.com - London Transport Service Vehicles on the webAn all-new version of this website is now available at www.ltsv.com/sv/. These pages are no longer being updated.
| .com - London Transport Service Vehicles on the web | |||||||
An all-new version of this website is now available at www.ltsv.com/sv/. These pages are no longer being updated. | |||||||
| Most recently added forum postings | |
| Comments | Date added |
| Req: Mercedes-Benz Recovery Truck - L100JMH Perhaps someone could help me with this, please. On my last trip to London on 15th November '05, I saw what might have been this SV parked up near Hyde Park Corner, in the centre of the road. I rather dismissed it as apart from being all red, it had no other markings. From the pictures it appeared to gain its London Buses scheme in December. I was passing the location on a coach, & could not get any registration. In view of it being photgraphed at Victoria & Park Lane,has anyone seen this vehicle in this location previously, & therefore is it likely this was the vehicle I saw, please? My Thanks in Advance - John L-M in Leeds Note: Posting edited by John Lloyd-Martin, 11/01/06, 09:15. | Wed 04/01/2006, 09:11 |
| Christmas Greetings to All Can I wish everyone on here a peaceful & Very Happy Christmas, & a Happy and prosperous New Year for 2006. John L-M, in Leeds | Sat 24/12/2005, 11:53 |
| Thank you to sightings loggers! I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has logged their sightings here since October. There are currently 1866 sightings recorded and these will be very useful in determining vehicle allocations. | Sun 18/12/2005, 22:23 |
| New dustcart 2586 and Iveco X278VWT The new Iveco dustcart apparently replaced un-numbered X278VWT on a regular duty. Having said that, I saw the latter at London Bridge last week. It carried no lettering on its yellow cab or white body. Does anyone recall seeing this vehicle at Acton (or elsewhere) over the past couple of years? | Sun 18/12/2005, 22:18 |
| Do you have any snowy pictures? It would be nice to publish a few seasonal pictures in time for the holidays (preferrably ones with SVs in them!) Any offers? | Sun 18/12/2005, 22:16 |
| Hired Transit YH05TVE This is another white Transit in use by LBSL, seen at Eltham yesterday. It will appear in the background of some pictures to be published soon. | Sun 18/12/2005, 22:14 |
| Website with fleet lists for London Fire Brigade The Road Transport Fleet Data Society web site has a number of downloadable PDF fleetlists, including the London Fire Brigades, various other emergency services operators, and commercial hauliers etc. The download page is at http://www.fleetdata.co.uk/downloads.html Note: Posting edited by Thomas Young, 06/12/05, 15:52. | Tue 06/12/2005, 15:51 |
| Recent LBSL vans 11 VW Transporter High Roof Vans have now been reported in LBSL use, presumably filling the range 5668-5678VW. However, three were reported without numbers. Please keep an eye out for RA54HXT, RA54VWD (last seen at Kingston) and RE05DTZ (last seen at Thornton Heath). The missing numbers should be 5670VW, 5676VW and 5677VW. With the batch of Mercedes-Benz Sprinters that followed these, we seem to be short of at least one. BN55DXH and BN55DXK may be 5798M and 5796M if the logic of the numbering sequence is retained (some chance!), but that still leaves 5799M as unidentified. | Tue 06/12/2005, 09:47 |
| Vauxhall van badging A correspondent recently mentioned an LBSL Vauxhall Movano badged as a 3500 and asked if this meant it was a 3.5. Observations of non-SVs has indicated that the higher figures (which are usually badged low on the vehicle side) are the weight, while the decimal figures (carried on the rear if at all) are the engine capacity. Not sure about Vauxhall Combo 1700s though.... | Thu 01/12/2005, 22:57 |
| Two months on The site is performing as expected. I would be interested to hear if anyone has experienced an increase in spam since registering on the site. I generally get about 2 or 3 a day which is tolerable. My bright idea for the identification of vehicles in the database may have backfired somewhat. I have already filled some gaps in the sequence and there has been an increase in duplicated fleet numbers, that cannot easily be accomodated. If I do need to make changes I will try and minimise down-time. Take up of the forum is still low. It's your space; use it for what you want (as long as it is vaguely to do with SVs!) Note: Posting edited by Thomas Young, 06/12/05, 15:42. | Thu 01/12/2005, 22:54 |
| 5540F Tom I note you are after a picture of Transit Minibus 5540F. It is booked to be at Catford Garage tomorrow 29/11/05 from about 1200 and all afternoon if this helps. Richard | Mon 28/11/2005, 17:26 |
