin-steering single decker,[12] switching to them from conventional six-wheeled Tigers.

All three were later converted into Titans, the City coach by Barton Transport and the two Northern Irish vehicles by the Ulster Transport Authority. The City coach was the sole 8 ft (2.4 m) wide PS2/10, the NIRTB/UTA pair were 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) wide, hence PS2/11.

Danish state railways took some shortened PS2s together with Büssing units to pull semi-trailer buses built by DAB. These were known as "Red Worms" and worked a high capacity route in suburban Copenhagen in company with Leyland-bodied Titan and Northern Counties bodied Guy Arab double deckers.

Dan and Egged, the two Israeli bus co-operatives, had used normal-control former US military vehicles as buses just after the end of World War II, Leyland Ashdod therefore persuaded the Farington works to build LOPSU3's for this market to normal control, they were known as Tigresses after the pre-war LTB bonneted type, but were recorded as Tigers with no separate model designation. Bodies were built in Israel by Ha'argaz and Merkavim. Royal Tigers and Worldmasters followed as did two examples of the PSR1 Lion.[13]

In 1955, although the Comet built in India from 1953 was selling phenomenally well there was a demand for heavier duty single decks. Ashok Leyland, the Indian-based joint venture, started producing its own version of the Tiger, which used the axles of the Ashok Leyland Hippo lorry.[14] It could be seen as a group replacement for the Albion Viking (CX/HD series).

The outdated layout of the half-cab single deck and its low seating capacity exercised the minds of a number of operators from the mid-1950s. Barton Transport converted PS1s to 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m) long double-deckers and Tiger PS2s, including the former City coach to 30 ft double deckers, the later ones carrying fully fronted Northern Counties double-deck bodies.[15] Yorkshire Traction, in the BET group did systematic conversions of most of their fleet of Tigers from about 1955 to 1963, using Charles H. Roe or Northern Counties bodies, Yorkshire Woollen District later following suit. Yorkshire Traction also oversaw the rebodying of five PS2s for Stratford Blue Motors, costed refurbishing the chassis at £500 and purchasing the bodies at £3,000 per bus at a time when a complete PD2 would cost over £5,000. Alexander took the running units from its 17 OPS2s in 1961 and fitted them into new Titan PD3 frames, then fitted units from scrapped PS1s into the former OPS2s. When fitted with new Alexander bodies the recycled double-deckers could only be distinguished from similar new deliveries in that they retained the traditional radiator and bonnet from the Tigers whilst the new buses had full-width bonnets.[16] Ulster Transport Authority also rebodied many of its Tigers in the 1950s, using new Leyland Titan PD2 chassis frames and Metro-Cammell bodyframes completed at UTA's Belfast coachworks. CIÉ stripped a late batch of OPS3s of their units and purchased new Titan PD3 frames and St Helens Style glassfibre bonnets, and had the vehicles assembled in 1961-62 complete with Park Royal body frames by a company called Commercial Road Vehicles who were renting part of the former Great Northern Railway (Ireland) central works in Dundalk. These 'R900' Titans were CIÉ's last front-engine double-deckers, again the R series had started in 1934 with Dublin United Transport.

The last two front-engined Tigers known to have been rebodied were two completed by Vernon Priaulx, then coachbuilder for Guernseybus in 1991/2. After the success of open top RT-type AEC Regent III on tourist routes on Guernsey two former Jersey Motor Transport Tiger PS1s were purchased. Their Reading of Portsmouth bodies were too decayed to be restored so the first Tiger was rebodied as a single-deck open topper (Southport Corporation had used Ribble PS2s as such in the 1960s) and the second became a 35-seat coach with full-length sunshine roof. Both went to Mac Tours of Edinburgh after Guernseybus closed and passed to the Ensignbus preserved fleet, although the open topper is to operate a tourist service back on Jersey in 2012. On repatriation to Jersey it was registered J1942.

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• Townsin, Alan (1998). Duple: 70 Years of Coachbuilding. Glossop: Venture Publications. ISBN 978-1-898-43246-3.