Books on Buses
Here we list some books on NZ buses and bus companies.
Books on Buses Listings:
A Driving Force
The Laugesen Family and the Midland Group of Companies
Author: As told by Keith Laugesen to Halina Ogonowska-Coates, and edited by John Laugesen
Published by: J K Laugesen
Price: $25.00
Contact: John Laugesen
Phone: 03-3511-202
Email: j.a.laugesen@xtra.co.nz
This book is hard to put down. Not least because it is the story of a once very well known, but now defunct company, but also because it has been superbly researched and written. It’s description of events – especially those presented anecdotally from over a century ago – are so vividly illustrated that you could imagine yourself being there. The book is based on interviews with the late L K (Keith) Laugesen, and is drawn from comprehensive records kept by the Laugesen family. As such, it's littered with a wonderful range of historic photographs (but not a huge selection of buses) and interesting anecdotes. For example, on one page, a memo from Keith to his drivers is reproduced, in which he instructs them to stop at all unattended railway crossings, or face dismissal ! That was back in 1943, and today that same instruction (apart from threats about job security) is enshrined in law. In another telling example, Midland moved strategically closer to the tourism market by purchasing a 25% stake in inbound operator Atlantic & Pacific Travel in 1970. Keith justified the purchase on the grounds that it was “always difficult to convince tour operators that the capital needed to run a fleet of coaches was enormous, compared with that required to put together tour packages and market them to travel agents. As often as not, such arguments fell on deaf ears” – that is, until Midland became a shareholder in one of its major clients. A Driving Force is presented in two parts; the second, larger section relating mostly to the history of the Midland group of companies, the first section jumping back two generations to Keith Laugesen’s grandfather, Christian, who emigrated from Denmark in 1873 with his wife and young family. Although offering no real bearing on the Midland Group founded by his grandson, other than perhaps illustrating the strong work ethic which obviously passed on down the generations, the first section is nevertheless a fascinating read. As the forward to it states, Christian Laugesen realised after many years of hard labour, that “hard work was not enough”. He belatedly discovered that he would have to work smarter, not harder, and thus the Laugesen family legacy began. As the new émigré spent the early part of his life in Canterbury, it also offers some explanation for why the Midland Group was subsequently founded in that district. A Driving Force is an apt name for the book, for in its 54-year history, Keith Laugesen single-handedly steered the company from a two-bus operation to a nationwide operator with a fleet of 90 buses and coaches, 1,400 rental vehicles, a coachbuilding factory, interests in freight and travel agencies, and employing over 500 staff. Along the way, the company purchased well-known operators such as Edwards Motors in Auckland, Days Motors, the tour division of Johnston Blue Motors (now part of THL), and most of the Tasman rental car agencies nationwide, which were later re-branded as Hertz under a franchise agreement with the internationally-recognised American firm. It must have been satisfying, on the one hand, when selling his shares in the company in 1982 (the company was listed on the stock exchange in 1970), to be leaving such a large, well-established and successful company, but devastating, on the other hand, to witness its demise just a year later at the hands of asset-strippers Ceramco. Keith Laugesen himself died just three years later, aged 80. While bus spotters may be a little disappointed with the modest range of photos and lack of a fleet list, A Driving Force offers a much wider appeal. Those who have an interest in the life of early European settlers will find it an interesting read, while those in the industry who always wanted to know what happened to Midland, will have their curiosity well and truly satisfied.
