Bus Shite

[martc]

18 hours ago, Yoss said:

 And this, I assume is advertising a Carlisle nightclub. 

Found another pic of Annabells bus (interesting spelling of Annabel/Annabelle). Don't know if it's in Carlisle or Southampton, but it's certainly getting some attention from the mob on the corner of the street.

[ETCHY]

On 9/29/2020 at 8:39 PM, busmansholiday said:

And here she is brand new, on a tour of Lancashire I organised for the local enthusiasts society in1978.

Amusingly, when we posed her outside Leyland's works entrance, the security guard wandered over, took a look and said "lots of people bring their Leyland buses here to take pictures of where they were made".

Leyland Motors entrance. Is that the one off Centurion Way or the one that was on Golden Hill in Leyland ?

I was near them both yesterday (I can never resist the chance of driving over the big tank bridge on Centurion Way).

[Yoss]

37 minutes ago, martc said:

Found another pic of Annabells bus (interesting spelling of Annabel/Annabelle). Don't know if it's in Carlisle or Southampton, but it's certainly getting some attention from the mob on the corner of the street.

I think that's Carlisle. I can't quite read the road sign but I've googled random things it looks like and there is a West Tower Street. It looks like East Tower Street which doesn't seem to exist but there is a big shopping centre to the east of West Tower Street which may not have been there pre 1987. I've also googled Annabells and my phone is really insistent on changing the spelling. Not much comes up other than a couple of mentions in some sort of banging tunes forum. Surely we have somebody on here from the Carlisle area. Not necessarily on this thread, but on the forum generally. 

[martc]

3 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I think that's Carlisle. I can't quite read the road sign but I've googled random things it looks like and there is a West Tower Street. It looks like East Tower Street which doesn't seem to exist but there is a big shopping centre to the east of West Tower Street which may not have been there pre 1987. I've also googled Annabells and my phone is really insistent on changing the spelling. Not much comes up other than a couple of mentions in some sort of banging tunes forum. Surely we have somebody on here from the Carlisle area. Not necessarily on this thread, but on the forum generally. 

So its at home. I tried looking for the night club and as you say apart from a passing mention in some young peoples forums there's nowt. I wonder what Annabells more famous cousin Annabel's in that there London thinks about this provincial upstart (it may explain the spelling difference...).

[busmansholiday]

1 hour ago, ETCHY said:

Leyland Motors entrance. Is that the one off Centurion Way or the one that was on Golden Hill in Leyland ?

Honest cannot remember.

[Saabnut]

As per my car show thread, I was at Kerrs Miniature Railway in Arbroath today for their final weekend and a fair number of busses turned up

 

[cms206]

Most of the Hampshire Bus Ailsas ended up running in Hampshire Bus colours for the original Magicbus operation in Glasgow - sure I've got photos in the 30k strong "to scan" pile.

[cms206]

As much as I often moan about Routemasters, the town I call home was part of an important era of the Routemaster saga... some shots from a collection I acquired some time ago, including some that I'm almost certain were never used.

 

[cms206]

More from the archives; Strathclyde PTE were one of the front runners in the minibus and the accessable bus revolutions, with some of the earliest vehicles converted by the PTE themselves, as well as by more established bodybuilders such as Reeve Burgess, PMT, Alexander, Carlyle, Dormobile and Devon Conversions.

[cms206]

Strathclyde also had what I think were a unique batch of half a dozen or so wheelchair accessable MCW Metroriders which carried the dual purpose colourscheme; most had reasonably long lives but remained a solitary batch.

[cms206]

Strathclyde also converted eight Leyland Atlanteans to single deck, becoming SA1-8; SA5 pictured here was the former LA979, photographed negotiating the tunnel at Lochburn Road in Maryhill.

Single deck Ailsa AS2 was the former AS10, converted after a bridge strike in 1985; it later passed to Black Prince in the early 1990s but was found to have never been recertified as a single decker and that, combined with structural issues around the front end, saw it broken for spares.

[colino]

Great to see Paisley pre-pedestrianisation with people there, still don't know how you managed to add in the sunshine though! 

[cms206]

6 minutes ago, colino said:

Great to see Paisley pre-pedestrianisation with people there, still don't know how you managed to add in the sunshine though! 

It's sunny today in Paisley too!

[willswitchengage]

1 hour ago, cms206 said:

 

 

 

What happened to the 'guess the light cluster' thread. Escort estate?

[cms206]

51 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

What happened to the 'guess the light cluster' thread. Escort estate?

... and fronts from the MkV Cortina.

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, cms206 said:

As much as I often moan about Routemasters, the town I call home was part of an important era of the Routemaster saga... some shots from a collection I acquired some time ago, including some that I'm almost certain were never used.

 

ah yeah now we are talking!  

nice to see Rodney (RM652) before she got bastardised dartmasterised, it would be fun if they painted her in her old Clydeside Scottish livery I wonder how many people in London would get what its about  (she is still in service on the heritage  Route 15 back here in London)

I also love the 38 Blinds with "Glasgow" as the ultimate destination

you could have a lot of fun driving that one around hackney I tell you LOL

[Eyersey1234]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

ah yeah now we are talking!  

nice to see Rodney (RM652) before she got bastardised dartmasterised, it would be fun if they painted her in her old Clydeside Scottish livery I wonder how many people in London would get what its about  (she is still in service on the heritage  Route 15 back here in London)

I also love the 38 Blinds with "Glasgow" as the ultimate destination

you could have a lot of fun driving that one around hackney I tell you LOL

The MD of Go North East owns a preserved Routemaster which is kept at our Anlaby Road depot. We were bought by GNE in June 2018 and are being run as a stand alone company. 

[cms206]

9 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

The MD of Go North East owns a preserved Routemaster which is kept at our Anlaby Road depot. We were bought by GNE in June 2018 and are being run as a stand alone company. 

How do you find Go Ahead to work for?

I worked for them from 2005 when Chris Moyes was still in charge until 2010, though admittedly not in one of their bus or train divisions and they were probably my best all round employer I ever had.

[Saabnut]

Back in Arbroath today and an additional bus arrived which I thought might interest @Zelandeth

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

Back in Arbroath today and an additional bus arrived which I thought might interest @Zelandeth

Nice.  Seen that one up close back at the last (I believe) First Aberdeen open day...back in 2012 I think.  Tidy old coach.

I don't have the photos from that event accessible from this device right now or I'd add mine from there, had a couple of the interior too.

Confused me a bit that one did as it's a bit if a hybrid of bits of Dominant I and II.  I didn't realise that the very late Is got bits of the later front end.

[Eyersey1234]

3 hours ago, cms206 said:

How do you find Go Ahead to work for?

I worked for them from 2005 when Chris Moyes was still in charge until 2010, though admittedly not in one of their bus or train divisions and they were probably my best all round employer I ever had.

I have to say our new management are very approachable and there is more in the way of staff communication than previously 

[martc]

3 hours ago, cms206 said:

How do you find Go Ahead to work for?

I worked for them from 2005 when Chris Moyes was still in charge until 2010, though admittedly not in one of their bus or train divisions and they were probably my best all round employer I ever had.

Chris Moyles controlling the EYMS fleet from his lair. Thinks 'how many buses can we send down Beverley Road before we block it completely?'

[Yoss]

On 10/11/2020 at 12:07 PM, cms206 said:

As much as I often moan about Routemasters... 

Really, I hadn't noticed 😉. But seriously, thanks for those. RM 1563, I assume was just visiting. Former Mortlake showbus (and Mortlake buses were pretty much all showbuses so 1563 had to be extra special) it was kept at Southampton CityBus' Portswood garage for a while, around 1990 I'm guessing so it got about. I have pictures of RML 900 in London when it returned. It ran on a couple of Finchley routes in that livery after Finchley took RML 903 to visit Glasgow and ran in service from Thornliebank over August Bank Holiday 1987. I was there too! 

I loved those Johnstone routes. The few times I managed to get to Glasgow I always seemed to end up on those. 

Of the other pictures those single deck Atlanteans look OK but the Ailsa really does look like they've just driven it under a bridge (which they had). 

And those VW LTs just look hilarious. 

[Yoss]

Minibuses never really caught on here. We had these four Iveco Turbo  Dailies 

And a solitary Metro rider. 

And they weren't used in any of the bus war shenanigans, just on a couple of new routes that served smaller roads. A variation of one of those routes still runs as council tendered route with Xelabus Darts. 

[LightBulbFun]

that just sent me down a fun rabbit hole via this picture, as I went to dig it up and debated about posting it or not, I noticed talk of the Ford Escort behind it

https://flic.kr/p/9Y43qd

(bet you would never guess how I originally came across the photograph LOL)

 

which then lead me down this fun flicker rabbit hole dedicated to all of London Transport's weird and whacky vehicles

https://www.flickr.com/groups/london_transport_service_vehicles/

its mighty weird seeing a regular car with London Transport fleet names LOL

https://flic.kr/p/pidArd

[cms206]

10 hours ago, Yoss said:

Minibuses never really caught on here. We had these four Iveco Turbo  Dailies 

And a solitary Metro rider. 

