The model
- details of this model, and DC1026, were first announced on 11th April 2019 and both were released on 19th April.
The bus
- As built, the bus was initially a
demonstrator. However, the bus went to KMB in Hong Kong in 1982 for
evaluation and after a few months was bought by them and remained in the
fleet for many years. At the time, it was the highest
capacity bus built by ECW seating 104 passengers. This was
later surpassed by another Olympian demonstrator destined for Saudi
Arabia but on a two axle 11m left hand drive Olympian chassis with three
doors (similar to the KMB example) and a separate compartment
in the lower deck for the exclusive use of women and children with a
seating capacity of 108(!).
3BL1 (as it
became known) was, in fact, one of
two 12m tri-axle chassis that was to be fitted with ECW
bodywork for Hong Kong, the second supposedly being
destined for CMB. Its
seems CMB wasn't interested as they were fitted with a Leyland
engine as opposed to the preferred Gardner so it was never shipped.
This particular vehicle stayed with Leyland and was
subsequently extensively rebuilt as a tri-axle coach and
delivered to Citybus as its C51 in 1985. This being the first Olympian
in the Citybus fleet and delivered with two new build buses to be
used on the service to Shenzhen.
My
thanks to Keith Wood for providing the above information which has been
extracted from both Mike Davis' 'Hong Kong Buses Volume 2 - Kowloon
Motor Bus' and 'ECW 1965-1987'. |