Bus Shite

[Dyslexic Viking]

I have previously written about a 1936 Mercedes bus that went through the ice and was lost on  lake Mjøsa Norway during the fighting in April 1940 and I have now managed to find a good picture of this special bus.

It still sits on 400 meters deep and there has been talk of raising and saving it, but the ownership of the bus is a bureaucratic nightmare.

[High Jetter]

A case of titanic proportions?

[808 Estate]

Thats a seriously deep lake.  😲

[Dyslexic Viking]

30 minutes ago, 808 Estate said:

Thats a seriously deep lake.  😲

And the average depth is 150 m. There is a lot of interesting things at the bottom of Mjøsa, everything from cars to aircraft wrecks to large quantities of dumped ammunition, so there are always new things to be found. And it's Norway's largest lake and Europe's 35, so there's probably a lot that hasn't been found yet.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

38 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

And the average depth is 150 m. There is a lot of interesting things at the bottom of Mjøsa, everything from cars to aircraft wrecks to large quantities of dumped ammunition, so there are always new things to be found. And it's Norway's largest lake and Europe's 35, so there's probably a lot that hasn't been found yet.

This one always caught my interest at the time. 36 years underwater and it's in better condition than half of the VW buses over here in the UK 🤣

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.roadkillcustoms.com/1957-volkswagen-bus-pulled-from-lake-in-norway-after-36-years/amp/

[SunnySouth]

In Southampton today, gratuitous 'nearly the end' pic for posterity. The blind was already set like that, no request needed!

[MiniMinorMk3]

1955 Zis-127 Moskova

[MiniMinorMk3]

1961 Ziu-5

[MiniMinorMk3]

1971 ZIL 118K

[SunnySouth]

46 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

1971 ZIL 118K

That looks like a *delight to drive...

[auntiemaryscanary]

This is at a truck "recycling" yard in Calverton, Notts. The truck pics are unsurprisingly in the Truck Shite thread.

This party is over...

 

[martc]

Hatton Cross station, 1976

& 2023.

Hatton Cross tube station opened in 1975 as one of the western termini of the Piccadilly Line. It ceased to be a terminus in 1977 when the line was extended to Heathrow Airport.

[High Jetter]

I can see why it's cross, being buzzed like that!

[busmansholiday]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:15 AM, auntiemaryscanary said:

This is at a truck "recycling" yard in Calverton, Notts. The truck pics are unsurprisingly in the Truck Shite thread.

This party is over...

 

PDZ1029 (new as 'N248HWX' to Wallace Arnold, Leeds )

[Yoss]

On 1/2/2023 at 4:37 PM, SunnySouth said:

In Southampton today, gratuitous 'nearly the end' pic for posterity. The blind was already set like that, no request needed!

Here's one I took earlier, not sure exact date but it is post deregulation day, 25th Oct 1986, as the bus has a CityBus logo not Southampton City Transport ones. But probably not long after. 

The inspectors hut has changed too. The old one was  a metal and glass prefab type thing rather than the current fiberglass one. I also think the old one was considerably longer. 

 

A little anecdote. For many many years the last bus on every route would leave the city centre at 23.06. Here is a map of the area where all the bus stops are. Sorry about the marker pen, that's another story, but you can just see through it. 

The information sign is the inspectors hut, the horizontal road with the yellow dot  is Pound Tree Road and the vertical road is Vincent's Walk. At around 23.06, sometimes a bit after but never before the inspector would come out of his hut stand in the road and give the right away to the number 14 which was parked by the yellow dot. At which point every single bus would leave at exactly the same time. 

The inspector always gave the nod to the 14 then all the buses in Pound Tree Road could see the 14 either directly or in their mirrors and all the buses in Vincent's Walk could see the 14 cross the end of the road, again either directly or in their mirrors. 

About a dozen Atlanteans would leave within seconds in a cacophony of sound and smoke and smell. You could stand there and hear them slowly disappear to be replaced with utter (or relative) silence. 

This happened every single night without fail. No bus could leave until they were all ready and then they all left together. It really was a stunning (to us) sight and sound. Many a time we'd drive down and watch them go. Sometimes I'd catch one of them and sit downstairs at the back watching the mini convoy drive off through the city centre until they all went their separate ways. 

