A Bus Thread!
 

This is what I love about PPRuNe - you never know where the thread is going to go.

How long before the flight time, did the bus depart and what happened when the bus arrived at Heathrow? Did it drive straight to the aircraft?

I was having trouble visualising the current airport layout on The SSK's map, so I made an approximate overlay, from a modern map.

It is hard to believe there was a complete grass aerodrome between the central area and T4:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...eathrowMap.jpg

map age?
 

The SSK
Are you sure the map is immediately prewar? It shows the Colnbrook bypass and I thought that wasn't built until much later:confused:
The bypass was 3 lanes, one each way and a take your chance suicide lane in the centre:eek:
It shows the 'Punchbowl' pub, but not possibly the most famous of them all the 'Ostrich' located in Colnbrook high street.

Found my answer in a previous thread.

Seems this is a 1940 revision of a prewar map, the roads lined in red, like the Colnbrook bypass and the GWR Extension, were additions since the earlier version.

You wait - before long it will be "Tugs that used to push me back ....." :)

Quite right too. it is all avation nostalgia and history.

A few pics at LHR taken by me in 1958. Taken with a Brownie 127 so quality not the best!

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...e/scan0007.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...e/scan0006.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...e/scan0004.jpg

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...e/scan0003.jpg

Old OS Maps
 

for anyone who wants to see old maps, I have found an interesting site at :

www.ponies.me.uk

This is a very clever site where someone has scanned in OS maps from the 1920/30/40s and correctly positioned them. You can zoom in to nearly anywhere in the country.

The clever bit is the "Transparency Slider" at the bottom via which you can overlay the current road layout.

The Heathrow area does show "Heathrow Aerodrome", but not much else !!

Try it.

A film showing the early days of Heathrow can be found here or here.

A little more as a policeman in 1970 for the BAAC the tower at Northside was used by the Police vehicle removal unit but was bulldozed that year I am sure. I never had the pleasure of going into it. Forward to the LHR - JFK first Concorde flight you could actually drive unchecked from the southside peri road past the Air India Hangar and park up alongside the runway and watch the aircraft as 100's did on that day, which was please? Off the Northern Oeri were a couple of Brittania size hangars and I recall 2 parked up Brits? in Northeast livery in 1970 and a cargo company Saggitair always coming in on full emergencys? Many hights were foggy and the the T5 sewage farm was all open to the public, it was often a very spookey place LHR, illegals living under T2 with cooking areas and beds and a civil defence room under the entry roadway.

Hanger - A listed structure
 

One of these hanger arches ( nearest to Hatton Cross tube station) is still visible. The others have a modern extention in front of them.
I understand that they are the largest unsupported arches of their era.



http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...e/scan0003.jpg

[pedant] They are not actually arches but beams cantilevered out from vertical supports either side of the opening. [/pedant]

That Britannia, G-AOVG was the plane me and my wife flew on from Luton to Basle on our honeymoon in 1972. It was with Monarch then.

Sorry about the thread drift, carry on!

A4 Colnbrook bypass opened 1929. 3 lanes, 36 foot wide road was common rural main road specification from the late 1920s until 1950s. Yes, it was rural then.

Great West Road, alias the Hounslow bypass, was a little later, and dual carriageway as to urban spec.

What a great You Tube clip on LHR construction, gee you wonder how it ever got built without the lads wearing fluoro shirts and ear muffs! ;)

Duckbutt

Thanks for your expert description. Your [pedant] was well justified.
I knew they were something special hence they are protected but I had no idea of the technical name.

( About ten years ago BA had to get English Heritage clearance before A/C could be installed A/C = Air Conditioning in the offices)
This presented big problems because the detailed building plans had been lost.

Looking again at the photo.
Behind the A/C tail appears to be TBC ( Technical Block C) under construction but still there with Speedbird House on the left.

So this view of the hanger still exists today but with the new road from Hatton Cross to North side passing in front of it.

I recommend a book entitled Heathrow 2000 Years of History, by Philip Sherwood. First published in 1999 my copy is from the 2001 reprint. It is on Sutton Publishing and the ISBN is 0-7509-2132-3. The book contains many interesting photographs and maps, especially those in chapter eight. It is also vey thought provoking as to how the place has changed even since this book was published.

re the previous posts in this thread, thanks for the excellent pictures. I have only been at Heathrow since 1979 so am still really a newbie.

Haethrow building site
 

I first saw LHR in March 1963... a building site, a mess.
I worked there for 8 years until 1971
It is still a building site, a bigger mess, a place best avoided.
Great pictures!

Returning to buses; anyone remember the film 'The Runaway Bus' with Frankie Howerd and Margaret Rutherford? Frankie was an airport bus driver employed by either BEA or BOAC; at a fogbound London Airport in about '53 (so you didn't see a lot of the airport) he has to transfer some passengers to Blackbushe - and gets lost in the fog in the army ranges near Bagshot!!

Good grief! I have not thought about "the Runaway Bus" in years. It was Frankie Howard's first film if I remember right. He was the driver of a BOAC bus. There had been a bullion robbery at Heathrow and the the thieves had stored the bullion on the bus. The crooked mastermind was also on the bus, but I cannot remember who it was.

May be wrong - it's years since I last saw it but it has been shown on TV - it turned out to be Margaret Rutherford (thread creep - the 'original' Miss Marple)