Birkenhead's Buses
Author: Ian and Elayne Robertson
Published by: Birkenhead Transport Ltd
Price: $20.00
Contact: Order from Birkenhead Transport Limited
Phone: 09 483 9119
Email: bronwyn@birkeheadtransport.co.nz
Birkenhead’s Buses records the history of Auckland urban operator Birkenhead Transport since 1933, when the shares in the fledgling company were purchased by Charlie Inwards. The company has been family-owned since then, and is now under the stewardship of Charlie’s grandson’s, Mark Jakich and Robert Inwards. One of the most interesting aspects of reading the book is its social commentary on Birkenhead and the wider community. Birkenhead was formally a close-knit rural township, isolated from Auckland by the harbour. At that time, the company made a living ferrying passengers (and occasionally freight), to the harbour ferries. But all that changed with the construction of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and Birkenhead’s Buses clearly charts this massive social change with several interesting observations. In fact, a whole chapter is devoted to the subject, and as a non-Aucklander it would be easy to underestimate just how life-changing the bridge was to become to those that lived either side of it. Birkenhead would grow exponentially, eventually becoming “just another” suburb of Auckland. Birkenhead Transport grew too – instead of taking passengers to the ferries, they took them straight across the bridge, and the company has never looked back since. In the ensuing years, the fleet grew from 5 to 46 buses ! What marks Birkenhead’s Buses out from other bus history books is that the entire volume consists of nothing more or less than typewritten transcripts of interviews with key family members and long-serving employees. At first glance, I had reservations about this style of book, but to be fair to the authors, they have done a good editing job, and I found very few errors. Unfortunately, though, the written transcripts do tend to wander a bit. Occasionally, you find yourself skipping ahead, as some of the interviewees wander off on a tangent totally unrelated to the task at hand – recording the company history. A little more judicious editing would have made for a more concise read. Criticisms aside, the 146-page Birkenhead’s Buses is a good read and does make for an interesting social commentary on the local community. In fact, the book would not only make a good read for other bus company owners, but also drivers, as the authors made a good effort to interview long-serving employees. There is a good selection of anecdotes and humorous tales from drivers, a side of any company history which can often be overlooked. To cap it all, Birkenhead’s Buses contains a modest selection of historical bus and related photos, plus a comprehensive fleet list, so bus spotters are well catered for too !
Bus Roots
Author: Neil H. Kirk
Published by: Copyright Publishing
Price: AU$33.00
Contact: Justin Allan
Phone: 07 308 6169
Fax: 07 308 6168
Email: justinallan@uzabus.co.nz
B
Bus Roots is the story of a remarkable bus company, written by a remarkable man who spent a lifetime with the company which was based in Palmerston North and Fielding in New  Zealand, but which served the entire country well since it was founded in 1920 – this is the story of Madge Motors. Neil, born in 1916 in the small town of Fielding, New Zealand, began traveling with the equally small Madge Motors Char-a-Banc Service at age 13, to the neighboring city of Palmerston North where he was a weekday boarder at the Boy’s High School. He soon knew all the drivers and was given jobs such as punching tickets and collecting fares. At school’s end, Neil got his bus driver’s licence and worked part-time for the company while attaining his Mechanical Engineering ‘ticket’, and then became employed full time by Madge’s for the next 40 odd years. During this time his exploits in the workshop would have ‘hair raising’ results. He drove many ‘Specials’ for Massey College tutorials, school buses and occasionally provided transportation for crisis situations such as railway derailments, slips in the gorge and floods. This book is about the growth of a bus company. Madge’s buses can be seen far and wide in New Zealand today. If you see one, give it a wave, it’s come a long way.
