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Are you sure the bus ride was down Gower Street, and not Southampton Row? I'm struggling to think of any DMS routes, indeed any opo at the time, down Gower Street and, in any case, Kingsway would be easier accessed from near Euston by the more Eastern route, I remember, because I used them for a while, the DMSs which came to the 170 together with a revised routeing at its Northern end. I travelled from the Strand at Charing Cross Station to the stop before Euston Station for my job on Euston Road. Don't recollect using the AFC, but I may have done.
Yes sorry, you are right, it was indeed Southampton Row - the stop outside the church with the steps and porch just a little back from the road. Should have checked on the web. I'm pretty sure it was a 170.
I would have to re-read the history books on which body was easier to remove, but it was the intention to separate body from chassis to aid the overhaul process. If indeed the MCW body could have met the spec so to speak it was interesting to note that once the decision was made to sell them, LT selected the MCW bodied examples as the first to go.
Generally, the fleet managed 7/8 years of operation before disposal to Ensign. There were a couple of examples which had extremely short operating lives of sub 5 years.
I do wonder how much of the 'not invented here' mindset affected the reliability of the DMS in London service. London Transport did learn from their mistakes with the introduction of the Metrobus and the Titan to squadron service. Those buses achieved longer than average service lives in London service (around 20 years), so this notion that London needs to have a special bus is complete nonsense. London were really the only buyers of the Titan - the Metrobus did find other ready buyers around the UK of course.When L.T. was being criticised for not being able to keep on top of the maintenance of DMS, Tomorrow's World devoted most of a programme to them. What a coincidence and it almost seemed like the presenter had been coached by L.T. Surely not, the BBC is independent.
The presenter was standing by one in a workshop and said 'L.T.'s overhaul process is very thorough and involves separating the bodies from the chassis. With these provincial buses it's impossible to do that'. What he didn't explain was why 'provincial operators' had given up separating body and chassis at overhaul in the mid-50s and it had been done mainly because bodies were then composite and took longer to overhaul than chassis. Once 'all-metal' bodies became standard, there was no need.
It puzzled me that, in the L.T. body/chassis separation overhaul the engine and auxiliaries were left in the chassis, which was jet washed and steam cleaned (hope they banked off all the intakes and vents). Engine changes were on a different cycle, and were done physically at garages but by a team that turned up (from Aldenham, I think) in a special van with a built-in engine crane and a replacement engine.
But of course DMS were totally unsuitable for the arduous L.T. demands (e.g. Potters Bar town service) but perfect for 'The provinces' (e.g. Birmingham's Outer Circle running in heavy traffic for 18 hours a day)
The objection to DMS body removal - or rather, refitting to. a different chassis - was,I understood at the time, that the body mount locations were not jig built so the holes might not line up.
Northampton Corporation /Transport had standardised on Gardner engined daimlers for years. For OMO they ordered Daimler Fleetline single decks with, naturally, Gardner engines. Daimler unilaterally changed the spec to Leyland engines so that L.T. could have the Gardners for DMS - there was a shortage of 6LXs. The CRG6Ls that came suffered engine problems lost the Gardner reliability..
I think a fair number were withdrawn after their first certificate of fitness expired which was about 7 years. Some would have been withdrawn sooner due to accidents etc.
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Aldenham dealt with bodywork, Chiswick the mechanicals. I don't believe there were teams despatched from Chiswick to do engine changes; engines were delivered from Chiswick and the local engineers fitted them. The removed engines were then sent back to Chiswick for overhaul. Happy to be corrected but never heard of gangs of roving engineers doing such work. As mentioned above, an engine change on RT and RM buses (possibly RF's to?) could be done in a single shift between the peaks. Rear engined buses took considerably longer. I remember processing 16 hours pay for engine changes on Olympians at Norwood although I can't remember if it involved more than one engineer to achieve that.
LT managed to get the body off DM1449, which had an MCW body. Attempting to do the same to Park Royal-bodied DMS1, however, almost destroyed it. I believe Park Royal, on hearing of this, then sent LT a rather stiff note saying "don't do it again".
And sadly MTL and later Glenvale ran these wretched Titans well into their 20s creaking and belching smoke arSound the streets of Liverpool. Merseyside PTE evaluated an ex demonstrator but got shot of it! Some 250 ran in Liverpool in the 1990s initially to replace tired 1970s Atlanteans and Fleetlines, only to become tires themselves!
I think the reason behind the MCW bodies going first was related to corrosion, MCW were poor at rust protection and thus DMS/ Metropolitans/ Metrobuses with their bodies were problematic, the Metropolitans were particularly bad. The Park Royal bodies were generally better built and had a longer survival rate. Attempts to save an ex Graham's of Paisley DMS were thwarted when the guys started taking the panels off and found out how bad the frame of the MCW body was.
Not just confined to London, either.