SITE UPDATED 4/10/08

NEW WORKTOWN LAYOUT PAGE ADDED.

Watch the new layout take shape!

23/4/08 Worktown page, Motorising an EFE Atlantean using a Faller chassis.             

14/1/08,             O gauge signals, NOW TAKING ORDERS.(Go to signals page!)

Welcome to the site and thanks for having a look!

Bolton's Bits is a small 4mm scale model bus components company (Me!) that exists to fund the ongoing restoration of a vintage double-decker bus. I have also added a range of made to order 7mm scale railway signals for good measure! The model bus components are mostly whitemetal with a few resin parts as necessary.

Sadly I cannot take payment via the website but a printable order form is available on the site to enable you to order by post. At the moment, unless otherwise stated, all prices include P&P for simplicity and I hope to keep it that way.

All info on this site is correct to October 2008 and the site will be modified and updated as often as possible.

Watch out for new pages of news, links and photos!

Bolton122 is a 1958 Leyland Titan PD3/5 with a highbridge 74 seat East Lancs body. New to Bolton Transport it survived to be absorbed into the SELNEC fleet in 1969 but was withdrawn from service in 1974. It has been restored once in private ownership but by the time I acquired it in 1999 it need some serious work doing to it if it wasn't to collapse in a pile of rust and rotten wood.

Having regularly travelled on 122 as a child I have some emotional connection to it and when I saw it crumbling away at the back of Wigan bus depot I knew I had to save it. To have survived so long and then be be abandoned didn't seem right. Little did I know precisely how much work was ahead...expensive work!

So far the work has entailed a new back platform, new upstairs floor and fixings holding the top deck to the bottom deck, repairs to step riser and bulkheads, major body-frame repairs to both sides, new mudguard under cab, new window rubbers, re-wire  to both decks, re-fitting and painting of the lower-deck ceiling and a lot of work on the cab structure.

Still to do is the rewire of everything else, most of the woodwork to attach the lower deck panels and a good mechanical checkover. That's before I start on the seats!

All the seat cushions will need the moquette removing and the foam replacing at least but I don't have a full set yet!

So there's still plenty to keep me occupied as long as the £'s keep trickling in.

For a more detailed look at the restoration progress, please click on the link below to my fotopic site.