Edwards Motors Ltd
The Story of a New Zealand Bus & Coach Operator
Author: Clive Otway & Sean Millar
Published by: Sean Millar
Price: $29.95 (incl. postage)
Contact: Sean Millar
Phone: 09-811-8975
Email: seanmillar@clear.net.nz
Address: 1137 Huia Road, Huia, Auckland 1007
Edwards Motors is the history of a long-established Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty-based operator, which started initially as a 1-man service car operation in 1928, and which rapidly expanded during the heady days of route service work in the 1930s and 1940s, before finishing up as a substantial tour coach operator prior to selling to Midland in 1969. The book is written in chronological order, broken into a handful of chapters, each one generously illustrated by period photos of the fleet, depots and staff. Much of the information in Edwards Motors appears to have been culled from timetables, newspaper clippings, staff newsletters and other material collected by co-author Clive Otway, a name which will be familiar to readers of the now-defunct Omnibus Bulletin. In particular, the various routes operated by the company through the years are listed in some considerable detail (some timetables are even reproduced in full), making it a bit of a ‘dry’ read in places. It isn’t all recycled data though, with some humorous anecdotes helping to lighten the text, such as the time a coach was hijacked by five passengers (foiled by the driver surreptitiously turning off the master switch), or the fact that the rear-engined Reos (Edwards was the first kiwi operator to launch a rear-engined coach – in 1948 !) were prone to overheating – exacerbated, in part, by newspapers thrown by drivers to farmhouses on the left side of the road opening out and getting sucked into the roof-mounted air scoop ! Much is also made of the various run-ins company founder Charles Edwards had with the transport licensing system, and its seems his two major foes were NZR Road Services (not surprisingly) and Hamilton-based operator Buses Ltd, the latter which the book describes as being a particularly “disputatious relationship”. Additional chapters are also included on employees, incidents and accidents, and a large section devoted to a description of all the buses that passed through the fleet, again supported by excellent photos. In this feature alone, the book is superior to other bus company biographies I have reviewed. In short, a comprehensive record of 41 years of bus operations – a bit too much timetable information, but more than compensated by a superb selection of period photos.
Leylands and Trolleybuses
A combined reprint and update
Author: Sean Millar/Ian Lynas
Published by: Sean Millar
Price: $29.95
Phone: 09-811-8975
Email: seanmillar@clear.net.nz
Address: 1137 Huia Road, Huia, Auckland 1007
Leylands & Trolleybuses is the latest from prolific local bus author Sean Millar, in this case a reprint of two of his volumes from the 1980s – Leyland Buses in Australia and New Zealand (1983), co-authored by Australian Ian Lynas, and Trolleybuses in New Zealand (1986). Both books have been combined into one A4 landscape-sized volume – chiefly to reduce printing costs – reproduced using the same high quality facsimile technique as his more recent work reviewed in this column. Both earlier books were published in A5 format, the Leyland volume in landscape but the trolleybuses in the more familiar portrait style. As a result, the trolleybus section reproduces two pages of the old book onto a single page of this edition, but this has afforded the single-page text and photos from the Leyland book to be usefully enlarged. In each case, the earlier work is reproduced as is, but helpfully, Mr Millar has updated both books by adding appendices with new photos and data. The Leyland section of the book covers all models sold in NZ or Australia since 1945, presented in alphabetical, rather than age, order from Atlantean through to Titan. It's primarily a photo-encyclopaedia, with only simple captions offering little data on the model, illustrating not only the huge variety of models from a manufacturer which built its first bus in 1905, but also the equally wide array of body styles that were fitted in both countries. Compared to the NZ-only bus books readers may be familiar with, the addition of Aussie buses is an interesting diversion, the reason for their original inclusion being that a book on NZ-only Leylands couldn't be published economically. The updated part of this section of the book contains a useful background on the demise of Leyland, plus details on later models which arrived after the original book was published (did you know there was a truck-derived 'FB' model sold in Australia as late as 1999 ?), along with photos of some used import double-deckers, and unusual models like the world's only articulated Tiger (alas in Australia) and the midi-sized Cub. The trolleybus half of the book is more comprehensive, and is altogether a more interesting read than the pictorial Leyland section, thanks to an in-depth explanation of all the commercial systems which ever operated in NZ, from the very first in 1924 in Wellington, which remains host to the only surviving public system in the southern hemisphere. The section begins with a national overview of the rise and fall of trolleybus systems, and readers might be interested to learn that, at the height of their popularity in the mid-1960s, there were some 333 trolleybuses in service throughout four cities. The original section concludes with an update on Designline’s prototype trolleybuses for Stagecoach, plus details of all the ‘preserved’ trolleybuses dotted throughout the country (would you believe there are over 40 in various collections covering every model that ever ran in NZ ?), and the non-commercial systems they operate on. As always with Mr Millar's work, there are an excellent range of photos which will well and truly satisfy all tastes from 'bus nuts' to casual observers, although it's worth noting that they're all reproduced in black and white – albeit to a high standard. Bus spotters are also well catered for in the trolleybus section, with fleet details along with a breakdown of the different chassis, coachbuilders and equipment suppliers which made up the NZ electric fleet.
