The Leyland Olympian is a 2-axle and 3-axle double-decker bus chassis that was manufactured by Leyland between 1980 and 1993. It was the last Leyland bus model in production.
The Olympian had the same chassis and running gear as the Leyland Titan integral double deck bus which was ordered in large numbers by London Transport. At the time there was a demand for non-integral vehicles, because operators wished to have the chassis bodied by other manufacturers. Thus Leyland created the B45 project, which was named Olympian, in 1979. This was in many ways an update of the popular Bristol VRT (Bristol Commercial Vehicles merged with Leyland in 1965), with many VR customers choosing Olympians. Later the Olympian also replaced the Leyland Atlantean.
The Olympian was unveiled at the 1980 Commercial Motor Show.[1] It was available in two lengths, 9.56m and 10.25m. The engine was either the Leyland TL11 unit (a development of the Leyland O.680: both were of 11.1 litre capacity) or the Gardner 6LXB or 6LXCT. Some later Olympians had CumminsL10 engines. One Olympian had a 5LXCT.
For the export market a three-axle version was built with lengths of 10.4m, 11.32m and 11.95m. This was very popular with operators such as Kowloon Motor Bus. In 1988, Leyland developed an air-conditioned version of the Olympian, with the refrigerant compressor driven by the main engine instead of a separate engine.
Between 1979 and 1981, nine demonstrators were built, before the first production Olympian entered service with Ribble Motor Services in August 1981.[2]
The Olympian was initially manufactured at the former Bristol factory in Brislington with the first thousand completed here. In 1983, production transferred to Leyland's Farington and Workington plants. The last was completed for Singapore Bus Service in March 1994.
Bodies
The Leyland Olympian was built with a wide variety of body types:
Despite placing major orders for the Leyland Titan and MCW Metrobus in the late 1970s and early 1980s London Regional Transport/London Buses in 1984 took three Leyland Olympians for evaluation.[3] With the Titan discontinued by Leyland in 1984 London Buses purchased 350 Leyland Olympians from 1986 to 1992. The majority of these had ECW bodywork although the latter deliveries had Leyland integral and Alexander R-Type bodies. The London Olympians along with their Volvo successors were gradually withdrawn in the early 2000s due to the move towards full low-floor operation in the capital by 2005 when the last Olympians were withdrawn and sold or transferred to other operators in the UK. Some of the Alexander bodied Olympians did remain in London as open top buses in use with The Original Tour.[4] NBC subsidiary London Country purchased 102 Leyland Olympians prior to deregulation with ECW and Charles H. Roe bodies for use on routes in Outer London and the home counties.[5]
All of the PTEs - with the exception of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive, who purchased the Birmingham-built MCW Metrobus - bought the Olympian in the early/mid 1980s with some PTEs building up large numbers of the type and other PTEs smaller numbers prior to privatisation and deregulation of the bus industry. Greater Manchester Transport was the largest PTE operator of the Leyland Olympian with approximately 280 purchased from 1980 to 1986. Its successor GM Buses also purchased an additional 30 in 1988/89 and all of these had bodywork by Northern Counties. The other extent were operators like Merseyside Transport who purchased 15 Olympians in an experimental fleet to evaluate various double deck types to replace the Atlantean which Merseyside like many other PTEs had built up in large numbers and continued to purchase up to mid-1984 when it was discontinued by Leyland. These had ECW and Alexander bodywork although its successor Merseybus did buy a much larger batch of 70 Olympians in 1988/89 that had a mix of Alexander and Northern Counties bodies. The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive only bought a handful of Olympians and similar to the West Midlands it preferred to go mostly with another bus type the Dennis Dominator in this period.
Lothian Regional Transport were another notable Leyland Olympian customer purchasing over 200 from 1982 right through to the change to Volvo designation - which Lothian would continue to purchase, in 1993. The early Olympians mostly had ECW bodies, however from the late 1980s Lothian began to settle on Alexander's R-Type body which it had initially purchased as the first of its type in 1982. The Leylands were withdrawn by Lothian in 2009 as they along with other operators in the industry gradually shifted to 100% low-floor vehicles in the early 2010s.[6]
The emerging groups in the post deregulation bus industry would also purchase Leyland Olympians albeit in much reduced numbers compared to before deregulation notable orders came from Stagecoach Holdings who mostly specified the Alexander R-Type along with smaller batches with integral Leyland and Northern Counties bodies and to a lesser extent the Drawlane Group who specified Leyland Olympians with East Lancs Coachbuilders bodywork mainly for its Midland Red North subsidiary.
The last remaining Leyland Olympians in regular revenue-earning service were withdrawn by Rotala-owned Preston Bus in December 2016.[7] Both the Leyland Olympian and its Volvo successor were withdrawn by public service operators ahead of a 1 January 2017 deadline set by the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR), which mandated that all public double-decker buses in the United Kingdom had a step-free entrance and at least one wheelchair space available.[8]
Exports
Greece
The state-owned Urban Transport Company (Greek: Επιχείρηση Αστικών Συγκοινωνιών[el], ΕΑΣ) of Athens received 20 Leyland Olympians in 1983, with one being a demonstrator model delivered to the operator for trials in 1982.[9] These were all withdrawn by 1 October 1994; one of them is preserved.
