Bus Shite

[Pillock]

yet the train spotters get all over excited if Vintage traction is used in daily service , whether that;s the HST or heritage diesels hauling inaccessible stock vis the roll out of new stock such as the 80x series of units

An HST is accessible with a ramp, although yeah that's not ideal long term. In terms of speed and comfort, they're equal to or better than the latest sets. Line speed is rarely over 125mph.

 

Heritage locos with old stock I think are only used as an alternative to equally inaccessible and shonky DMUs, for example on the wherry lines in place of a 150/155

 

The two buses in the picture are more akin to replacing an 800 with a 101 DMU or even a steam train and compartment rolling stock, there's quite an age difference there. I'd be equally horrified if either of those turned up to get me to work on time

[martc]

Perhaps, but one will take wheelchairs, get there faster and be more comfortable. They're nice to look at but I'd be horrified if a vintage bus turned up to get me to work every day on time.

 

and all the resulting railway chat

 

You can do this for real, including lack of wheelchair access, each time a Class 142 Pacer turns up.

 

(for the uninitiated, it's the type with the Leyland National coachwork (and lack of wheelchair access which will be the death of them - hurrah))

[rml2345]

I had a hurl on a Pacer last year and thought it was quite acceptable really. However I don't have to use one every day so the novelty hasn't worn off.

[martc]

I had a hurl on a Pacer last year and thought it was quite acceptable really. However I don't have to use one every day so the novelty hasn't worn off.

 

The novelty soon wears off...

[Yoss]

Perhaps, but one will take wheelchairs, get there faster and be more comfortable. They're nice to look at but I'd be horrified if a vintage bus turned up to get me to work every day on time.

 

Can't argue with the wheelchairs but as for speed and comfort I'd be quite happy. Not top speed obviously but it was quite happy in the Watford traffic and if they put them on our local route here in Southampton I reckon it would have no trouble keeping to time. And the seats were more comfortable than these modern ones with a bit of fabric stretched over a piece of plastic.

 

If one of these turned up to take me to work every day I'd happily leave the car at home.

[Felly Magic]

As a wheelchair user now, I'm glad of low floor buses, handy for me to get about, and our buses locally have free wifi, but bizarrely my phone doesn't like the connection, so have to log on to here to get online

[Guest Hooli]

I've just found this, no info about it at all.

 

[STUNO]

T'other day I passed 9 new Optare buses heading South on the main highway. Turns out they were part of an initial order of 114 for Wellington routes and will be in service approx June.

[Inspector Morose]

They do seem to like their Optare products in your neck of the woods for some reason. Loads of ex-UK second hand models have ventured there over the years.

[3VOM]

I've just found this, no info about it at all.

 

Camper Coach.jpg

Maybe it's an attempt at a "non-permanent structure" to get round Planning rules.

[busmansholiday]

The novelty soon wears off...

There's no novelty when you're had them for as long as we have, pic I posted on railshite of my well equipped local station and either of these piles of shite are liable to welcome me on Sunday when I head into Sheffield to visit friends...

[busmansholiday]

They do seem to like their Optare products in your neck of the woods for some reason. Loads of ex-UK second hand models have ventured there over the years.

£21 million order for 114 Metro City Euro6 single decks for Tranzit Coachlines so guess this is part of it. Latest Buses mag has a pic of one in n test here.

[busmansholiday]

I've just found this, no info about it at all.

 

Camper Coach.jpg

Looks like Caetano bodywork, possibly on Toyota chassis.

[ProgRocker]

I hope it's OK to post these on this thread...

 

Bedford Duple Vega Coach (1) by Matt, on Flickr

Bedford Duple Vega coach (2) by Matt, on Flickr

Bedford Duple Vega coach (3) by Matt, on Flickr

[Asimo]

That Bedford takes me back!

My school trips were on coaches like this. School jobs clearly went to the lowest bidder who of course was running old knackers on their last legs, every trip in a different old heap!

(Nostalgiavision mode ON)

The scrap to be first on and rush to get pole position on the back seat, thumping the dust out of every seat-back. Leaky skylights, gum in my hair, smell of sick, "rugby" songs, drivers and teachers threatening violence if I did that again..........passing-out in the gangway after necking an entire bottle of Martini-Rosso (bought because Martini sponsored racing cars)..... 

[quicksilver]

That belongs to the same firm who have the half-dismantled one in the eBay tat thread. They must do well out of classic coaches as they've apparently got several other Bedford OBs and SBs as well as an Albion.

[Vantman]

An interesting KTM motorcycle mobile showroom---I bet it got a bit hot inside there!

 

[willswitchengage]

Went to Denmark at the weekend. Weren't these actually called the East Lancs Nordic?

 

 

Also later saw these in Stockholm. Not sure what brand they were but it was an odd low floor, mid engined layout where the cooling system was roof mounted above the driver. Pipework porn. Incidentally, everything there was MAN. Hardly any Scanias or Volvos in sight. Odd as I thought this would the last bastion of non-German stuff in Europe.

 

[tooSavvy]

An interesting KTM motorcycle mobile showroom---I bet it got a bit hot inside there!

 

mcb.jpg

.... that guy, on the bridge, is shouting to the photographer "Oi!, ya dooinn it rong, m8"

 

©SavvySelfie

[petermchugh79]

I think the bridge was the winner

 

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[Inspector Morose]

One under, one over.

 

[Felly Magic]

Been reading in the trade press that Firstgroup may be broken up, an American investment firm is trying to take over, but of course will only want the juicy inner city operations. All I can think of is 2 words, job losses, some pen pusher stateside won't have a clue how to run a bus company in Blighty, that is certain, worrying times ahead for many of my mates who work for them

[Mrs6C]

A bit of a mystery to be solved! Driving home from work yesterday, an old coach went the other way on a rural back road near Calverton, Milton Keynes, heading into town. It was a pale blue colour, with big single round headlights. It was in 'barn find' condition and trailing a cloud of thick, deep grey (not blue!) smoke. The chap driving looked to be in his late 50s/60s. What was it doing, sneaking around the back roads of Milton Keynes on a pre-Bank Holiday Thursday evening at rush hour? It did look lovely.

 

The registration number was 316 DBM and looking on the 'Bus Lists on the Web' website ( http://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/ ) another coach with reg. no. 314 DBM was a March 1961 Ford Thames 570E Duple C41F, owned by Travel House in Luton. A quick trawl of the web shows that to be pretty much what I think I saw and in the right kind of colour scheme, too. If so, registered just two numbers away, it might have been from the same bus company.

 

Has anyone else spotted this around?

[davidfowler2000]

Went to Denmark at the weekend. Weren't these actually called the East Lancs Nordic?

 

IMG_20180421_115635412.jpg

 

Yes. Those were / are East Lancs Nordic bodied Volvo B7Ls. Didn't think there were any left in the wild over there. Copenhagen had a good sized batch of them in 3 door configuration. The UK only ever saw 10, all new to First Glasgow on a 10 year lease from Volvo. They mostly went to Tyrers of Adlington and MASS Engineering for Brightbus school buses but since the demise of MASS, they're all over the place. Notts & Derby are running a couple ex MASS for schools and the park and ride. 2 have also suffered thermal incidents.

[Felly Magic]

Apollo are putting the screws on First re a takeover, and retrenchment has already started in East Anglia, Clacton depot is for the boot, and Go Ahead Hedingham, a bankrupt company totally written off has said they will cover the Clacton town services, the problem with that is, Hedingham piss off at school times, and are as reliable as a brand new Morris Marina. First recently deliberately made Clacton look even worse on paper by transferring 06 plate Omnicitys. 

[LightBulbFun]

I think the bridge was the winner DSC_0009_3.JPG

 

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

Whoa the hell happened to that! iv seen a few buses get a free hair cut by low bridges but I have never seen any come out as bad as that one has the entire body looks twisted.... (Looks like its an Alexander ALX400 of some kind)

 

 

One under, one over.

 

image.jpeg

 

"claire pendrous" did not expect to see her name on the autoshite forums! she has a very nice and rare collection of street lights (and a good number of rare lightbulbs to go with them    ) and is well known among the street light collectors community  (I have 2 Thorn and 2 GEC, Ex MOD 2ft 40W T12 Red coloured fluorescent tubes and a 30W 3ft T12 Atlas, Green coloured fluorescent tube from her )

[Zelandeth]

Whoa the hell happened to that! iv seen a few buses get a free hair cut by low bridges but I have never seen any come out as bad as that one has the entire body looks twisted.... (Looks like its an Alexander ALX400 of some kind)

 

 

 

"claire pendrous" did not expect to see her name on the autoshite forums! she has a very nice and rare collection of street lights (and a good number of rare lightbulbs to go with them ) and is well known among the street light collectors community (I have 2 Thorn and 2 GEC, Ex MOD 2ft 40W T12 Red coloured fluorescent tubes and a 30W 3ft T12 Atlas, Green coloured fluorescent tube from her )

Knew I recognised the name, but was pulling my hair out trying to figure out where the heck from. Got a few bits and pieces in the vastly-in-need-of-auditing boxes of lighting stuff that I'd never have found save for Claire selling some stuff off a few years back.