They don't do it any more not least because 23.06 is far too early these days. I often thought they picked that time to deliberately miss all the pissheads kicking out of the city centre pubs. Either way it's a strange time but whenever I see it (which isn't often being a postman) it always makes me think of this. 

[busmansholiday]

Was called the whistle bus in Sheffield. Every night at 11.15 an inspector would blow a whistle, then it was every man (or woman) for themselves. Seen a lot of very close shaves in Pond Street over the years 

[SunnySouth]

What an amazing (if a tad bizarre!) tale; what an incredible sight that must have been!

Being a lad from the neighbouring city (we'll say no more!) I used to travel to So'ton pretty frequently with my old Nan for days out, starting with the 727 (was there a 747 too?) when it was the preserve of Lynxes. What a fascinating story that route has had over the years (as I'm sure you know!), passing through seemingly just about every operator in the south before ending up back with First's Portsmouth & Fareham ops as the current X4 'Solent Ranger'. I guess that'll be the last route that takes First vehicles into Southampton, unless there are still any local obscurities coming out of Hoeford?

I recall during the Barbie days So'ton (I presume Portswood had a paintshop?) developed a particular habit of squaring off windows and such with black paint, which IMHO looked bloody awful! I often wondered what that was all about, a rare bit of local quirkiness though in a sea of corporate identity!

(Not my pic)

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

Was called the whistle bus in Sheffield. Every night at 11.15 an inspector would blow a whistle, then it was every man (or woman) for themselves. Seen a lot of very close shaves in Pond Street over the years 

Oh, I'm glad it happened in other places too. I'm only really familiar with Southampton and London and it obviously never happened there as there was no last bus as such and no one point where all the buses started from. 

[Yoss]

11 minutes ago, SunnySouth said:

What an amazing (if a tad bizarre!) tale; what an incredible sight that must have been!

Being a lad from the neighbouring city (we'll say no more!) I used to travel to So'ton pretty frequently with my old Nan for days out, starting with the 727 (was there a 747 too?) when it was the preserve of Lynxes. What a fascinating story that route has had over the years (as I'm sure you know!), passing through seemingly just about every operator in the south before ending up back with First's Portsmouth & Fareham ops as the current X4 'Solent Ranger'. I guess that'll be the last route that takes First vehicles into Southampton, unless there are still any local obscurities coming out of Hoeford?

I recall during the Barbie days So'ton (I presume Portswood had a paintshop?) developed a particular habit of squaring off windows and such with black paint, which IMHO looked bloody awful! I often wondered what that was all about, a rare bit of local quirkiness though in a sea of corporate identity!

(Not my pic)

I assumed the 727, which was also called the X27 at times was because it used the M27, or A27 if it was less express. I know for a while it was non stop between Southampton and Portsmouth and went straight down the M27 but as you say it was handed round all the operators either as a commercial service or Hampshire County Council contract and I think they put extra stops in to try and attract more passengers. 

It's strange that nobody could make it pay because a direct service down the the M27 is much shorter and quicker than the train which meanders all over the place between the two cities. Maybe the rivalries are true and just nobody wants to travel between the two. 

[SunnySouth]

35 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I assumed the 727, which was also called the X27 at times was because it used the M27, or A27 if it was less express. I know for a while it was non stop between Southampton and Portsmouth and went straight down the M27 but as you say it was handed round all the operators either as a commercial service or Hampshire County Council contract and I think they put extra stops in to try and attract more passengers. 

It's strange that nobody could make it pay because a direct service down the the M27 is much shorter and quicker than the train which meanders all over the place between the two cities. Maybe the rivalries are true and just nobody wants to travel between the two. 

Trains do a pretty decent trade on the Pompey-Fareham-Soton run, the fast services are a journey time of about 45 minutes. I think it comes down to public perception as much as anything, the train is just viewed as the better option for whatever reason.

