Now that the British Electric Traction group of bus companies
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has been absorbed into the State-controlled National Bus Company, will this mean the end of the standard BET-style single-deck bus body?
I feel that since Bristol and ECW are now free to sell buses on the open market —and have in fact sold vehicles to ex-BET companies and to municipalities—that the BET design will be passed over. It would also appear that the creation of the new State transport system will mean an even less competitive bus chassis and bodybuilding market than exists at the present time. May I have your comments?
A It is far too soon to state what will happen ^ to the BET "Federationbody, as the NBC is only a few weeks old. Certainly a parallel can be drawn with the nationalization of the railways in 1948, where company designed locomotives continued to be built under BR control. True, BR standard engines incorporating the best features of pre-nationalization designs were built, but were not needed on main routes where the older
locomotives continued to give good service.
We feel that ECW and BET-style bodies are likely to continue in production together for some time. With the merging of the development and engineering sections of the ex-Tilling and ex-BET companies it seems probable that a new NBC standard body vvIll eventually be designed, while certain standardization features will also be called for in future bus chassis.
However, neither Bristol nor ECW could possibly cope with the total demand of the NBC, not to mention the Scottish Bus Group and municipalities, and other chassis builders (in short ,the BLMCgroup) and bodybuilders will be required to meet the full demand.
As for less competition among chassis and bodybuilders in the future, some rationalization of chassis design and production can be expected within the BLMC. It could well be that the standard chassis produced for State-owned companies will become the "standard" chassis for all operators. However. the BLMC is a very export-orientated company and with competition for export orders becoming even stronger, new models introduced to satisfy this demand could well become available for UK operators.
Meanwhile, several coachbuilders will still be required to produce bodies for Stateowned companies, in competition with each other, even lf a new standard body is specified. All this is, of course, speculation. What does eventually happen will be recorded in the news or feature pages of CM.