The Leyland B15 Titan is a rear-engined double-decker bus manufactured by British Leyland between 1977 and 1984, primarily for London Transport.

Development

thumb|left|[[John Fishwick & Sons pre-production Titan in the 1980s]]

First exhibited at the 1973 Transport and Road Research Laboratory exhibition, the Titan was conceived by British Leyland's Truck and Bus division as project B15, intended as a replacement for the Bristol VRT, Daimler Fleetline and Leyland Atlantean and developed in direct competition with the forthcoming Scania Metropolitan and the Volvo Ailsa B55. Following the success of the single-decker Leyland National, it was decided that from the outset, the vehicle would be very standardised, of integral construction, and compliant with all known commercial vehicle regulations worldwide. This allowed more flexibility in the location of mechanical components and allowed a reduced step-height. The move away from body-on-chassis construction caused concern for the bodybuilders, who had already lost market share to the Leyland National. Talks regarding licensing agreements were held with Alexander and Northern Counties, both major suppliers to their respective local markets, but no agreements were reached by Leyland.

Five prototypes (B15.01-B15.05) were constructed between 1975 and 1977, two of which were evaluated in London.

Specification

The Titan was long, wide and high. The main body structure was aluminium and the body was assembled using Avdel 'Avdelok' rivets similar to the Leyland National. Single and dual-door layouts were offered, with a number of options for the location of the staircase, and deeper windows, including one offset at the rear, were standard along the lower deck. Mechanically, independent front suspension and a drop-centre rear axle were used, with air suspension and power hydraulic brakes as standard. This caused industrial relations problems at Park Royal, with the factory's skilled workers not approving of assembling prefabricated Titan components, and as a result, production commenced very slowly.

In October 1978, as a result of competition in the area for skilled workers and an inability to expand the site, Leyland announced the AEC factory would close, with the intention of keeping Titan production at Park Royal. The very slow production rate continued at both factories, causing the cancellation of a number of existing orders, and industrial relations problems continued as Leyland sought to replace the skilled staff, who had left, with semi-skilled workers. Once this decision had been made and a productivity-related redundancy package negotiated, production increased dramatically; whereas Park Royal had taken 14 months to build the first 100 vehicles, it took just seven months to build the final 150. so after considering moving production to Charles H. Roe in Leeds, Leyland finally decided that production would recommence at an expanded facility at their Workington factory, consisting entirely of a semi-skilled workforce. It took almost a year to expand the facility, transfer the jigs and tooling from Park Royal and recommence production, with the first thirteen Titans initially built in a temporary facility near the Workington factory.

As well as the production difficulties, other aspects of the Titan specification, which was strongly influenced by London Transport, were unpopular. Power hydraulic brakes, a fixed height of and an inability to specify local bodywork all limited the Titan's appeal. The continued delays and unpopular specification both caused the loss of further Titan orders. The 1983 order also favoured Leyland, with 210 Titan and 150 Metrobuses. After London Transport decided not to order any more Titans, deeming it too expensive for its needs, Leyland ended production of the Titan upon the completion of a final batch of 240 in 1984, refocusing production towards the new and cheaper Olympian chassis.

Operators

London Transport

thumb|[[London Central Leyland Titan in Forest Hill in May 2001]]

The orders from London Transport were as follows:

  • 1979: 100 (T1–100)
  • 1980: 150 (T101–250)
  • 1981: 150 (T251–400)
  • 1982: 275 (T401–675)
  • 1983: 210 (T676–885)
  • 1984: 240 (T886–1125)

The first production Titans were delivered in August 1978 and entered service at Hornchurch garage in December 1978 on routes 165, 246 and 252. The Titan debuted a new destination display format for London Transport, with the front route number and via point blinds united into one wider and taller blind, with a similar change made to the doorside route and destination blind. The first 100 Titans were also fitted with automatic fare collection cabinets by the front entrance door, however they were removed from May 1979 with more seats fitted in their place as London Transport moved the responsibility of fare collection on one-person operated buses to the driver.

Stagecoach East London's last Titans were withdrawn in September 2001 and Selkent's in November 2001, leaving London Central with a small number of spare buses which were eventually whittled down. however after only 15 were delivered due to the closure of the Park Royal factory, GMPTE cancelled the remainder and replaced the Titans with an order for 160 MCW Metrobuses. The West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) also took delivery of five Titan demonstrators for use across its network and ordered 80 production examples, however WMPTE also cancelled this order upon the closure of Park Royal and purchased 101 locally-produced MCW Metrobuses, as well as 35 Leyland Nationals, later selling the demonstrators as non-standard to London Buses subsidiary Selkent.

Reading Transport took delivery of two Park Royal Titans to full London specification in 1979, later taking delivery of a further ten Titans from Workington in 1983, five of which had high-ratio rear axles and coach seats for express services into London. Lothian Regional Transport, Maidstone & District, Merseyside Transport, Southend Transport and Tyne & Wear Transport were eventually cancelled due to the production delays.

Parent company MTL Trust Holdings Ltd also transferred ex-London Titans to Merseyside from its London division, and ultimately, approximately 400 ex-London Titans came to Merseyside with Merseybus and the other companies within MTL. as well as many other bus companies within the Merseyside region like Aintree Coachlines, Avon Buses, GTL, Liverpool City Coaches/Citybus, Merseyline Travel and Village Group. A few of these Merseyside operators also used ex-Greater Manchester and West Midlands Titans as well and Village Group also operated the B15 prototype, NHG 732P, for a brief period during 1997-98 before being acquired by MTL in 1998.

Other users of ex-London Titans around this time included the Oxford Bus Company and Kinchbus. Further buses remained on London work under the ownership of independent contractors such as London Suburban Buses, London & Country, Borehamwood Travel Services, Blue Triangle and London Coaches' Atlas Bus subsidiary. Big Bus Tours took delivery of numerous ex-London Central Titans and had them converted to open top buses for London sightseeing operations between 1998 and 2003,