 

My guess is it was a low enough bridge that ALX400 went into was low enough that it smacked it hard enough to shove the upper deck floor backwards and sideways.

 

One of those on a B7TL chassis was on the list of most underpowered vehicles I'd ever driven. Other highlights were wing mirrors that vibrated so much at idle you couldn't see out of them and a windscreen that used to get more water on the inside surface than outside if it rained. The main reason for the vastly underpowered behaviour when I drove it turned out to be due to it being sideswiped in traffic...they repaired the panel, nobody noticed the end of the exhaust had been folded over though and it was trying to breath though a hole about 3/4" in diameter...no wonder it was struggling! Never drove it again myself, but I'm told it was far better after some careful attention with a hammer to the exhaust tip.

[Yoss]

The Bursledon Brickworks site continues to evolve. I hadn't been up there for about a month and each time I go it's changed slightly.

 

The two Guys are just visiting. Things like this really do need to be kept undercover, especially if it's an open top.

Note the red and white striped grille on 64. This was for a rerun a couple of years ago of the Saints FA cup victory parade of 1976. It's the only thing they've ever won and Saints fans still go on about it now. Anyway 64 was the bus used for the parade 42 years ago so they decided to do a 40th anniversary rerun.

 

Some random shots from the top deck of Atlantean 256. This is used as spares bus and store. They make great sheds.

 

Regent V 367.

 

Arty shot from the top of my bus through the windows of Olympian 289.

 

I forgot to isolate the batteries when I left last time so the bus was inevitably dead when I got there. So the batteries came home with me in the back of the Fav. Who needs a van?

 

 

 

 

 

I was just about to leave when I thought I could hear a distant chuffing. I started looking around for a train (there's a narrow gauge railway runs around the museum site). Could see nothing at first then noticed this in the distance. There is a big shed full of traction engines at the bottom of the Brickworks.

My car was in the way at this point as I was just closing up the bus section so I moved it up to the gate out of the way. I didn't want to be responsible for making it stop, I don't know how much effort is involved getting it going again.

 

The Land Rover was attached to the back of the engine with a rigid bar.

 

You know all those immaculate traction engines you see at shows with their polished brass and shiny lined paintwork and intricate hand painted lettering?

 

Well look at the patina on this!

It must have taken years to build up a finish like this. That's how they should look.

 

So I asked them where they were off to and they said Twyford Waterworks. So from one old industrial museum to another. 'Oh that's not too far then' I said then realised as I said it that it probably is in one of these. Two and a half to three hours the chap said. To do thirteen miles.

[quicksilver]

A bit of a mystery to be solved! Driving home from work yesterday, an old coach went the other way on a rural back road near Calverton, Milton Keynes, heading into town. It was a pale blue colour, with big single round headlights. It was in 'barn find' condition and trailing a cloud of thick, deep grey (not blue!) smoke. The chap driving looked to be in his late 50s/60s. What was it doing, sneaking around the back roads of Milton Keynes on a pre-Bank Holiday Thursday evening at rush hour? It did look lovely.

 

The registration number was 316 DBM and looking on the 'Bus Lists on the Web' website ( http://www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/ ) another coach with reg. no. 314 DBM was a March 1961 Ford Thames 570E Duple C41F, owned by Travel House in Luton. A quick trawl of the web shows that to be pretty much what I think I saw and in the right kind of colour scheme, too. If so, registered just two numbers away, it might have been from the same bus company.

 

Has anyone else spotted this around?

 

I can't find any trace of 316 DBM so I reckon the vehicle you saw is indeed the very same 314 DBM, recorded as a caravan in Milton Keynes and currently taxed. It's a Duple Yeoman-bodied Ford Thames, common at the time but now extremely rare and I've never seen one at a show.

 

Found a pic of it

Former Rainbows of Westbury 314DBM. by EYBusman, on Flickr

[Felly Magic]

My mate Turbogob Turner in Leeds owns a Yeoman, it's currently having a couple of years break due to spare parts issues. It has featured on the cover of Bus & Coach Preservation, and had a feature of it when it returned to the road after a 15 year layup, other toys in the fleet are having priority atm, such as the Leopard Supreme & Optare Intershittypacer

 

Here's a short vid of it 'improving the climate' as Junkman would say. One day he will get his Regent V restored, he also has an utterly basket case Bedford SBG Duple, that needs a lotto win