English: John Fishwick and Sons bus 3 (reg. BCK 706R), a Leyland Titan (B15), pictured operating the Lancashire based operator's route 121.

The exact date and location is not known. See the wider image for possible location clues. The bus was operated by Fishwicks during the 1980s (until late 1987).

This bus was the 5th of the five pre-production Titans, built by British Leyland subsidiary Park Royal Vehicles in Park Royal, London. They also built the first batch of production buses until production switched to Leyland's expanded factory in the Lillyhall Industrial Estate, Workington.

It was built in June 1977, and numbered B15.05 (the name Titan not having been adopted as yet). It had chassis number 7703050, but was redesignated 7705689 in the same month.

It was outshopped in plain red livery, with black skirt. It was in dual door highbridge 44 seat upstairs 27 down configuration (production buses were mostly H44/22). In the grille area, it had body coloured rounded headlight surrounds (black inside) which were visually separate from the understated flat radiator panel, also body coloured. This contrasts with the design used on production buses, where the headlight surrounds and panel were styled into a continuous rectangular horizontal element painted black, with smaller/narrower indicator/side lights. It also had a prominent white lettered LEYLAND badge mounted directly beneath the front windscreen.

Hired by London Transport, it was tested at Chiswick Works for 3 months, and then entered trial service out of Chalk Farm garage (code CF) on routes 3 & 24, by which time it had also received further badges, the 'dustbin lid' circular Leyland 'L' on the radiator grille and left rear, and a small rectangular lettered Titan badge on the radiator grille panel corner and rectangular lettered Leyand Titan badges on the right rear. It was also slightly repainted, receiving a white surround along the upper deck windows, losing the black skirt on the sides and rear (but not front), and gaining the white London Transport roundel on the offside (staircase).

By October 1978 it had been returned to Leyland, after which it also saw demonstrator service at other operators, including Preston and Tayside (who applied fleetnumber 100). It carried the same livery at these operators as in the London service but without the white roundel, replaced by a large Leyland L logo applied above the driver's side window.

By 1981 it was on loan with Merseyside PTE, wearing their full green/cream/black 'Merseyside Transport' livery, and fleetnumber 0029. By this time, the circular L grille badge had dissappeared.

At some point it was bought outright by Fishwicks (who also took 2 of the other prototypes). They painted it in their two tone green livery as seen here, and gave it fleet number 3. By this time it had also lost its centre door (possibly by MPTE).

In December 1987 it was purchased by London Buses division Selkent, the arms-length operator covering south east London, set up as part of the deregulation and privatisation process. By this time Titan production had ended, and sales outside London had been minimal. The production Titans had in the vast majority been delivered new to London Transport, numbered in their T-class series, allocated to garages around the east and south east. This bus was allocated T-class fleetnumber T1131, becoming the last numerical T-class (No.s T1-T1125 were new, No.s T1126-T1130 were allocated to Titans bought by London Transport second hand from West Midlands PTE in 1984). It entered service in the London Buses livery of the time, allover red with grey skirt, white cantrail line, yellow door, and with white/orange/red 'London Buses' lettered roundel. The large LEYLAND badge on the front was removed, presumably to make way for the 'pay driver/pay conductor' flap sign. It instead received the now standard smaller stylised lettered Leyland badge on the radiator grille, which was painted grey to match the inside of the headlamp surrounds, but otherwise being allover red in contrast with the black stripe of production buses.

In April 1991 it was returned to Leyland for repainting and to receive a new engine, returning a month later. While at Selkent it also lost its rounded front light clusters in favour of the more rectangular production versions, although there were not combined with the standard radiator grille. In keeping with the earlier scheme, these were also painted outer red/inner grey. In February 1992 it was re-registered with cherished plate VLT 240, removed from the withdrawn 1960 built Routemaster RM250 (which was scrapped in July 1992).

In March 1993, in preparation for disposal, it was re-registered again as TMX 535R and placed into store. Two months later it was sold to a dealer, who passed it on to Blue Triangle, who repainted it into their livery. In the next few years it saw further service with Beestons of Hadleigh, Universitybus of Hatfield (in white livery) and Aintree Coachlines of Bootle (numbered A5).

By May 1997 it had been bought for preservation by Fishwick, being re-registered to its original plate. At some point it was restored to the livery of its original London loan period, although the white LEYLAND badge was merely painted on. By the 2000s this red scheme had become faded, and the bus was put into a restoration program, seeing the removal of nearly all the bodywork panels.