On 08/08/09 03:11, D.R. wrote:
wrote in message
...

[snip]

It is purely a mistaken belief by operators that a Northern Irish
registration disguises the age of a vehicle when it does the exact opposite
and highlights its elderly state.

Erm.. so my 2007 car looks older than it is purely because of its NI
registration then..?

********.


Ivor

On 8 Aug, 00:16, wrote:
In article ,

(Graham Harrison) wrote:
I'm from the era when the registration of a Routemaster and the
stock number matched. * For instance I seem to remember something
along the lines WLT885 was RM (or was it RML) 885.

RML885 was part of the 1961 trial batch of 24 RMLs, 880-903.

But over the years, some Routemasters seem to have acquired new
registrations. * Now, I can understand that when sold on from LT
they might have received new registrations but is it that simple
and why did LT not sell with the registrations, was it because of
the "exclusivity" of the LT in WLT, VLT etc?

Some bus operators appear to have regarded the original plates as
cherished and therefore transferred them to newer buses when RMs were
sold. There was a bit of a racket involved as it enabled the new owners to
gain a new plate without a year letter at one time but later
reregistrations got "A" year letters. Then some of the sold RMs found
their way back to London after 2000.

That kind of marks them out, because none of the Routemasters
originally had A plates. They went straight to B. I don't know if
that corresponds to a break in deliveries.

In message
, MIG
writes

RML885 was part of the 1961 trial batch of 24 RMLs, 880-903.

But over the years, some Routemasters seem to have acquired new
registrations. * Now, I can understand that when sold on from LT
they might have received new registrations but is it that simple
and why did LT not sell with the registrations, was it because of
the "exclusivity" of the LT in WLT, VLT etc?

Some bus operators appear to have regarded the original plates as
cherished and therefore transferred them to newer buses when RMs were
sold. There was a bit of a racket involved as it enabled the new owners to
gain a new plate without a year letter at one time but later
reregistrations got "A" year letters. Then some of the sold RMs found
their way back to London after 2000.

That kind of marks them out, because none of the Routemasters
originally had A plates. They went straight to B. I don't know if
that corresponds to a break in deliveries.

When the registration system moved to the year suffix it was because
offices were running out of registrations. Not all local offices issued
A marks as they had not used up all their existing marks. I gather by
the time C came along all were issuing under the new system.

Also, in the case of the Routemasters, LT had a large block of numbers
allocated and would have just continued to use them until they ran out
which would have long gone past the start of the As. Things were much
more flexible back then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle...f_the_United_K
ingdom notes this further down in the history part.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

On Aug 7, 11:08*pm, Bruce wrote:
On Fri, 7 Aug 2009 22:27:57 +0100, "Graham Harrison"

wrote:
I was under the impression that Northern Irish plates were the way to hide
the age of a coach.

True; any plate without an age-related prefix or suffix will do.

With reference to coaches, one reason for using old registrations was
to escape the need to fit 62 mph speed governors (EU Directive). *All
coaches registered after a certain date had to have the governor. *But
coaches whose chassis had been registered before that date could
operate without a governor up to their legal limit of 70 mph.

So, at least for a time, there was a market in old coach chassis being
thoroughly refurbished for use under new coach bodies. *The
registration went with the chassis, so what was essentially a brand
new coach that had some older (but refurbished) chassis parts could
operate legally at 70 mph. *meanwhile, an identical body on a brand
new chassis was restricted to 62 mph (100 km/h).

I don't know if this still goes on, or whether the requirement for
governors has now been further backdated. *But that is one of the
reasons why so many coaches have old registration numbers.

This is, of course, a total misconception and the sort of assertion
that creates an urban myth.

I travel occasionally on a 40+ year-old coach that can legally cruise
at 70mph on the motorway.
The problem is that the centre lane on the motorway is "blocked" by
lorries and modern coaches limited to 62mph, so there would be no
commercial advantage in journey times, nor would there be any sense in
putting a £100,000 body on a 25+ year-old chassis to con the public.

Name me one example of your suggestion.

As DR said in his reply, it had more to do with replacing a rubbish
body on a good 10-year-old chassis.

On Aug 8, 8:45*am, John Williamson
wrote:
D.R. wrote:
It is purely a mistaken belief by operators that a Northern Irish
registration disguises the age of a vehicle when it does the exact opposite
and highlights its elderly state.