Moa to Olymbus
70 Years of New Zealand-Built Bus Chassis
Author: Sean Millar
Published by: Sean Millar
Price: $29.95 (incl. postage)
Contact: Sean Millar
Phone: 09-811-8975
Email: seanmillar@clear.net.nz
Address: 1137 Huia Road, Huia, Auckland 1007
As its title suggests, this book chronicles the history of all locally-designed and built bus chassis. To relative newcomers to the industry, or those with little knowledge of its history, it may come as some surprise that we have even had a 70-year history of building our own bus chassis’ ! True, the book covers just seven different brands that have come and gone in that time, but the author has managed to compile it into a thoroughly detailed and comprehensively illustrated 88-page volume. Although a published volume, Moa to Olymbus doesn’t quite have the air of a ‘proper’ published book, because it is reproduced in A4 format, and rather than being printed, the pages are high quality laser copies, which are then bound together. The format is understandable though, as the potential market simply isn’t big enough to justify a print run, and at the end of the day, bus enthusiasts are better off that such a book has been published at all, regardless of the format. These criticisms aside, Mr Millar is to be congratulated for his detailed research – superbly supported by the best selection of photographs I have ever seen in a local bus book – which provide the casual reader with all the information that they are ever likely to want to know. Better still, bus enthusiasts are also well catered for, as the book is written in a kind of ‘bus spotters’ style, and hence fleet numbers (and even chassis numbers) are listed where known. The format of the book is also simple enough, with makes listed in chronological order (as the title suggests). Each make is given a brief introduction, before each model (where applicable) is detailed in turn, including technical details and production history. In summary, a worthy addition to what is a limited range of NZ bus history books.
Tranzit Through Time
The Story of Tranzit Group 1924-2000
Author: Juliet Oliver
Published by: Tranzit Group Ltd
Price: $28.00 (includes postage within NZ)
Contact: Renee Snelgrove
Phone: 06 377 1227
Email: renee@tranzit.co.nz
Tranzit Through Time tells the story of the family-owned Tranzit Group, from humble beginnings in 1924 to the present day, as told by three generations of the Snelgroves. A thoroughly researched book, it succinctly compresses a comprehensive history into one concise volume, the journey along the way providing a fascinating insight into the growth of one of New Zealand’s largest passenger transport operators. Tranzit Through Time is littered with charming asides and anecdotes, such as the friendly rivalry that existed between founder ‘AJ’ Snelgrove and his main competitor, Martin Smith. So friendly, in fact, that Smith was often a guest at the Snelgrove household for meals, and frequently Margaret Snelgrove would not know which one – her husband or Martin – would be in attendance, depending on who was out driving at the time. Tales of run-ins with transport licensing authorities – featuring regular interference from NZ Railways – abound, the author clearly illustrating how they influenced the development of the company. Several examples of licence applications are published, one passage noting that “charter permits were given on condition that fares must be all-inclusive, including the trip, the event and supper.” Tranzit Through Time is divided into three chapters – one for every generation – the dominant moments being charted in each. Chapter two covers the decades during which AJ’s son Bert Snelgrove was at the helm, while chapter three takes us to the present day of management under Bert’s sons Paul and Keven. By the late 1990’s, Tranzit Group – originally Grey Bus Service, then Royal Blue and later just Blue Bus Service – had grown under the stewardship of the third generation into a nationwide business, thanks to shareholdings in Newmans and InterCity. Along the way, they purchased eight other bus companies and added rental and freight services, expanding to 220 vehicles, 350 staff, and four depots. The book concludes as the fourth generation waits patiently in the wings. As one would expect in a bus book, Tranzit Through Time contains a broad selection of historical and modern photos – including a wonderful colour centrespread – but the main purpose of the book is not to provide a pictorial record of buses over the years, but rather a record of the history of one of NZ’s longest surviving family-owned bus companies. In this the book succeeds admirably, and anyone with an interest in passenger transport, or for that matter local history, will find this book a compelling read.
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