History of Electronic blinds in the UK

[Simon75]

When were the first electronic blinds (not roller) introduced on buses and coaches in the UK?

 

[37114]

When we're the first electronic blinds (nor roller) introduced on buses and coaches in the UK,?

Early 1980s, Bristol had some electronic blinds fitted to the Y reg batch of Olympians and trialled them on a VR before that.

 

[JD2168]

There was 2 J reg B10M’s (J689XAK & J690XAK) in South Yorkshire which were fitted with flipdot blinds when new but got replaced by standard rollers after a time.

 

[GusB]

I'm just purely going by pictures in a book I have but B757UHG, a left-hand drive demonstrator used in America, appears to have electronic destination equipment. There is also Cambus E502LFL.

Also, Leyland Lynx demonstrator F74DCW also appears to have a yellow flip-dot display.

Source: Leyland Bus - The Twilight Years Jack, Doug Jack, pp 114-115,117

 

[JonathanH]

Early 1980s, Bristol had some electronic blinds fitted to the Y reg batch of Olympians and trialled them on a VR before that.

Transign. They weren't the only operator to do it either. Two VRs fitted - EWS753W and EWS754W, then all of the Leyland Olympians in the JHU---X, LWS---Y, NTC---Y, A---SAE, A---THW batches.

Here is an example of a contemporary United Counties Olympian, and a retro fitted VR.

United Counties ARP608X

Leyland Olympian / ECW ARP 607X of United Counties is seen heading down Midland Road in the early 1980's - the uncomfortably abbreviated Transign destination should be noted. Nowadays the building behind is a Tesco Metro whilst to the right is The Pilgrims Progress Wetherspoons, frequented by...

www.flickr.com

United Counties Bristol VR/ECW (924-ONH924V) Bletchley, Bus Station (3/1983)

United Counties Omnibus Company Limited Bristol VR-SL3/ECW 924-ONH924V New to UCOC as 924 (5/80) Fitted with Transign Electronic Equipment (11/80) To Milton Keynes Citybus (1/1/86 as 3924) Bletchley, Bus Station 3/1983 (Roger Warwick Collection)

www.flickr.com

Midland Red had a batch of Nationals where the route number was fitted to the triangular panel to the side of the normal destination apparture.

Photograph: Midland Red (West) Leyland National 1205 (A205YWP)

Many, if not all, of these vehicles later got conventional blinds.

 

[Redmike]

Greater Manchester transport took delivery of Leyland Olympian prototype 1451, which was delivered with an electronic blind as shown at the 1980 motor show. It was fairly quickly replaced with a conventional roller blind.

Greater Manchester Transport 1451 (NJA 568W)

Greater Manchester Transport Leyland Olympian / NCME 1451 (NJA 568W) Birmingham NEC 25/10/80 BKP

www.flickr.com

 

[Pit_buzzer]

Yorkshire Traction's first Olympians, X registered, had a strange electronic display where each digit of the display was formed of a block of rollers which displayed an element of a letter according to how much it was rotated. Any letter could be formed by varying the rotation of the rollers to display different degrees of black or white. Very strange things and soon replaced by standard blinds.
The first LED display I saw was on the prototype Alexander R type Olympian which was W reg and in Glasgow livery, sadly lost in a large depot fire a few years later.

 

[SCH117X]

Blazefield went with a digital number but roller blind for the destination

File:LANCASHIRE UNITED 1080 PO51 MTF (3619693913).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

 

[JonathanH]

Yorkshire Tractions first olympians, X registered had a strange electronic display where each digit of the display was formed of a block of rollers which displayed an element of a letter according to how much it was rotated, any letter could be formed by varying the rotation of the rollers to display different degrees of black or white. Very strange things and soon replaced by standard blinds.

Indeed, that is the same Transign display noted above, as pictured here on one of the aforementioned Olympians.

