< View previous picture - View next picture > Photographer / Copyright Julian Bowden-Green collection Images should not be reused without permission. View vehicle details 1541F AML718H Location Link/s Chiswick Works Date added to site 01/06/2021 Printer-friendly version of this page

Details: Although this vehicle has been shown on LTSV before, it is rather interesting. London Transport started buying Ford Transit vans in 1966, but most of those taken until the 1980s were of the short-wheelbase variety. The first known long-wheelbase vans were a pair added in 1970, to two very different configurations. Both of these vans are being shown today. Numerically the first of the pair was 1541F, though it arrived in February 1970 a couple of days after 1542F. This was a fairly standard long-wheelbase Mk1 Transit van. It had sliding cab doors and hence no bodyside cargo doors, access instead being by the unusual fitting of a roller-shutter door in the rear of the van. This undated photo appears to have been taken at Chiswick Works and shows the rear arrangements. There are a couple of cube-like items on the back, just in-board of the light clusters. They look like enlarged door bump-stops but that can't be their actual purpose. Other points to note are the lack of London Transport lettering on the cab doors (just showing 'LIFTS & ESC ENGR') and the green roof. This was a feature of many lorries at the time, but was rare on vans, though it would have been hard to detect on short-wheelbase Transits with their flatter roof profile. 1541F was allocated to Griffith House and was withdrawn in 1977 having been replaced by similar 2018F.

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