The model
- whilst details of DC1029 were announced on 11th July 2019, no mention was made of this version until both were released on 19th July.
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'. |