Yorkshire Traction Leyland Olympian 601 NKU601X at Barnsley in 1982 - Mar - J S C Archive

thetransportlibrary.co.uk

 

[Man of Kent]

Nottingham 666 (ARC 666T) had an LED number display when new in 1979. Later replaced by roller blinds.

 

[Pit_buzzer]

Nottingham 666 (ARC 666T) had an LED number display when new in 1979. Later replaced by roller blinds.

Didn't that one have a previous incarnation of digital display, I seem to remember it being a liquid crystal unit as in a big version of the early digital watches

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Transign. They weren't the only operator to do it either. Two VRs fitted - EWS753W and EWS754W, then all of the Leyland Olympians in the JHU---X, LWS---Y, NTC---Y, A---SAE, A---THW batches.

Here is an example of a contemporary United Counties Olympian, and a retro fitted VR.

United Counties ARP608X

Leyland Olympian / ECW ARP 607X of United Counties is seen heading down Midland Road in the early 1980's - the uncomfortably abbreviated Transign destination should be noted. Nowadays the building behind is a Tesco Metro whilst to the right is The Pilgrims Progress Wetherspoons, frequented by...

www.flickr.com

United Counties Bristol VR/ECW (924-ONH924V) Bletchley, Bus Station (3/1983)

United Counties Omnibus Company Limited Bristol VR-SL3/ECW 924-ONH924V New to UCOC as 924 (5/80) Fitted with Transign Electronic Equipment (11/80) To Milton Keynes Citybus (1/1/86 as 3924) Bletchley, Bus Station 3/1983 (Roger Warwick Collection)

www.flickr.com

Midland Red had a batch of Nationals where the route number was fitted to the triangular panel to the side of the normal destination apparture.

Photograph: Midland Red (West) Leyland National 1205 (A205YWP)

Many, if not all, of these vehicles later got conventional blinds.

Lots of National Bus Company subsidiaries had Transign blinds. Southdown retrofitted two VRs with Transign equipment https://www.flickr.com/photos/7964319@N03/48026388802/in/photolist-iNupAJ-2gaVNbf/ flickr photo courtesy of kwk33f which was done in Portslade works. The off centre aperture was to accommodate the periscope! Whilst PUF586R survives, it has a later flipdot that it received when with Brighton and Hove.

In addition to Bristol OC, Yorkshire and United Counties, Eastern National also had quite a few Olympians with Transign blinds. They were much less common in single deckers though. Aside from the Midland Red West Nationals, United had a solitary example (3104 LUP904T) - I can't recall it prior to Transign blinds so don't know if that was the earliest (1979?) or a retrofit.

The two Bristol OC VRs were diverted from Hants & Dorset, who also received one (that later moved to Wilts and Dorset, who also received new Olympians with Transign blinds). W&D also had a batch of 10 Duple Laser bodied Leyland Tigers with liquid crystal displays in 1984. As per the Greater Manchester, liquid crystal were also experimented with, and Lothian had three Olympians (their prototype R Types and an ECW) that had those displays. Whilst they weren't adopted then, they did adopt Transign blinds for rear and side number displays on their ECW Olympians.

 

[820KDV]

Here is a segment of a Transign display.



It is 8 mini roller blinds stacked on top of each other, driven by 8 cogs just visible on the left of the photo. Yes, limited in the number of characters it could display, and far from reliable in use, but still an interesting idea.

It can display white blank black blank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 . A B C D E F G H ' J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z / - white blank although I think the white blanks are just the end of the blind rather than intended for display - although they did show on occasions. Watching them change was always interesting as they would wind back to black blank then those needed for the next destination selected would spool through stopping at the required letter.

And here is the memo issued by Bristol Omnibus advising that the equipment is fitted to the two VRs mentioned above.



which was accompanied by 3 pages of tightly typed destination codes.

 

[duncombec]

Never having seen one of these operate, a (very) quick YouTube search came up with a one video that might be of interest to others. It's a single unit, but includes some interesting details on how they worked, and what the actual blinds looked like in order to produce the characters (about 1:15)!

