MidlandRed.net

Has anyone got any clear photographs of legal lettering. I would like pics of 1960's BMMO lettering; 1970's MR lettering, and any of the post 1981 versions. This is for modelling purposes. I am currently completing some S24's in Mr red, NBC red, reversed red and white NBC, Midshires advertising, and Hereford area FREE BUS yellow liveries and would like to ensure that the legal lettering is correct.

Here is the Heron Lodge version. Somewhere, I have the Lawrence Hill one bit I will continue the search....


Regards,

Julie

I think you'll find this is the Heron Lodge version...

Would the Lawrence Hill version still have had the brackets (paretheses?) awound the WEST?

"Midland Red (West) Limited" was the legal name while owned by the National Bus Company from formation in 1981 (trading started 6th September 1981 but the company existed as a non-trading legal entity before that) until privitisation on 22nd December 1986. At privitisation the legal name changed to "Midland Red West Limited".

The company headquarters moved to Heron Lodge in 1983.

When Midland Red was split in 1981 each new company had the support from a neighbouring NBC company. Midland Red West had the support of Bristol OC and from 1981 until 15th May 1986 the MRW vehicles carried Bristol OC legal address on the legal lettering.

Bristol OC provided in the main provided legal and financial support to MRW. The Company Secretary was for many years a Bristol OC employee. This included payroll and things like invoicing for tendered bus services. These arrangement lasted well after May 1986 with MRW buying in the services before they went onto purchasing the Bristol OC

In the days before email and electronic transfers payroll involved some having to take the physical records of the hours worked by staff to Bristol for the payroll to be run before the payslips were sent back to the garages for distribution. It was not unknown for a spare bus driver to be used usually in a spare minibus to do the trip down to Bristol with payroll information

To Answer the specific question from 6th Sep 1981 until summer of 1986 the legal lettering was Midland Red (West) Ltd with the Bristol OC Lawrence Hill address.

When the legal address changed on 16th May 1986 in the main the legal address vinyl's were altered by simply changing the address part. When the brackets were removed latter that year vehicles generally only got the corrected legal lettering on repainting. At the time vehicles were being repainted into the then new red and cream livery at a fairly fast rate

As most of you know, I've been doing a bit of part-time delivery work since last autumn to fill in the time, and today I had a delivery to a place called Heron Lodge off London Road in Worcester, complete with detailed instructions on how to find it. That's OK, I'm sure I can remember the way!

The place has changed a lot since that day in May 2008 when I watched Engineering Director John Wright lock the doors for the last time.The first surprise I got was when I found the drive at the front of the building has been converted to a flower garden. Good job I spotted that as I was going to park the van there!

Spent a good ten minutes chatting to the new owner about the work that has been done and what the room were once used for. I'm glad to say the stained glass windows around the old kitchen have all survived, as has the tiled floors. I think the building is in much better hands now!

I wonder if it is subject to any kind of rules covering what could and couldn't be changed?

I remember my dad working on the conversion of one of the old department store buildings on Belle Vue Terrace into flats, the fixtures and fittings that got thrown away from the inside of that building was criminal!

Just looking back at my notes and I see it was granted Grade II listed building status way back in 1954, so I guess much of it has to stay.