On 17 Sep, 00:51, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 16 Sep 2007, wrote:
London has a long and envious record of moquette seated trains and
buses,

I don't think i'd ever come across the word 'moquette' until i read that.
I knew what it is, just not the name!

Anyway, here's a little website on it:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museumstudies/websites06/shields/

tom


You could, for a while at least, buy from the LT Museum shop cushions
covered with old moquette - I'm pretty certain it was the actual
fabric that had been used on seats as opposed to a reproduction,
though thankfully it had been well cleaned!

A friend has a couple of these cushions and I hate them with a
passion! They're covered with the horrendous nightmare inducing old
luminous orange, yellow and muck brown moquette* that was used on
District and/or Circle line trains (I can't remember which stock), but
was also found on LT's Leyland Titan buses - none of which are in
still service, in London at least, thankfully.

These damn cushions instantly take me back to those horrendous slow,
trudging journeys on a trunk bus route served by Leyland Titans that I
used to make many moons ago. As I recall the ambience of those buses
was dire. Aside from the offending moquette, the rest of the nasty
decor, such as the yellow coloured ceiling that looked as if it was
yellowing further from age (perhaps it was), the side panelling and
the flooring were all truly in fitting with this scabby bus! When they
were stationary the engine turning over shook the whole bus - not in
an endearing manner ala the Routemaster, but in a distinctly jarring
manner - and courtesy of the then thoroughly laissez-faire attitude to
bus lanes at the time, and not just their enforcement but their very
existence (or lack of), the bus spent a lot of time stationary. I'm
pretty sure they used to break down a lot more often than their
counterparts of today too.

But of course this bus is now - inevitably (?) - the object of
nostalgia. See:
http://londonbuspageinexile.wordpres...20/titan-book-
progress/

You won't be surprised to hear me say good riddance!

* If you are a sadist you can take a look at this horrible moquette on
the LT Museum website here - if you're truly a sick individual then
you can follow their suggestion and use it as a tiled wallpaper for
your desktop. And if you're not sick and do this you soon will be...
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/76.aspx