Eastern Coach Works

ECW

EASTERN COACH WORKS

Eastern Coach Works can trace its roots back to 1912, when United Automobile Services was founded in Lowestoft to run local bus services. United began a coach building business in the town in 1920. In 1931 the East Anglia operations of United were sold to the new Eastern Counties Omnibus Company, who inherited the coachworks.

By now the coachworks was concentrating on building bus and coach bodies and had a workforce of over 600 people. In July 1936, the works were separated from the bus company into Eastern Coach Works. At its peak of production ECW had 1,200 employees on its 30-acre site, off Laundry Way (later renamed Eastern Way).

In May 1940, the factory received Government orders to stop production. It was thought, following the outbreak of World War II, the east coast would be an early target for a German invasion. So all vehicles were moved from the site to stop them falling into enemy hands. As a result of this, 950 staff were laid off. By 1947 production was back to pre-war levels.

ECW was nationalised in 1947. For the next 18 years, its business was mainly building bus and coach bodies mounted on Bristol chassis, for state-owned operators (mainly in the Tilling Group).

In 1965, the state-owned Transport Holding Company sold a 25% share in ECW to Leyland Motors Ltd, which enabled ECW to sell to municipal and private bus companies again. In 1969, ECW became part of a 50/50 joint venture between the new National Bus Company and British Leyland.

The joint venture ended in 1982, when British Leyland took control of ECW. However, de-regulation in 1986 and privatisation of the NBC resulted in a dramatic fall in orders for new full-size buses. As a result, Leyland closed the ECW factory in January 1987. The buildings were then demolished. The factory site is now a retail park.

Coach Work for Bristol RELH

Bristol and ECW engineers worked closely together on each new design. It was a long-held tradition at ECW that they gently evolved their body designs for each new chassis, rather than radically designing new coachwork. The design for the new RELH coach body was an update of the coachwork ECW had built for several years on the previous Bristol MW chassis. As a result, the design of Ruby, even when new, looked rooted in the 1950's. The prototype coach on the Bristol RELH chassis had five window bays, with the last two rearmost also being slightly shallower. See image here>

All future production models of the Bristol RELH coach had four, longer window bays, giving them a much sleeker look.

As the rear engine had taken-up the luggage space in the boot, ECW designed these coaches with deeper re-enforced interior overhead luggage racks.

From 1946 ECW bodies were constructed using aluminium alloy frames, which were light, yet strong and did not rust. ECW frames were known for their long and trouble-free service-life. However, one longer-term issue in ECW construction was the use of hardwood in some parts of their coachwork (which suffered rot after many years in service, needing expensive replacement).

ECW also made extensive use of fibre-glass for front and rear panels; roof domes; side locker doors; interior luggage racks and the interior front dashboard.

All Bristol RE's with ECW bodies were hand painted and varnished (spray painting was only introduced in the factory in the late-1970's).

From 1963 to 1970, ECW built 413 mark-1 coach bodies on Bristol RELH chassis. Today, 24 survive and of those 14 are roadworthy.

Considering they were built over 50 years ago, that's a remarkable achievement and shows just how well they were designed and made!

Visit our archive page to see original ECW paperwork for Ruby.

This logo was displayed inside at the front of all their coachwork.
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OAX 8F

Official photograph taken at Eastern Coach Works factory on 23 January 1968 of OAX 8F, by Laurence Gall (Commercial photographer used by ECW).
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GWO 4D Interior

Photograph taken on 4 January 1966 of GWO 4D at Lowestoft by Laurence Gall (the official ECW photographer).
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GWO 4D interior

Photograph taken on 4 January 1966 of GWO 4D at Lowestoft.
Images from the ECW Archive collection (courtesy of S Butler).
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Original coachwork drawing - nearside.
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Original coachwork drawing - offside.
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Original coachwork drawing - interior seat layout.
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Eastern Coach Works factory front doors.
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Original coachwork drawing - front.
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Original coachwork drawing - rear.
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Article about ECW from 1971.

Section 1.
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Article about ECW from 1971.

Section 2.
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Views of the Eastern Coach Works factory.

Inside with coachwork under construction on Bristol Lodekka, Bristol RELL & RELH chassis, during 1968.

An aerial view of the whole factory site from 1962.

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The skilled craftsmen at ECW manufactured most of the coachwork themselves by hand from raw materials - aluminium, steel, hardwood and fibreglass. However, they bought-in components from specialist manufacturers - here we list most of the suppliers ECW used to build our Ruby:

Brifex - leather cloth material used on interior side walls; front & rear domes & underside of luggage racks.
CAV - electrical control panel, rear lights, fog light, door controls.
Chapman - driver’s pedestal 'A.D type' seat.
Clayton Dewandre – floor-mounted saloon fan heaters.
Frankmann - exterior front trafficator lights.
Kelbus – destination blind winding equipment.
Linoleum - flooring for luggage lockers & kick panels in saloon.
Lucas - exterior headlight units.
Nesthill - exterior rear view mirrors.
Philips - interior fluorescent light tubes & ballast units.
Rawlings - 'Vortex' roof-mounted ventilators.
Simms - electrical control panels and switches.
Smiths - electrical switch panel, trafficator switch, overhead air vents (under luggage racks).
Treadmaster - cork vinyl flooring.
Warerite - window panel laminated plastic inserts.
Weathershields - opening sky-lights.
Wilmot Breedon - chrome ash trays (installed in seat arm rests) and seat-back grab handles.