The establishment of the boundary of the London Transport area cut right across several 'boundary' towns,
where some large operators suddenly found themselves banned from half the town,
while the new LPTB was banned from the other half.
The two lowbridge buses, TD152-153, had the Leyland patent offside sunken gangway
with four-seater bench seats on the top deck, with the amazing low height of 13 feet.
They appear to be almost identical with the all-Leyland lowbridge model.
When taken over, the buses were of course still in Maidstone and District livery of green and cream. They also had small Leyland-standard destination apertures on the front of the 'piano'. Country Area first applied its own legal lettering, of course, followed by General fleetnames over the M&D livery. In time they received two-tone green with black trim and silver roofs, plus a larger destination box, that on the front required a projection up from the piano front. M&D practice had been to paint rear number plates on the rear window, but LT replaced these by plates above the window beside the rear light. Likewise, LT may have replaced whatever blind arrangements M&D had on the back, but initially used the projecting single-line blind box.
The open-toppers taken over from Maidstone & District, TD143-151,
at first continued working where they were,
on Thameside duties.
At the very beginning all that showed that the LPTB had taken over was the legal lettering,
applied on both sides.
But open-toppers were not in the Board's scheme of things, and once Chiswick took over maintenance and renewals in 1935 they were quickly fitted with NS-style covered tops, with sliding windows on the top-deck. They found a home at Slough, on the town/industrial estate duties (444, 445), going to Windsor for the same duties once Slough closed.
Prentice & Sons, trading as Chiltern, brought a more mixed bag: TD167 was a Leyland lowbridge TD1, bought secondhand from Burnley; TD172 was similar but bought new; while TD173 was a Leyland highbridge bus. They received treatment from London Transport similar to the Maidstone & District buses, which were almost identical.
Thames Valley Thames Valley lost some of their Weybridge - Woking services in the trimming of the London boundary, and passed over two very useful lowbridge Leyland-bodied buses that would prove useful in the Staines area: TD168-169.
Premier Line was one of Green Line's competitors, and ran successful express services
between London and Windsor and Farnham Royal.
It used a mixed fleet of Leyland Tigers and Titans,
taking advantage of the latter's long wheelbase
to mount coach bodies by Duple or London Lorries.
These were incorporated into the Green Line business,
and soon appeared with large Green Line labels over the Premier livery.
It took longer to change the illuminated Premier sign and service indicator on the roof,
but these were converted to show the ultimate destination while the old destination indicator
in the front of the roof was now used to show "Green Line".
Many continued to operate from the old Premier depot, now Slough (Bath Road) garage (SU),
until transferred to Windsor when SU closed in 1936.
They lasted until 1938,
when both TR Tiger and TD Titan coaches were replaced by new
10T10 Regals.
In addition to these "natural" Country buses there were the two single-deckers from Central Area Independents, TD86 and TD131, which were allocated to the Country Area.
The demise of the Titans was sealed when the Country Area received new STL16s in the early summer of 1939. They directly replaced the TDs and some front entrance STLs at NF and DT, the new buses' greater seating capacity proving useful on these heavily used services. The displaced Country STLs went to Windsor to oust the Titans there, while AEC Qs and STs from Hertford went to Grays to take over from their TDs.
Again the war meant disposal was not an option, while their petrol engines inhibited re-use. Many went to Millburn's in Preston in 1940, and hence to munitions factory services for Liverpool Corporation.
Red TDs.
Part Two: Green TDs.
TD histories
Ian's Bus Stop