I recall the X27 well, it was a joint Hoeford/Portswood effort I think, with random pair of Volvo B10Bs - M967 GDU was a bus seated Plaxton Verde, and K114 PRV was a Northern Counties coach seated effort. GDU was in service beforehand with CityBus in a plain maroon livery, not sure where PRV came from but it's a local reg mark - both ex demos perhaps?

[Yoss]

Here we go, ten minutes googling, there were probably others. Some here I don't remember at all. The white/blue/yellow things appear to be Tellings Golden Miller, that passed me by completely. Also I thought I remembered Southdown doing it at one point but I can't find any proof of this. 

In no particular order... 

 

Don't remember this at all. 

 

This is in preservation, they did use 289 and 290 for a while but not sure it ever did it in this livery. 

 

And this one is branded  727  whilst on the X34 to Oxford which is a route I never knew about either. This is at the old Southampton bus station but is branded Stage coach 727 so I wonder if it's that brief period after Stagecoach bought Hampshire Bus but before they asset stripped the bus station to property developers? 

Again looking at the branding some claim to be non stop and some stop at Fareham and Cosham. 

[SunnySouth]

Brilliant pics!

Southdown did the 'Solenteer' back in NBC days, there are a couple of models out there.

The Plaxton coaches were indeed TGM, they had base in Portsmouth at the time as they held some NatEx contracts I believe.

I have a very faint memory of a trip upstairs on something coach seated wearing Red Ensign livery. In later years I assumed it might have been 289, but I don't suppose that ever wore Ensign branding - or did it? More likely to have been one of the coaches I guess? There was a very nice Setra decker that surfaced on ebay fairly recently, was that unique or were there others?

1:76 Solenteer models:

[Yoss]

20 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

Brilliant pics!

Southdown did the 'Solenteer' back in NBC days, there are a couple of models out there.

The Plaxton coaches were indeed TGM, they had base in Portsmouth at the time as they held some NatEx contracts I believe.

I have a very faint memory of a trip upstairs on something coach seated wearing Red Ensign livery. In later years I assumed it might have been 289, but I don't suppose that ever wore Ensign branding - or did it? More likely to have been one of the coaches I guess? There was a very nice Setra decker that surfaced on ebay fairly recently, was that unique or were there others?

1:76 Solenteer models:

I've been going through some of my old pics. So to answer one of my own questions in my last post, yes, 289 and 290 did work the 727 in their original livery. Nice photo bomb from the works Sherpa too. 

 

And you didn't imagine it, they were painted in Red Ensign colours. This came before the plain red CityBus livery. To be honest I'm not sure why they got Red Ensign colours as they were still used mostly on stage work. 

There were four coach seated bus bodied Olympians. A couple of years before these two we had 285 and 286. Here is one in Portswood garage advertising a local radio station. 

All four could be were on the 727.

But in between these two we had the two Olympian coaches, unsurprisingly 287 and 288. Southamptons numbering policy was to just carry on. The last Atlantean was 276, then there was a Dennis Dominator and three slightly different Olympians 277 to 280 that they used to evaluate what they were going to do next. Then four more Dominators 281 to 284 then the above Olympians. 

So back to the coaches. I could have sworn I had pictures of them as delivered, and I'm still convinced I have but I can't find them so I've pinched these off the Internet. They arrived in this bizzare and quite dreadful livery. 

Note the bizzare SCT lettering that was never used on anything else. Indeed Southampton City Transport became Southampton CityBus in October 86 and the Routemasters didn't arrive until May 87 and that's one of the second batch 413 aka RM 2059 so that would be August 87 at the earliest so these two must be the only buses in the fleet not carrying CityBus branding. 

But the rest of the pictures are mine. Including this very rare shot of 288 in all over unbranded red. I've no idea if it was used in revenue earning service like this or if it was out for a test run. And also, the blind box has been removed. 

Because a couple of weeks later it looked like this. 

Red Ensign was just branding for CityBus's private hire fleet. Even the open top Atlantean got it. 

 

And this is a nice study of bus and coach Olympians. 

I don't think the coaches were really any fancier or comfier. They had the fancy front end and look a bit longer but they seemed to have the same seats. 

 

[Yoss]

And whilst looking through my pictures I found a few more I thought might be of interest. 

