WRA 12 - AEC Monocoach

Bodywork: Park Royal, 45 seats

Original owner: Booth & Fisher, Halfway

Year: 1955

Part of Museum Collection

This was one of a pair of vehicles delivered new to Booth and Fisher Motor Services of Halfway, near Sheffield.  The bodywork was specially constructed to pass under a low bridge on one of their regular routes.

The bus represents an important turning point in Public Service Vehicle history.  As the name 'Monocoach' implies, the body and chassis are of integral construction.  Up to and well beyond the mid-1950s the great majority of buses had separate bodies and chassis but nowadays they are almost all of integral or semi-integral construction.

The Booth and Fisher fleet was absorbed into the South Yorkshire fleet in 1974 and this bus was completely restored by apprentices and senior instructors at the PTE training school in 1983-4.

In 2001 the Heritage Lottery Fund authorised a grant to convert the vehicle to a video-viewing saloon.

Since 2015 the Monocoach has been open to allow visitors to look and sit inside a 1950s bus and for younger visitors the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat.