90sWereBetter
Member
Many enthusiasts will be aware of the Scania/MCW tie-up in the 1970s, which produced the MCW Metropolitan double decker to compete against Leyland's offerings in the market. A sales success (all the PTEs and London Transport took batches) quickly became a fiasco as the buses started corroding within a couple of years of service. They also drunk enormous amounts of diesel compared to your bog-standard Gardner 6LXB and Leyland 0680s in contemporary deckers. I think some of LT's 164 Metropolitans lasted just three years in service before being withdrawn and dumped at the back of depots waiting for their Certificate of Fitness to expire, and most of the PTEs got rid of their fleets in the early 1980s, most of them being replaced by the Metropolitan's descendent the MCW Metrobus, which was a far sturdier workhorse.
Yet, it appears there were a trio of operators which made them work, Tyne and Wear PTE and the council-owned Leicester and Reading fleets all seem to have got a reasonable lifespan out of their Metropolitans. My question is, largely how? Did they tackle the corrosion problems head-on with rebuilds, or was it pure magic that they persevered with them?
Does anyone have any concrete dates as to when these three operators finally withdrew their last examples? I can't find any photo evidence of the Tyne and Wear Metropolitans lasting much past deregulation into the Busways era, while the municipals seem to have kept them in service until the early 1990s.
Yet, it appears there were a trio of operators which made them work, Tyne and Wear PTE and the council-owned Leicester and Reading fleets all seem to have got a reasonable lifespan out of their Metropolitans. My question is, largely how? Did they tackle the corrosion problems head-on with rebuilds, or was it pure magic that they persevered with them?
Does anyone have any concrete dates as to when these three operators finally withdrew their last examples? I can't find any photo evidence of the Tyne and Wear Metropolitans lasting much past deregulation into the Busways era, while the municipals seem to have kept them in service until the early 1990s.