British Motor Museums

22nd December 2021

BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM

Here is the story of Midland Red D9 bus. Midland red logo painted on the side along with West Bromwich Building Society advert. Reg No. 63432HA.

Since the 1920s, the Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company Ltd. (which traded by its popular name of Midland "Red"), designed and built its own buses-apart from the years during and immediately following World War II, when supply problems forced the company to buy ready-made buses.

The ultimate design of the traditional double-decker, with its engine at the front, and passenger entrance at the rear, was the "D9" type, first produced in 1959. The whole vehicle, chassis, engine and body, was designed and built by the company, this bus entering service in 1963. It spent all its working life serving the Black Country, most of the time being allocated to Stourbridge Garage.

In December 1973 the company's operations in the Birmingham and Black Country area were taken over by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive's colours of blue and cream, and worked as such until the mid-1970s.

Upon withdrawal from service it was taken into private ownership for preservation. In 2004 it was taken into the care of the Black Country Museum Transport Group, which arranged for the Transport Museum, Wythall, to return it to its former "Red" Midland colours, and the Group then completely refurbished the interior, a task completed in 2007.

A "first" for this bus during the early years of its preservation is that it was probably the only Midland "Red"-built bus to run round the famous Isle of Man TT course.

http://www.bclm.co.uk/

22.12.21

Midland Red

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