| New Renault Kangoos with mixed-up numbers Seen at Acton works in late October, three new Renault Kangoo estates in white/blue carried fleetnumbers already claimed by Ford Transit minibuses. Until further reports are received, they will be listed here only. 5714 (YG55NXO), 5715 (YG55NXR) and 5716 (YK55KZY). 5714 had a Metronet logo, the others had none. | Tue 08/11/2005, 23:33 |
| Un-numbered car at Aldgate Seen at Aldgate Bus Station on a number of occasions recently, VO51WDW is an un-lettered red Ford Focus hatchback. | Tue 08/11/2005, 23:29 |
| How Do We Deal with Vehicles which may be Hired or May be New ? The Aldgate vehicle situation poses a bit of a problem. On 6th October I noted several vehicles in different locations, which may or may not, have been SVs Should they be reported or not? If so where, & how ? | Tue 08/11/2005, 22:07 |
| Red Transit Connect van 5691F? This passed me at speed in the dark at Abbey Wood tonight, hence I am unsure of details. It appeared to be plain red with just white fleetnumbers. Reg may have been KC54LCW. I thought that such a vehicle was due to replace Escort 5251F in the LBSL Passenger Data fleet, the latter being withdrawn in Dec 2004. | Tue 01/11/2005, 22:40 |
| 581J (RLH 44) More information on this preserved vehicle can be found on my RLH Bus Information Centre website, at www.timebus.co.uk/rlh/fleet/rlh44/ . I will try to notify on the home page of that site when we intend to take the vehicle to rallies. | Tue 01/11/2005, 17:15 |
| Transit vans gaining side windows Looking through some recent photographs it appears that some Ford Transit vans have gained additional side windows some time after entering service. 5347F has been illustrated twice on this site but now has an extra offside window (picture to be added soon), while 5372F (which has been illustrated with an offside window) has appeared in an older picture without one! | Sun 30/10/2005, 12:20 |
| Canterbury Models E83W Wanted....An unmade Canterbury Miniature Commercials Fordson E83W kit. Preferably a van, but any other variant would do. Either White metal or Resin version would do. | Wed 26/10/2005, 18:12 |
| Various recent observations 5834F is white (not white/blue). 5650VW is white/blue (as 5651). 5237V, 5238F, 5266F, 5462F and 5464F are regularly at GHO on late evening visits and I believe they should all be shown as allocated there. 3 white Renault Kangoo estates were visible in the Acton Works car park today, registrations YG55NXO/NXR, YK55KZY. The last two at least appeared to have fleet numbers (too small to read through the fence!) Nor was it possible to see whether they had the thin blue skirts on earlier Kangoos. If these vehicles become part of the fleet, they could be replacements for existing 5187R-5189R. A silver vehicle with white Metronet labels but no fleet number, registration KG05YUL, was seen at Acton Town today. This appeared to be labelled as a Ford Tourneo Connect, a sort of windowed version of the Transit Connect van. This may just be a short term loan vehicle? Finally, on 2/9/05 a white/blue Astra estate registered FJ02FSC passed me near Acton Works; has anyone else seen this vehicle? Could it actually be 5367B, listed as FJ02FSV Combo van? Any ideas welcome! | Tue 25/10/2005, 23:03 |
| Whatever happened to 1014MY? Just looking through some old LBM's and there's a nice photo of 1014MY in LBM 7. Taken at a rally in 1973. This reminded me that the photo of the same vehicle in the original SUP15 also states this vehicle is preserved. Whatever happened to it? Does anyone know? | Tue 25/10/2005, 15:50 |
| New London General Transit? ET05GXG, a plain red mid-height Transit with light-bar, was seen at London Bridge, possibly attending to a 133 bus. No markings or rear chevrons so not sure. If anyone sees it doing SV things (!) I will add it. | Wed 19/10/2005, 17:16 |
| EuroCargo 2585 Due to the door at Griffith House being broken, I had a glimpse of this new truck today. It has a crew-cab and large tail-lift like previous L&E vehicles 2535F and 2579. As the former is still around, could 2585 have replaced 3-year old MAN 2579? | Sat 15/10/2005, 21:11 |
| Two weeks after launch! The launch of LTSVplus seemed to go quite well. Apart from putting a link on the old web site I also e-mailed all my contacts to let them know and, two weeks later, there are already 23 visitors registered. I have been adding new pictures steadily, updating the fleet data, and even found time to go out once or twice! Actually using the site has thrown up a few flaws in the admin side which can hopefully be addressed with minor changes. It is certainly nice to be able to log-in from work and report a sighting from my lunch break. | Sat 15/10/2005, 20:37 |
