Crosville bus has a history of changes

I can provide some additional information about both the bus and the location in the picture printed in the Shropshire Star.

The photograph, by transport photographer RHG Simpson, of Oxford, was taken in Station Road, Oswestry, between 1949 and 1954. The yard to the left of the picture was the former Great Western Railway terminus (from Gobowen) and goods yard. This is now the location of a Somerfield supermarket.

The footbridge behind the bus was at the former Cambrian Railway station, on the line from Whitchurch to Welshpool. The station building is now a heritage centre with shops and offices.

Station Road is now used exclusively by buses, being Oswestry's bus station.

The bus is not London Transport-style as it is built to lowbridge specification, with a sunken gangway upstairs and rows of four seats.

It is standard Tilling-style, as used by bus owners Crosville, whose Oswestry fleet contained about six double-deckers at this time.

The bus can be likened to a broom with two heads and three handles. An AEC Regent, new in 1932 , it originally carried a highbridge open-staircase body and was powered by a petrol engine.

It was loaned to Crosville in 1943 and purchased in 1945. In 1948 the chassis was lengthened for an AEC 7.7 litre diesel engine and new Eastern Coach Works body, as in the photograph.

The chassis was scrapped in 1954 but the body was transferred to another second-hand chassis, this time a wartime Bristol K, from London Transport, in which form it lasted until 1962.

John Carroll, Whittington