cms206

After three and a half years at Marbill, I am on the move again; I didn't want to particularly but circumstances dictate otherwise. I will miss the place incredibly. I start a week on Monday with Stagecoach in a backroad town called London. Shitting. It.

Just been out a supervised drive in this...

The Camaro is Kidco, has a hole in the back... car launcher maybe? The Dome only has Dome underneath.

Tatshop finds from this week.

Got papped in Blackpool yesterday... two bus job and traffic gave my bus to another driver because I had "more experience" so had to drive the newer bus.

This one's an Excalibur.

Stolen from a facebook friend; Glasgow in the 1990s in bus form.

LT never managed to succeed in replacing the Routemaster because they didn't want to. London wanted to London, rather than getting with the program. As my learned colleague @Inspector Morose states, LT moved the goalposts so many times on the DM/DMS that BL stood next to fuck all chance of getting anywhere near what LT thought they deserved. In the process, LT deprived operators who actually wanted Fleetlines of chassis that they too desperately needed. IIRC reading comments that some unfulfilled Fleetline orders, north of the border anyway, would have seen production continue until the late 1980s. FWIW I've driven both DM/DMS type Fleetlines and standard examples with NCME, Alexander and ECW bodies; by far the DM/DMS was by far the nicest of the first generation rear engined deckers to drive, far nicer than a "standard" Fleetline and much closer to something like a Metrobus than an Atlantean. London's loss was everyone else's gain; the DM/DMS operated worldwide - even vastly overloaded in Hong Kong - without issue for decades. Fantastic machines.

I never have any luck in charity shops but blagged these today for £cheapness.

No, but we've updated the Hairnet to English dictionary just for you 😘

In the likelyhood I can do this... 1) Sunny Jim - off site - Sunday Breakfast 2) Binhoker668 - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast 3) HillmanImp - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast 4) Ghosty - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast 5) HorribleMercedes - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast 6) Jim Bell - Off site - No breakfast 7) MondeoBlues - Saturday night camping - Sunday Breakfast 8 Catsinthewelder - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast (1 to 4) 9) Aldo135 - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast x4 10) AnnoyingPentium - Both nights camping - Sunday Breakfast - TBC 11) Brownnova: both nights camping plus square breakfastage. 12) Captain_70s - Both nights camping, Sunday breakfast. 13) cms206 - two nights camping, all of the food

Popped into a smaller Tesco in the arse end of a housing estate today while on a job - destroyed my hands free headset and needed a replacement quickstyle. Glad I did...

14th/15th works best for me.

Proton Perdana. There were a handful of official imports. Last I saw for sale was in Northern Ireland during COVID from memory. Likewise the Proton Preve, but I'm not sure any of those escaped Proton UK despite several being registered.

Not much in it, but... https://autoshite.com/topic/38199-proton-persona-diesel/

I've got a diesel Persona...

Also for the first time in a long time I managed a shift in this recently; new as SA02 RZB, this Volvo B12M has been on fleet since new in May 2002, having outlasted all it's newer and older Volvo Van Hool siblings here.

Some day in the life shit from the past wee while; been jumping between buses a lot.

Previously L467 LWU; bizarrely registered smack bang in the middle of a batch of Renaults.

Grew arms and legs... couldn't get the ABS sensor out, workshop destroyed it trying to get the sensor out and in the process damaged the ABS ring. Hub had to come off as the ABS ring is part of the hub. The (original and still servicable after 470,000km) brake discs were welded to the hubs. This ran to a new hub, hubnut, hubseal, disc, pads, ABS ring & ABS sensor. Built back up. Other side started showing a fault due to inconsistent readings across the axle. Cue the other side... same again. Two hubnuts, two hubseals, two hubs, two discs, two sets of pads, two ABS rings, two ABS sensors, plus a caliper rebuild. Not bad for a missed hammer blow to an ABS sensor 😂

It was off for MOT for a week and a half - normally we test on a Thursday, with the week prior reserved for works. It passed MOT on the Thursday, was off the road Friday, I did a football with it on the Saturday and it threw on every warning light. Just got it back yesterday after a back end rebuild and some electrical work. For those interested, it had eaten an ABS sensor... which turned into two hubnuts, two hubseals, two hubs, two sensors, two ABS rings, two back discs, a full set of rear pads and a caliper. Buses can be bastards too 😂

After about five weeks without it, I'm finally back in my MAN 19.360 and fuck me does it feel like a Rolls Royce compared to a Temsa Safari HD12; silky smooth and piles of torque. Forgot how much I'm spoiled with it. College run round the Vale of Leven in about half an hour then off to Glenafton Park in New Cumnock this evening with the Clydebank supporters club - let it never be said the life of a coach driver isn't glamorous.

At times I'm enormously pleased that I mercilessly bullied you into buying this. It is ACE. I'm 20 years driving next July 😳

JOK 229N was 1 BOV from new; JOK-N was a re-reg series.

A pearoast from The Mundane Public Transport Archive on facebook; FPB7 , myself and others have done some scribblings which aren't entirely aimed at the bus spottist. Please do check it out. -- 758BC001. A stardate? A Mercedes partnumber? Neither; but it was a first, and it does - only just, sadly - cling to life. Plaxtons aging Panorama range had been facelifted several times from it's introduction in the 1950s, morphing into the incredibly handsome Panorama Elite III by the early 70s. Just as Duple's Dominant had replaced the Viceroy 1972, the Panorama's next shapeshift was imminent. The 1974 Commercial Motorshow saw the introduction of a new model from Scarborough; The Plaxton Panorama Supreme. Initially available only on Bedford's PJK and Bristol's LHS chassis, the 1974 show exhibit was of a composite framed 35-seat Panorama Supreme (Later known as Supreme II) on a Bristol LHS6L chassis which was delivered in late 1974 to Yeowart of Whitehaven in the Lakes as GHH 256N. It quickly moved on, to Winn Brothers of Brompton, Dobson's of Whickham and then to Flights where it gained cheriahed registration 567 FTG. On disposal in 1990 it became JOK 234N and passed to Summerfield of Southampton, once again re-registered OIB 1084. It passed into non-PSV use in 1991, before returning to use as a PSV with several companies between 1994 and the early 2000s. Like many midicoaches of it's age and size, it ended up with new age travellers; having been sighted several times in and around RAF Fylingdales in early 2003, 758BC001 had made the trek north to the banks of the Gare Loch where it was last reported in 2003 at the Faslane Peace Camp. Faslane Peace Camp is still active, with a small community of resident CND activists still peacefully protest at the north gate of HMNB Clyde on a weekly basis. The peace camp itself is home to two former coaches; FIL 8678 is a Plaxton Supreme IV on a Bedford chassis, new to Grindle, Cinderford as AFH 4T - 7911TC114 for the code watchers - while the other is 758BC001, that 1974 motorshow exhibit and first example of Plaxton's new "Panorama Supreme" which became GHH 256N. It remains largely complete though a local engineering firm on the Rosneath Penninsula disembowelled it for it's Leyland 401 powerplant in very recent years. Otherwise, it remains in the same position it was left in two decades ago, mere feet from the busy A814, watching traffic go by. Five decades have not been kind to her, but five decades take their toll on most... for now, though, the years continue to tick by for this one time show star in her final resting place.