And they weren't used in any of the bus war shenanigans, just on a couple of new routes that served smaller roads. A variation of one of those routes still runs as council tendered route with Xelabus Darts. 

... the Metrorider, ironically enough given earlier conversation, ended up with Strathclyde as M115, the first of the second hand Metroriders.

[cms206]

11 hours ago, Yoss said:

Really, I hadn't noticed 😉. But seriously, thanks for those. RM 1563, I assume was just visiting. Former Mortlake showbus (and Mortlake buses were pretty much all showbuses so 1563 had to be extra special) it was kept at Southampton CityBus' Portswood garage for a while, around 1990 I'm guessing so it got about. I have pictures of RML 900 in London when it returned. It ran on a couple of Finchley routes in that livery after Finchley took RML 903 to visit Glasgow and ran in service from Thornliebank over August Bank Holiday 1987. I was there too! 

I loved those Johnstone routes. The few times I managed to get to Glasgow I always seemed to end up on those. 

Of the other pictures those single deck Atlanteans look OK but the Ailsa really does look like they've just driven it under a bridge (which they had). 

And those VW LTs just look hilarious. 

RM1563 was up for the Greenock open day I think.

In amongst the huge to scan pile there are dozens of really grubby looking RMs running in London in the mid to late 80s, really need to get round to scanning more.

[Yoss]

The strangest looking thing about that Escort is the reg. That's not a London reg is it. Even the Transit has an LK reg.

If we're going on to service vehicles... 

This was the Grosvenor Square recovery truck. 

And this was the CityBus one. 

Both great looking vehicles. I never saw the AEC out on the road whereas I saw the CityBus one quite a few times. Maybe this says VRs were more reliable than Atlanteans but  I think the AEC one (if it even is an AEC. It looks a bit home made and that grille looks like an afterthought, like they just had it lying around and thought that'll do. It looks too small) had a much shorter life. I never saw it at any of Blue Line's other garages once they'd moved, whereas the CityBus Leyland (Marathon? Trucks are not my forte) was around for years. 

 

And this Sherpa crops up in a few of my pictures. It always seemed to be parked around Poundtree Road. 

[Yoss]

So obviously the RMs were the highest profile buses in the bus wars but there were a few other oddities. If you wanted half cab bus travel Southampton was the place to be (or Glasgow but if you already lived in Southampton that was a bit far). 

Most notably was Regent V 401. The original Regent fleet went up to 402 but 401 was still in the CityBus fleet so was wheeled out quite regularly. This led to the RMs being numbered from 402 upwards even though Regent 402 still existed, and still does. Anyway, I may be biased but I think Southampton Regents are incredibly handsome vehicles so I make no apologies for putting all these pictures up. 

 

I love this one. This wasn't even in service, it was on the garage run, so I would have walked here (about 20mins)in the rain at about 6 or 7 in the morning to get this photo. It was worth it. 

 

Then there were the Southern Vectis Lodekkas. At this time these still ran on the IOW in the summer season but sat idle in the winter. Blue Line were obviously a Southern Vectis subsidiary so for a couple of winters they sent the Lodekkas over to the mainland. There were at least two of them, one front entrance and one rear. 

 

Though this one never made it back into service but was a regular sight around town. 

 

 

And then there was this thing. The Internet now tells me it was an ex Exeter PD2 but at the time we had no idea what it was. Technically acquired as a driver trainer, but it was painted in this rather awkward livery and did make it into passenger service quite regularly. 

 

The Routemasters have been covered quite extensively elsewhere but I do like an RM in the dark or twilight as it shows the comforting glow from inside. 

 

This was the end* of RMs in Southampton. The line up consists of duplicates RM 820 and 2059 then the official last one, 2037, preserved 2116 and 308 a brand new Red Ensign (CityBus coach brand) Olympian coach, Regent V (I think 371) and a random Cardiff Regent. This convoy ran all the way from the city centre to Lordshill where this was taken then back to the garage, any passengers wanting to stay on were allowed to. Plans to buy RM 2037 started a couple of hours after this picture was taken. 

 

 

* Nearly two years later there were still a few unsold RMs knocking about the garage so CityBus decided to run a Christmas 'Shoppahoppa' service from the station to Ocean Village, basically the east and west ends of the city centre with RM 1543 and 1682.

But 401 popped up on this too. 

This was December 1990, the main services having ended in January 1989. But this really was the end. 

 

Something I have noticed going through all these pictures is that it didn't half rain a lot back then. 

 

[Zelandeth]

Some cracking photos in there, Yoss.