A short lived and mostly forgotten period was when CityBus decided they no longer wanted to run Sunday services and so the council put them out to tender. The tender was won by Provincial and so this happened. 

But it gets worse... 

 

And whilst on the National theme this South Wales Transport National 2 has just arrived from from Winchester. SWT were a fellow Stagecoach company so Hampshire Bus must have borrowed it. Never saw it again. 

 

And here's a route I never did but wish I had. 

Petersfield is a really strange place to run a bus to from Southampton. I don't know which way it went, via Bishops Waltham I presume but there can't have been much call for it and I don't think it lasted long. It must have taken best part of two hours. 

Here's another one. 

I wonder if these were run by Portsmouth in the brief time that Southampton CityBus owned Portsmouth City Transport and adopted the same livery for both fleets because I never saw these Nationals on any other services. They were later told to sell Portsmouth by the competition commission, or whatever they were called then. I don't really see why and when you see how the big three swallowed up whole areas I don't think there was a conflict of interest at all. 

 

And then there was this thing. It has Northern Counties and Renault badges on it but that's all I know. 

It has CityBus fleet names in the first pic but it didn't hang around long. Obviously some sort of demonstrator. 

 

And lastly, just for the hell of it, this is what happens when you put an Atlantean on a minibus route. 

[quicksilver]

SWT was never part of Stagecoach and became a First company. I think that National had some sort of accessibility mods so various other operators borrowed it to try out. The Renault is a PR100, a RHD version of their standard French city bus. Not a successful demonstrator as it did the rounds but resulted in selling a grand total of three, all to Luton Airport and probably only to support local industry and not on their own merit as it's just down the road from Renault's UK HQ in Dunstable.

[Yoss]

17 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

SWT was never part of Stagecoach and became a First company. I think that National had some sort of accessibility mods so various other operators borrowed it to try out. The Renault is a PR100, a RHD version of their standard French city bus. Not a successful demonstrator as it did the rounds but resulted in selling a grand total of three, all to Luton Airport and probably only to support local industry and not on their own merit as it's just down the road from Renault's UK HQ in Dunstable.

Thanks. That would explain the pictograms either side of the blind box. 

Also, I'd never noticed the nameplate until I just zoomed in. Sir Harry something or other. 

[busmansholiday]

35 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

SWT was never part of Stagecoach and became a First company. I think that National had some sort of accessibility mods so various other operators borrowed it to try out. The Renault is a PR100, a RHD version of their standard French city bus. Not a successful demonstrator as it did the rounds but resulted in selling a grand total of three, all to Luton Airport and probably only to support local industry and not on their own merit as it's just down the road from Renault's UK HQ in Dunstable.

There were two PR100 demonstrators, one in LT livery, G276VML and F100AKB which is preserved in LT livery, despite having spent most of its life with Hornsby of Ashby (Scunthorpe),  not having been used in London.

[quicksilver]

14 hours ago, Yoss said:

Thanks. That would explain the pictograms either side of the blind box. 

Also, I'd never noticed the nameplate until I just zoomed in. Sir Harry something or other. 

Sir Harry Secombe. Not sure why it's named after him. It's apparently preserved back in Wales but still awaiting its turn for restoration.

[MorrisItalSLX]

14 hours ago, quicksilver said:

The Renault is a PR100, a RHD version of their standard French city bus. Not a successful demonstrator as it did the rounds but resulted in selling a grand total of three, all to Luton Airport and probably only to support local industry and not on their own merit as it's just down the road from Renault's UK HQ in Dunstable.

They were a hit in Australia, the Canberra government bought plenty of them. Some are still in service.

[martc]

This pic could go in several places, but as the Ikarus bendy bus is complete I'll put it here. Plus the fact that I rode in one of these in Berlin, Haupstadt der DDR. It was packed out and I was stood in the bendy bit, the concertina was split on one side and each time it turned a gapping hole opened up from top to bottom with a real risk of me falling out!

Anyhow, this is Zittau Bahnhoff in 1985. There's a Robur lorry, half a Simson Swallow and, I think,  a Class 99 locomotive.