Citybus purchased 294 new Leyland Olympians including 2-axle Olympians (#7, #12, #14, #15, #17, #18).[14] In 1990, the Citybus fleet numbering system was changed to remove the prefixes. In the early to mid 1990s, selected 2-axle Leyland Olympians were converted to open-top for use on private hire services, complementing the operator's AEC Routemasters, however these were withdrawn gradually after 2001. #7 was the last 2-axle Leyland Olympian in Hong Kong, where it was retired in 2009 and eventually scrapped. In 2003, 54 were repatriated to the United Kingdom to operate express services for Megabus.
All Hong Kong franchised Olympians had been withdrawn by October 2011. The non-franchised, open-topped, air-conditioned double deckers and private hire buses were withdrawn by 2015 due to their non-compliance with Hong Kong's emission regulations. Citybus #391 was the last Leyland Olympian to ever run in Hong Kong.[citation needed]
Dublin Bus purchased a total of 175 Alexander (Belfast)-bodied Leyland Olympians from 1990 until the end of Leyland production in 1993, these being the first double-deckers to be built at Walter Alexander's Belfast plant since 1975.[15] The Leyland Olympians were classed as the 'RH' type in Dublin Bus fleet. Dublin Bus started to phase out Leyland Olympians beginning in December 2003 and completed in December 2006, they were not repainted into yellow/blue livery.[16][17]
In 1984, an Eastern Coach Works bodied left hand drive Olympian was sent to the United States as a demonstrator. It was used as a shuttle bus at Expo 86 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It then entered service on Gray Line tours in Victoria. It was later sold to Brampton Transit.
Grosvenor Coach Lines (Gray Line) of San Francisco received 10 Eastern Coach Works bodied three-axle Leyland Olympians in 1986 for sightseeing purposes.[18][19] Seven were later transferred to New York City and the other three to Seattle. After a period in store, the three Seattle units were repowered with Detroit Diesel engines in Los Angeles and returned to Gray Line duties in San Francisco in 2015.[20]
Singapore
Singapore Bus Services (SBS) received a single Leyland Olympian B45 for evaluation in 1981. It was exhibited at the 1980 Commercial Motor Show in the UK and was described as a "Far Eastern" prototype. It had a 3+2 transverse seating arrangement unseen in Singapore but common in Hong Kong then with a seating capacity of 97, but was eventually refitted to the standard 2+2 transverse seating arrangement before export. When registered, it bore a unique demonstration livery with the company's 1978 corporate logo not unlike a Leyland Leopard demonstrator also with SBS then. It was deployed on route 162 until its withdrawal in late 1982. It was subsequently repatriated to the UK where it worked with City of Oxford Motor Services afterwards.[21]
Satisfied with the trial, SBS ordered 200 Leyland Olympian 2-Axles fitted with Alexander R type bodywork of which they were SBS's last Leyland engine buses. Registered between 1986 and 1988, these Olympians were deployed to Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio and Jurong bus depots. In the late 1990s, they were massively redeployed to serve routes mainly in the industrial and suburban regions as most routes plying downtown were transitioning to a fully air-conditioned fleet. At the same time, some of these buses had 3 pairs of seats removed on the offside to create a standee area, while others were refitted with Allison transmission and new seat upholsterers. When SBS was renamed as SBS Transit in late 2001, none of these units received the SBS Transit livery as they were nearing the end of their statutory lifespan. All Olympians were withdrawn between 2001 and 2003. All 2-axle Leyland Olympians powered by the Leyland LT11 engine (11,093cc).
In 1992, SBS ordered another 200 Leyland Olympians, all of which were fitted with the then all new Walter Alexander Royale bodywork. Registered between 1993 and 1994, they were Singapore's first air-conditioned and tri-axle double deck buses and hence dubbed the "Superbus" owing to their length at the time. They were also the last Leylands to be built globally. Originally deployed to all SBS depots islandwide, they were consolidated into Ang Mo Kio, Braddell Bus Park, and Soon Lee bus depots in the mid 2000s. Unlike their 2-axle body counterparts and Volvo Olympians, none of these Olympians received a standee area on the off-side as the air-conditioning filter was right above the seats. Withdrawal of these buses began in 2010, and the last Olympians were retired in April 2013. All tri-axle Leyland Olympians powered by the Cummins LT10-B252 engine (10,014cc) and ZF Ecomat 4HP 500 4-speed transmission.
SBS9168S, the last Leyland Olympian built, was repatriated to England in 2013 and is currently preserved by Dave Rogers and re-registered as L888 SBS.[22]
The Leyland Olympian was superseded by the Volvo Olympian, with the existing chassis retained and a Volvo TD102KF engine replacing the Gardner engine option.[26][27] The Volvo Olympian remained in production until 2000.
↑Sheriff, Iain (20 November 1982). "Double-deck success for Leyland in Athens". Commercial Motor. Vol.156, no.3991. Sutton: IPC Transport Press. p.23. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
↑"Hong Kong buys". Commercial Motor. Vol.165, no.4215. Sutton: Reed Business Publishing. 4 April 1987. p.20. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
↑"Volvo power for Olympian". Commercial Motor. Vol.175, no.4461. Sutton: Reed Business Publishing. 27 February 1992. p.18. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
↑"Volvo opens bus lines in Irvine". Commercial Motor. Vol.177, no.4517. Sutton: Reed Business Publishing. 1 April 1993. p.10. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
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Preserved West Riding Buses ECW-bodied Olympian at a Dewsbury Bus Museum running day
