tle: Dundee Buses
From Green to Blue
Author/Publisher: Derek Simpson
ISBN: 978-1-527262-08-9
Specification: 295mm x 210mm,
96pp, softback
Price: £19.95
With so much already committed to print about the UK bus industry, a sign of a well-researched book is when it reveals something largely unknown. Derek Simpson’s self-published work on the municipal fleet of his home city from the 1950s to 1970s — profits will go to the Dundee Museum of Transport which hopes to occupy the former Maryfield garage as a permanent home — achieved that for me with its revelation, supported by photographic evidence, of the experimental relocation of the radiator on a Daimler Fleetline for a few months in 1970/71.
In an attempt to better cool its Gardner 6LX engine, the offside rear radiator was replaced by one at the front, with the dash panel replaced for the duration by a modified one for the Alexander W-type body on Dundee’s single-deck Fleetlines and AEC Swifts. This appears to have passed unnoticed by correspondents providing information for what then was this magazine’s Scottish News Round-up section.
