GS62: a 50 year celebration!
Created 25th November 2003 by Ian Smith on behalf of Alan Charman.
On 16th December 2003 GS62 celebrates 50 years of official existence. GS62 is a Guy Special,
one of a class of 84 twenty-six seater small buses built especially for London Transport in 1953.
London Transport designed them, having received special permission to operate them as
one man operated buses for lightly-used or physically tight routes around the Country Area
(contemporary regulations held the limit for one-person operation at 20 seats, but that would have made them uneconomic.)
Anyway, L.T. used a special variant of the Guy Vixen / Otter chassis,
having discovered that Leyland was about to cease supporting the alternative Leyland Cub chassis.
GS62 shows how well the Ford styling of the front end matched into the Chiswick-designed body,
at Dormansland in April 2003
Bodywork was to be built by Eastern Coach Works, which had acquired London Transport's body-building quota
when L.T. was nationalised and which was supposed to be used when possible. This small order was one such case.
The Chiswick design office had done a nice job of marrying a London style body and rear with a
bonnet and front wing assembly derived from the then-current Fordson truck range.
All eighty-four were painted in London Transport's Country Area livery of Lincoln Green with cream trim-lines around the windows.
The front bumper was chromed, and the front wheel trims polished aluminium.
GS62 displays her nearside, near Brickendon, June 2002. Note the sliding window vents instead of wind-ups: an ECW feature.
GS62 gets a clean at Hertford from Alan Charman, with the "alligator" open to reveal the Perkins diesel engine.
GS62 displays her offside at Hertford, June 2003,
while her posterior is well seen in this view at East Grinstead in April 2003.
Inside GS62 was finished with brown rexine up to waist height, green rexine up to the window top-rail,
and a cream ceiling. Seats were covered in standard RT moquette, with brown leather edgings.
Twenty seats faced forward in pairs, with two three seaters facing inwards over the rear wheelarches.
The front two-piece door jack-knifes open to the front of the steps.
The fare-board is placed on the front bulk-head, facing the saloon.
Access to the front blind-box is from inside the saloon,
while the external rear box requires the use of a ladder to change the rollers
(although a small hatch gives access to the winder for resetting the blind).
A Gibson fare machine was mounted on a special bracket on the fixed partition alongside the driver.
Vital statistics
Dimensions: length: 25ft 0.5in , wheelbase: 14ft 9in, width: 7ft 5.5in, height: 9ft 5.5in
Chassis: Guy Special: Perkins P6 4.73-litre oil engine (63 bhp @ 2200 rpm);
4-speed constant mesh gearbox, semi-elliptical leaf spring suspension, Lockheed Hydrovac brakes.
GS62: Guy chassis number 44985, ECW body number 6408, LT body number 8227, registration number MXX 362.
Part Two: London Transport Service
Ian's Bus Stop
other GSs
Part Two: L.T.history
summary of GS62 history
On 16th December 2003 GS62 celebrates 50 years of official existence. GS62 is a Guy Special,
one of a class of 84 twenty-six seater small buses built especially for London Transport in 1953.
London Transport designed them, having received special permission to operate them as
one man operated buses for lightly-used or physically tight routes around the Country Area
(contemporary regulations held the limit for one-person operation at 20 seats, but that would have made them uneconomic.)
Anyway, L.T. used a special variant of the Guy Vixen / Otter chassis,
having discovered that Leyland was about to cease supporting the alternative Leyland Cub chassis.