| Can I put sighting info as a picture comment? I noticed that one member has added sighting information into the picture comments section. While there is no problem with doing this it would be preferable if these could be added to the sightings section. That way all the sightings for a given vehicle will be visible without having to look at each picture. It will also make the determining of allocations easier. | Sat 15/10/2005, 20:32 |
| Future developments on LTSVplus I have a number of ideas for improvements to this site which I am listing below in order of how useful I think they would be. Please get in touch if you think any of these should be prioritised, or if you have any further suggestions. 1. Add a 'latest change' field to the vehicle data so that visitors can see what the last edit changed. 2. Backfilling of allocation histories. Naturally this is a long-term project but a large amount of information is available. 3. Trade Plate cross-reference. 4. Pre-1939 numbers cross-reference. 5. Add histories and notes to location records. If anyone would like to contribute a paragraph or two about any location, please get in touch. 6. A cross-reference of published photos. There are a lot out there but they're quite thinly spread! 7. A function to find vehicle details by searching for a registration year letter (e.g. F prefix). 8. A function to find photographs by searching for a model (e.g. Escort). 9. A facility to add large numbers of sightings in one go. 10. Direct submission of photos and articles. 11. A search tool on the news pages. 12. Member to member messaging. | Sat 15/10/2005, 20:30 |
| Not all Arriva SVs are SVs! A member has reported a sighting of an Arriva Ford Transit tipper working on repairs to Vauxhall Bus Station. As he correctly noted, this was probably a member of the Arriva Rentals fleet. Such vehicles will not be included on this site, unless they are on hire to a bus company, at which point things could get confusing! Also not included as such are vehicle contract maintenance vans. Having said that, the Red Arrow base at Waterloo seems to have a permanent allocation of several 'evobus' vans. Feel free to use the forum to post info on such vehicles. | Wed 12/10/2005, 14:27 |
| LOTS ATS at Harrow Leisure Centre Sat 29th October Wots LOTS ATS? The Autumn Transport Spectacular organised every year by the London Omnibus Traction Society. This years ATS will be on Saturday 29th October (10.30 to 3.30) at the Harrow Leisure Centre, Christchurch Avenue, Wealdstone. See the LOTS web site (www.lots.org.uk) for more info and travel info. If anyone would like to meet up, either at the ATS or perhaps afterwards, please get in touch. | Wed 12/10/2005, 13:28 |
| Bedford CAs 967 977 and 989B These Bedford Ambulances and Route Survey Van I believe, had bodies By Martin-Walter, I think all had standard Bedford rear doors, with a lift-up hatchback type door above them. Did the upper doors have windows? Information required for modelling purposes. Thanks Note: Posting edited by Steve, 10/10/05, 18:50. | Mon 10/10/2005, 18:49 |
| Hired Transit at Aldgate Noted at Aldagte Bus Station, late afternoon 6th October 2005 White low-roof Ford Transit van regn LN05XRK. Showed Ford Rentals & Dagenham Motors with their address & phone details on front & rear doors. Had small apparently magnetic signs on side(s?) towards the rear with red Buses roundel & ' Maintaining bus infrastructure ' logo | Mon 10/10/2005, 11:22 |
| pre-1939 data Don't forget LT Museum has a lot | Tue 04/10/2005, 13:12 |
| Ford Transit Designations Having recently posted an article about Ford Transit variants, I now discover that what I have called the Mk4 Transit is actually the Mk6! It seems that the c.1995 Smiley grille is the Mk5, while the Mk1 and Mk2 are as per my article. Does anyone know what the Mk3 and Mk4 Transit are though? | Tue 04/10/2005, 12:47 |
| How can I find which vehicles carried a particular trade plate number? As with pre-1939 numbers, a searchable index of trade plates is planned to be included on this site but has not yet been developed. Until then, there is an article that lists all known SV trade plates both in reg and fleet number orders. | Thu 29/09/2005, 16:45 |
| I want to see a list of pre-1939 numbers At present this is not possible. Vehicles with pre-1939 numbers that were NOT given new numbers are listed after the main numbered series. Renumbered vehicles appear under their new numbers with a note to indicate the previous number. It is planned to add a function that will list all pre-1939 numbers in one place and I will add a reply to this post when this has been created. | Tue 27/09/2005, 10:38 |
| 5278V now sold? I saw Astra van RE51BWK on the A259 east of Brighton yesterday. Still in white and blue livery, it had no other markings and I assume it has now been sold. | Sun 25/09/2005, 17:57 |