The contract for a lot of the top tour operators says that the vehicle
used must "Not *appear* more than three years old". (My emphasis).

Given this, if an operator takes the age related plate off, and puts a
dateless plate on, then the vehicle can be used on that contract for an
extra couple of years, as long as the maintenance and cleaning are kept
up. It almost doubles the useful life of what is a high cost, and still
perfectly serviceable, asset. As the passengers can't immediately tell
the age by just looking at the plate, they're none the wiser, the tour
operator's happy because there are no complaints about the ancient,
decrepit, three and a half year old coach their passengers are riding
in, and the coach operator's happy, because he's got double the use out
of the vehicle.

Incidentally, doing this also reduces the cost of providing the coach,
so the cost of the holiday is kept down, so everybody wins. Modern
coaches are designed to last over twenty years in service as against the
ten years when the tour operators' policies were put in place, so nobody
loses.

Incidentally, the operator I work for puts dateless plates on all
vehicles (Coaches *and* buses) when they come in new from the
maufacturers, so don't assume that anything with a dateless plate is old
and decrepit.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

I went away for 4 days to Brighton on National Holidays last winter on
a "hired in" coach.
National Holidays, until some recent brand new Setras, use 4 to 8-year-
old ex-Shearings/Wallace Arnold stock. Our coach was a superbly
presented 14-year-old ex-Harry Shaw Volvo on a cherished plate. Not
one of the passengers either knew or cared.

Ivor Jones gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

It is purely a mistaken belief by operators that a Northern Irish
registration disguises the age of a vehicle when it does the exact
opposite and highlights its elderly state.

Erm.. so my 2007 car looks older than it is purely because of its NI
registration then..?

Probably not, but it almost certainly looks far chavvier than it could.

Ivor Jones gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

My favorite was MXX 1 which was on an RF single decker (don't recall
which one). That would have been worth a bob or two, wonder where they
are now..? (Reg and bus..)

The plate is apparently on a red "Leyland AEC", but nothing comes up on
the VED search for it.

On Aug 7, 5:32*pm, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
I'm from the era when the registration of a Routemaster and the stock number
matched. * For instance I seem to remember something along the lines WLT885
was RM (or was it RML) 885.

But over the years, some Routemasters seem to have acquired new
registrations. * Now, I can understand that when sold on from LT they might
have received new registrations but is it that simple and why did LT not
sell with the registrations, was it because of the "exclusivity" of the LT
in WLT, VLT etc?

Having read the answers, I shall give you the correct answer.

Many Routemasters were sold to th Scottish Bus Group, i.e. Western
Scottish, Kelvin Scottish, Strathtay Scottish and Clydeside Scottish
who generally had ageing coaches.
This resulted in many Routemasters being re-registered in series like
EDS-A, LDS-A, WTS-A, EDS-B,
with the LT registrations finding their way onto the coach fleet.
These have been passed on to newer coaches over the last 20 years and
some have found their way to independent fleets with some of the sold
coaches.
East Yorkshire at Scarborough put NRH-A on some of their Routemasters.
London Transport used numbers like VLT13, 14, 15 on newer double-
deckers for vanity reasons or to keep the spirit of the old
registrations alive. The donor Routemasters carried on in service with
OYM-A registrations.
Around the country, operators of second-hand Routemasters sold the old
registrations to anyone who would pay for them. Many VLT registrations
ended up on Vale of Llangollen Tours coaches.
These donor Routemasters would often be re-registered with non-
transferable (not to be re-sold) registrations from closed LVLO
offices such as HVS, JSJ, MFF, OVS, DFH-A, XMD-A.

Move on several years and Red Ken buys many of the surviving
Routemasters back, repaints them into London Transport livery and then
it looks like LT has sold the plates for a profit.
Oh how far from the truth.

On Sat, 8 Aug 2009 04:09:41 -0700 (PDT), dfarrier
wrote:

The problem is that the centre lane on the motorway is "blocked" by
lorries and modern coaches limited to 62mph


That's strange, because lorries are restricted to 56 mph (90 km/h).

On Aug 8, 12:37*pm, Bruce wrote:
On Sat, 8 Aug 2009 04:09:41 -0700 (PDT), dfarrier

wrote:

The problem is that the centre lane on the motorway is "blocked" by
lorries and modern coaches limited to 62mph

That's strange, because lorries are restricted to 56 mph (90 km/h).

Tell that to lorry drivers.