(Link to video showing Transign displays as per the main message text)

 

[station_road]

Blazefield went with a digital number but roller blind for the destination

File:LANCASHIRE UNITED 1080 PO51 MTF (3619693913).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

Reading Bus had something similar in the late 90s - the route number was the same type of display as Network SouthEast clocks (and was repeated on the rear of the bus as well)

Link to photograph on the showbus.co.uk site of Reading Buses Excel 908 (P908EGM)

 

[buslad1988]

Reading Bus had something similar in the late 90s - the route number was the same type of display as Network SouthEast clocks (and was repeated on the rear of the bus as well)

Link to photograph on the showbus.co.uk site of Reading Buses Excel 908 (P908EGM)

First experimented with these displays in a batch of Scanias (destined for Leicester) that spent a short spell on loan to Eastern Counties at Ipswich. Does anyone know the official name for them?

Eastern Counties Scania L113CRL , Wright 581 R341SUT at Ipswich in 1999 - 06/09/1999 - Andrew Coleman

thetransportlibrary.co.uk

 

[WibbleWobble]

Other areas of First had the digi/roller split too, albeit in the same style as Blazefield.

Manchester ones also had a full destination blind on the side too, although a lot of the time they were blank, had the company name displayed, or just showed "Service" (the latter especially at Wigan).

A number kept them right up until they were withdrawn from service, especially the Darts that were included in the sale of Wigan to Stagecoach.

 

[Statto]

Merseyside PTE [MPTE] introduced electronic blinds on buses from 1982, first batch to get them were a batch of full height Olympians from 0030 onwards, yes that was the fleet number.

The first electronic blinds were one piece blinds, however they were criticised because you could hardly read them, so MPTE revised the electronic blinds & introduced a bigger electronic number blind, above the electronic destination blind.

In Merseyside the electronic blinds were fitted to deckers, i can't remember any electronic blinds fitted on new single deck buses in the Merseyside region until 20 years ago

 

[JetBlast]

I read a few years ago that Rossendale Bus was the first company to use the current modern orange LED display. I am not sure how accurate this is, I can't find the source anymore.

 

[Man of Kent]

Didn't that one have a previous incarnation of digital display, I seem to remember it being a liquid crystal unit as in a big version of the early digital watches

Contemporary pictures (available via your search engine of choice) show greeny yellow (seven segment) figures like a calculator, or as you say, digital watch. I thought that was an LED rather than LCD, but am happy to be corrected.

 

[DunsBus]

Lothian Region Transport had a few buses fitted with electronic blinds, all Olympians - 666, 667, 702, 735 and 961.

 

[Bus Lightyear]

GGPTE Leyland Olympian/Alexander LO1 (VGB364W) had an electronic screen but it was so unreliable it was replaced by a conventional unit by 1985.

 

[Mal]

Merseyside PTE [MPTE] introduced electronic blinds on buses from 1982, first batch to get them were a batch of full height Olympians from 0030 onwards, yes that was the fleet number.

The first electronic blinds were one piece blinds, however they were criticised because you could hardly read them, so MPTE revised the electronic blinds & introduced a bigger electronic number blind, above the electronic destination blind.

In Merseyside the electronic blinds were fitted to deckers, i can't remember any electronic blinds fitted on new single deck buses in the Merseyside region until 20 years ago

If I'm right. they were not too reliable at first, as one continually showed PIE HEAD instead of PIER HEAD!

 

[DunsBus]

GGPTE Leyland Olympian/Alexander LO1 (VGB364W) had an electronic screen but it was so unreliable it was replaced by a conventional unit by 1985.

LO1 was a notable bus - one of the Olympian prototypes and also fitted with the first Alexander R-type body. A shame that it was lost in the Larkfield fire.

I remember the original electronic screens on LRT (Lothian Region Transport) Olympians 666, 667 and 702 didn't last for very long. By 1984 all three had been fitted with Vultron Metro II screens.