| The View All Vehicles Allocated link is very slow When you are looking at a location's details and you click on ''All Vehicles Allocated'', it seems to take an inordinately long time for the list to appear, during which my modem shows no activity. Have other users experienced this? | Sat 24/09/2005, 18:26 |
| Almost there! Thanks to my testers for their fiddling and feedback. Various tweaks have been made recently, including adding the subscription service (see the registration or My Details pages), printer-friendly versions of some pages and a revised fleet index page that allows searches. Some of the articles have been added, plus a new one on Ford Transits. The allocation history data still needs to be completed and some of the picture captions need links reinstating. Other than that, I think we're all set for October 1st! | Sat 24/09/2005, 18:07 |
| When I print a page it misses bits off Most of the pages on this site are designed for viewing on screen. Therefore, when you print them out, you might get sections cut off, as well as having items which are of no use (e.g. links and buttons). To get around this, I have included printer-friendly versions of the most useful pages. At present these are the view picture page and the fleetlist page, links to which should be apparent. Note that when you print the fleetlist, you get just the batch that is shown. Therefore if you have displayed items 201 to 300 of 799, that is what you will get. Also note that these pages open in a new window and have just a close button. You will then be returned to the screen version. The picture index page prints OK as it is. Please reply to this message if you want any other pages converted to be printer-friendly. | Sat 24/09/2005, 18:03 |
| On the pictures index, some SVs appear in the wrong era This is not technically true. The era refers to when the picture was taken, not when the vehicle was active. Therefore preserved, former or particularly long-lived SVs may appear under a later era than their principle time of service with LT. This could be changed if users feel it would be useful, but each picture can only be associated with one era. | Sat 24/09/2005, 17:58 |
| Travel London Seen at Victoria on Saturday 17th September during the afternoon: SO53AZX, a white Ford Transit van with ''Travel London'' on the back (in red lettering) and a small red sqaure label in the middle of the bonnet with a white roundel on it. Shot off before I could get the camera out! Can't find it listed on this site so it's a new entry! | Sat 24/09/2005, 14:41 |
| On the pictures index, some pictures appear more than once This is intentional and results from a desire to be able to handle pictures with more than one subject. For example, a photo may show van 1234F, with car 2345F in the background. The thumbnail for the picture will appear under each number, although both will take you to the same place. The benefit of doing this is that, if you then look at the details of 2345F, all pictures will appear even if this is not the main subject of the photo. | Wed 07/09/2005, 00:41 |
| I can't sort bus company vehicles by fleetnumber The main SV data table organises vehicles by an ID number. For CDS vehicles this is the fleetnumber. Given the variety (or absence) of numbering schemes used by the bus companies, this was not practical, so these are organised by registration number with sequential ID numbers allocated. Therefore when you click on the sort button on the number column, bus company vehicles will be sorted by registration, even if fleetnumbers are shown. This is a deliberate design feature but could be reviewed if people feel it would be useful. | Wed 07/09/2005, 00:38 |
| I keep getting Page Expired messages Due to the way this web site works, you will sometimes get a Page Expired message when you try to use the back button. There is no easy way to get around this as the following example shows. On page 1 you select Bedford and click a link. Your selection is passed as a variable telling the database to show Bedfords on page 2. You then click a link on page 2 to see picture number 985. This is displayed on page 3. If you then use the back button to return to page 2, the variable that had been selected will not be known, hence the error. Clicking the refresh button should get the data you had back. | Wed 07/09/2005, 00:35 |
