Aldenham Works

Infobox building
building_name = Aldenham Bus Overhaul Works


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building_type = Transport
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location = Elstree, Hertfordshire, England
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completion_date = 1940s onwards
demolition_date = June 1996
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The Aldenham Works, or Aldenham Bus Overhaul Works, was the main London Transport Bus overhaul works. It was located on the edge of the Hertfordshire village of Elstree and not Aldenham despite being official called Aldenham Works. In its heyday, 50 buses a week were overhauled there. It was opened in 1956 and finally closed in 1987. The buildings were demolished in 1996.

History

The London Transport site at Elstree had originally been bought for the Northern line. The line was to be continued from the terminus at Edgware out to Bushey in Hertfordshire. The site was used for an aircraft factory during the Second World War and the Northern line extension plan was finally dropped in 1949. It was decided to redevelop the site. The existing buildings were extended and converted into a bus overhaul works over a convert|53.3|acre|m2|sing=on site, with its own staff canteen and office blocks as well as the infamous main building, test circuit and tilt test shed where london buses were subjected to being tilted on an inverter to assess stability. The site also had a power station on site to provide power for the works. In its heyday throughout the 1960s, Aldenham works employed over 900 people. The post-war standardisation of the London Transport fleet allowed maintenance along modern production line principles. Because all buses now had the same bodies and engines, work could be carried out on a number of buses at once. Several mechanics could focus on specific parts of the engine rather than a single mechanic working on a single bus at a time.

Aldenham covered:
* Body rebuilds
* Repaints
* Major accident repairs
* Seat trimming
* Destination Blinds
* New bus preparation
* Tilt testing

Aldenham turned the overhaul of buses into an industrial operation. A bus entering the works would have its chassis removed from the body, and then the engine and gearbox removed from the chassis. Each one of these sub-structures would be sent off for inspection and overhaul on its own line. For example, the body would have any damage repaired, have a fresh coat of paint, any updates or modifications to the interior made and a new set of adverts applied. The engine and gearbox would be inspected and, if needed, overhauled. The chassis would be inspected, tested and have any service components changed or adjusted. This system meant that when the chassis was ready to be rebuilt into a bus, the first available engine, transmission and body that had been 'outshopped' was simply fitted. It was highly unlikely that a chassis would leave the works with the same body, engine or gearbox that it started with. This modular system meant that buses could be overhauled in a fraction of the time that it would take if each bus was attended to on an individual basis. Later off the peg buses such as the DMS class of Daimler Fleetline were less suited to this style of maintenance. They would be overhauled but without separating the body/chassis. In 1970 the County area (London Country) was transferred to the NBC (National Bus Company) which also helped to dramatically reduce the workload of Aldenham, with London Country establishing its own overhaul facility at Tinsley Green, and with NBC in control its vehicle purchases included more off the peg rear engined buses to replace London Transport standard RT's and Routemasters.

Aldenham was also used to prepare new buses for service, and they would be delivered to the works for preparation. Major accident repairs would also take place at Aldenham if the local garage could not handle the work in question.

Staff at Aldenham were transported in by bus, with buses running from over 40 London bus garages every day. The fleet included redundant RTs and later used ex BEA front entrance RMC vehicles.

However as changes in bus maintenance requirements reduced the need to fully overhaul vehicles, Aldenham works was deemed too expensive in London Transport's Bus Works Restructuring Programme, 1983-4, was followed in October 1985 by the decision to discontinue the practice of completely overhauling each bus every four or five years. As a result, it was decided to close the Aldenham Works. It was then taken over by a private company called BEL (Bus Engineering Limited) who took over Aldenham & Chiswick works, but Aldenham was closed in 1987 because it was too uneconomic. The site was acquired by Slough Estates, a property developer and stood mostly empty except for occasional storage of cars on the vast site until being demolished in July 1996 to make way for the Centennial Park business park.

Towards the end of its life, other parts of the works were used by British Leyland commercials as a repair centre.

Aldenham was the subject of much film time, including a 1957 British Transport film, entitled "Overhaul", about the work taking place at Aldenham. In 1962 the opening ten minute scene of Cliff Richard's musical film Summer Holiday were filmed at the Aldenham Works, and Cliff's character and friends are all supposed to be mechanics at Aldenham works. Whilst on lunch on a rainy day, they come up with the idea of converting an RT bus into a mobile home and the next 5 minutes shows them at work to the track Seven days to a holiday. These scenes were all shot in the works whilst with the normal work taking place and the employees used as genuine extras. One shot even shows Cliff on the RT, being suspended from the crane above the works.

The last film of the derelict works took place in 1992 for the BBC series "Perpetual Motion" which featured the story of the Routemaster and widely on the changes at London Transport. The episode featured samples from Overhaul, and later repeated the shots this time of the derelict works with the original voiceover dubbed onto the footage. Access to the site after closure was difficult, and few images exist of the site after closure.

References

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yDQml_5YfM - British Pathe film showing a tilt test at Aldenham]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Wxj6_ieNI Opening scenes to Summer Holiday 1963 on YouTube]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzHV-F8ux6Q&feature=related Seven days to a holiday on YouTube]
* [http://www.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/ead/277.htm Aldenham Bus Works Trade Union Records 1949-85]
* [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=aldenham&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=7.661321,22.675781&ie=UTF8&ll=51.639994,-0.308862&spn=0.007857,0.022144&t=h&z=16 GoogleMaps view of the Aldenham site undergoing redevelopment]