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Posted By: tigertiger1953 HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 4:21pm
The recent post about the Lloyd's Corner bus accident reminded me of an earlier one. My mother remembered it and was quite young when it happened so probably about 1927/8 or there abouts. A man was travelling on the bus with his wife around the junction of Seabank Road and King Street when standing on the rear platform he observed some clothing in the road and turned to tell his wife about it but she wasn't there. What he had seen was his wife's mangled remains lying int he road. She had fallen through an open hatch inside the bus and got mangled up by the drive shaft and other mechanical bits. Her remains were picked up and put in a sack and taken to a local cake shop. My mother said for years afterwards people in Wallasey sat with their feet up on the bus. Anyone else know about this?
Posted By: Anonymous Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 5:01pm
That sounds a horror show - and some! Must admit, I haven't heard of that before. The only hatches on the older (proper) buses I can recall was the one over the gearbox/bell housing. It was at the front end. Usually had the bodywork maker's name cast on it. Massey Bros. Wigan, Leyland Motors etc. She would have had to be of slender build to get through that though ! Interesting.
Posted By: tigertiger1953 Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 6:11pm
I have read an account of it somewhere. From my mother's account (and she witnessed the bits being picked up) I always imagined it was a bus coming from New Brighton but I think the book stated heading for New Brighton. I think the book may have been the same one that has the acount of the Lloyd's Corner accident. What struck me as rather odd was that the people present at the scene should have taken her remians to the cake shop!

'Can we leave the remains of this lady here please?'
'Yes of course, what's that love? Sausage roll and two pasties'

The mind boggles.

The remains were distributed on the road from about number 12 Seabank up to the Gaumont.
Posted By: Anonymous Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 6:42pm
Mmmmmm. I was just about to have my tea ! Thanks.
Posted By: tigertiger1953 Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 7:37pm
Oops sorry!
Posted By: TRANCENTRAL Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 8:18pm
Originally Posted by Pinzgauer
Mmmmmm. I was just about to have my tea ! Thanks.
Originally Posted by tigertiger1953
Oops sorry!
lol laugh well i was eating cake laugh
Posted By: Anonymous Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 8:33pm
Page 12 in T.B Maund's Wallasey Buses has some details on the incident

"{the Karrier DD6]...were withdrawn suddenly in August 1931 following a dreadful accident in King Street when the trap over the rear bogie of a double-decker gave way and a passenger fell through with fatal consequences".
Posted By: Anonymous Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 9:01pm
Thanks Paul. All good stuff.
Posted By: tigertiger1953 Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 10:57pm
Taxi!
Posted By: RUDEBOX Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 7th Nov 2010 11:45pm
How sad! How old was the lass?
Posted By: Worzel Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 8th Nov 2010 12:52am
No, This was a Karrier and a different design to the one that you are describing.

They had a double rear axle, so twin sets of wheels on the rear end of the bus.
Posted By: Anonymous Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 8th Nov 2010 11:42am
Originally Posted by panther
No, This was a Karrier and a different design to the one that you are describing.

They had a double rear axle, so twin sets of wheels on the rear end of the bus.


[Linked Image]
Posted By: tigertiger1953 Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 8th Nov 2010 7:25pm
Awesome machine! I remember the Atlanteans coming into service. I remember a gang of us kids (what would be 'hoodies' today) calling into the little bus office in Virginia Road and asking the inspector how many buses there were in Wallasey. Can't remember his name - think it was Lenny someone - he drank in the Clarence years later. Really nice fella and years ahead of his time in PR because other inspectors would have said P... o... to a gang of kids. But he reeled off all the buses, Atlanteans, old Leyland open back ones, Single deckers and then added....'and of course the little Bunny Bus!' That was the little 13 seater they had.
Posted By: marty99fred Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 13th Nov 2010 2:14am
From the Birkenhead Advertiser, Saturday 22nd August 1931...

Attached picture Wallasey Bus Horror.JPG
Posted By: daveybm Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 14th Nov 2010 12:04pm
A verdict of "Accidental Death" was returned, it was obviously someones fault (design fault, poor maint, whatever), if it happened today the lawyers would have a field day.

Dave
Posted By: tigertiger1953 Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 14th Nov 2010 1:12pm
Brilliant find. Looks like it was the collapsed lady who my mother seen being taken into the pie and cake shop not the deceased in pieces. Thought that was an awful thing to do to the poor tea time pastie buyers.
Posted By: Roslynmuse Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 14th Nov 2010 2:02pm
Yes, that would have been a bit too Sweeney Todd...
Posted By: dingle Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 19th Nov 2010 11:08am
There was somebody hit and killed by a bus at the bottom of Balls Rd East at the intersection with Borough Rd, sometime in early '60's. I remember hearing the inspector say to the driver "If you don't get in that bus now and take it back to the Depot, you'll never drive a bus again"! Funny how things stick with you.
Posted By: Excoriator Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 19th Nov 2010 1:49pm
I remember in the 1960s when travelling through lower tranmere on a bus. It stopped at a bus stop and failed to start again. Eventually it was realised that the driver was experiencing a heart attack.

Some passengers removed the seats from the frames and made a sort of bed for the poor chap to lie down on, and an ambulance was called from a local house.

I remember being absolutely shocked though, to find that a fair percentage of the passengers' sole concern seemed to be that they would now be late for work, and how disgusting it was that a replacement driver was taking so long to be supplied! I never thought apparently ordinary people could be so casually callous.

I never found out how the driver got on. I rang the hopital, but not being a relative of course, they could tell me nothing.
Posted By: Norton Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 9th Dec 2011 2:08pm
A fuller description of the inquest (held the previous day) was given in the Wallasey News, Saturday August 22, 1931. As was the way of reporting things then, some of the text becomes a little repetitive, as each party is reported saying almost the same thing. The Wallasey News did however, include a photograph of Mrs. Whitman.
This section of the article is appended here. Apologies for the quality as it is a scanned photocopy, but from the original newspaper.
It appears that two of the four bolts on the prop-shaft coupling had already broken and dissapeared, so when the third one did likewise it left the shaft to pivot on the remaining one, which it did, so hitting the underside of the floorboards. The bolts had been replaced earlier in the year, and the bus checked a few days before the accident. At the inquest, the bolts were said to have 'crystalised' - what we would call metal fatigue these days.
Other operators did not seem to suffer the same problem.

Attached picture Bus Tragedy 1931.jpg
Posted By: Stegga Re: HORRIFIC ACCIDENT ON BUS - 9th Dec 2011 3:49pm
I read the news report from the newspaper earier in this thread and it turns out that my brother now lives in the house that the deceased Mrs Whitman and her husband lived in at the time of the accident, how bizzare!
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