| Will this web site ever be launched?! Well, we're into September now and I completely failed to update the old site last month. But, there's lots of good news. In terms of design, most of the outstanding tasks can be left for future upgrades. The core functions work, and I have added a few extras like a search facility on the forum, and a summary of all recent data changes so that you can see what has been added. Two big jobs remain to be completed, image upload and data preparation. Uploading 985 jpg files by dial-up is no small task, and I am managing about 100 per night. The data preparation is also progressing well. The aim is to have all the info in a database. This is then exported to a text file and then imported into the web database. Sounds odd? That's the way it works! I am currently inputting allocation histories, as this is one element that I did not already have. Most of the rest is a matter of ensuring the structure of the two databases match up. The bottom line is WHEN. I would hope to have some volunteers testing the site around the middle of this month, with a proper launch towards the end. Perhaps a 1st October data would be appropriate given that that was the date that the first incarnation of LTSV came out. | Wed 07/09/2005, 00:30 |
| What's been happening Although the new hosting arrangements have been made, much work remains to be done. Over 8000 fleet data records that currently sit in an Access database are being checked and modified prior to importing. On the design front, testing and modifications are ongoing, particularly to allow users to edit or delete the information and comments they have provided. | Sat 20/08/2005, 02:28 |
| Things are looking good. Despite the hot weather recently work is ongoing. The main functionalities have been designed and now work is underway on essential extras like registration and account modification as well as making the whole thing look nicer! The only major problem at present is that my service provider seems unwilling to accept my requests to upgrade my account to one that permits MySQL and PHP. What's the matter? Don't they want my money?! | Sun 17/07/2005, 23:14 |
| Progress with the forum Testing and tuning of the functions is progressing. The timestamp field was found to be updating each time a reply was added (and the post reply counter got increased), therefore not showing the actual posting time. This has been fixed. A function for the moderator to edit postings has also been added, edited postings have suitable text appended Note: Reply edited by Tom Young, 14/07/05, 08:10. This is what happens when I edit a posting. | Thu 07/07/2005, 21:12 |
| A solution to an old problem; sorting mixed records. Lists of information, particularly in databases, need to be sorted. The problem with service vehicles is that while most are numbered and can be sorted by these, many do not have numbers. Having these in separate database tables would have resulted in some rather complex queries. To keep things relatively simple, all SVs are being put in one table, sorted by a numeric field called SVID. For the numbered fleet this is simply the stock number, while unnumbered vehicles are first sorted by registration before being given SVIDs. But wait a minute. What if a bus company buys an old vehicle? How would the SVIDs retain the registration number order? The solution has been to give unnumbered SVs SVIDs spaced 10 numbers apart. So if T920BBK happens to be 63560, then T406CDY would be 63570. Therefore if a T123CAA turns up later, it can be slotted in between. The only problems with this system will be if more than 9 additional vehicles are taken between two existing registrations, and cases where a fleetnumber is reused. | Wed 06/07/2005, 20:40 |
| What is LTSVplus.com? LTSVplus.com (formerly LTSV.com) is the first and biggest website devoted to the subject of London Transport service vehicles. It provides pictures and information on vehicles operated from the formation of London Transport in 1933 through to the various private companies running services today. Note: Posting edited by Tom Young, 24/09/05, 17:59. | Wed 06/07/2005, 16:49 |
| What are Service Vehicles Service vehicles are the cars, lorries and vans used to support the operations of Londons Bus, Underground, Tram and Trolleybus services. For more information about service vehicles, click here. | Wed 06/07/2005, 16:47 |
| A minor setback A problem that seems to be affecting a few pages is a Page Expired warning message when using the back button. Much of the functionality of the new site depends on passing variables. For example, on page 1 you select to see Fords. Page 2 has a script that says show the Fords. When you go back to page 1, the selection is lost. I'm sure there is a way around this but a household plumbing problem must take priority for now. Drip, drip, drip! | Sun 03/07/2005, 20:58 |
| The forum comes to life! The basic structure of the forum has been created tonight, therefore allowing me to start making entries. There are three main forums, each with a number of topics. Within each of these, registered users will be able to add postings, and replies to existing postings. Entries are plain text but can be embellished by the use of basic HTML tags for things like bold formatting and line breaks. Much work remains to be done however! | Fri 01/07/2005, 23:09 |
| Later 100 | Earlier 100 |