Bus Shite

[lisbon_road]

5 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I haven't seen that since the last day of the Atlanteans, from which that picture was taken judging by the advert on the side. We went on it on the day on route 14 and it was really struggling up Cobden Ave and Mousehole Lane because it refused to change down and there was a smell of burning rubber (we were sat downstairs at the back). It was owned, and being driven, by Phil Blair who whilst an enthusiast is ultimately a businessman. So I don't what he did with it. He also owned 276 for a while and let that go too and that really should have been saved (it was Southamptons last Atlantean). 

Both sold to Sainsburys and fitted out with cash tills for training or something then weighed in.  Sad but it happens!  252 looked great, fixed up with loads of new surplus parts apparently, but whether it was as good in hidden areas of course who knows?

 

Looks like we were both at the last Atlantean day.  Was a very good day, I remember.  

[Yoss]

4 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

Both sold to Sainsburys and fitted out with cash tills for training or something then weighed in.  Sad but it happens!  252 looked great, fixed up with loads of new surplus parts apparently, but whether it was as good in hidden areas of course who knows?

 

Looks like we were both at the last Atlantean day.  Was a very good day, I remember.  

Ah, so time for me to dig some more old photos out again! Give me a few days. 

[hammy]

3 hours ago, quicksilver said:

That Olympian brings back memories. The higher numbers in the F-MSL batch went to United Counties and I remember them running from Bedford and Northampton into Milton Keynes for years.

620-633 I think, then they reverted to Northampton issued registrations. 

Typically Stagecoach spec, save tuppence on everything which is why they had Gardner engines instead of Cummins engines.  That being said though they were absolute workhorses! 84 seats gave decent capacity, and the Gardners were reliable engines with decent running costs, if a little gutless on hills.  I started driving at UC in 2001 and the F and G regs were the best we had. The later J/K regs had been messed about by Volvo - noisy viscous fans. 

[hammy]

The green RELL6G is an odd thing, very few RELLs had those DP seats fitted.  They would normally be on a RELH! 

It's currently for sale too, just shy of £10k.

[Yoss]

22 minutes ago, hammy said:

The green RELL6G is an odd thing, very few RELLs had those DP seats fitted.  They would normally be on a RELH! 

It's currently for sale too, just shy of £10k.

It needs at least one row of seats removing and space the rest out. It is impossible to sit straight with the current spacing. 

[Zelandeth]

21 minutes ago, hammy said:

620-633 I think, then they reverted to Northampton issued registrations. 

Typically Stagecoach spec, save tuppence on everything which is why they had Gardner engines instead of Cummins engines.  That being said though they were absolute workhorses! 84 seats gave decent capacity, and the Gardners were reliable engines with decent running costs, if a little gutless on hills.  I started driving at UC in 2001 and the F and G regs were the best we had. The later J/K regs had been messed about by Volvo - noisy viscous fans. 

At least one of them ended up in Aberdeen at some point as well.  G2**SSL as I recall.  I remember it specifically because hearing a Gardner in day to day stage service was quite unusual by then.

[vtec-e]

Some excellent pictures that have bought back memories of Shirley High Street and Guy Arabs from 50+ years ago. I see there is even a Lidl on the old High Street opposite St Boniface, where we used to cut though from Cherry Walk!

It's amazing how much smaller those buses look compared to moderns.  

[Zelandeth]

56 minutes ago, 83C said:

I never could understand the spec, though they were solidly reliable. Drove several in Gloucester (a few of the G-AAD batch, G808 RTS & G211 SSL) and a couple of H-SAOs for Routemaster Buses in Nantwich, all went well but I always felt the engine and gearbox combination was mismatched, the ZF 'box always felt like it had been specced for something far more powerful than the slow-revving Gardner which was at its best with the Leyland semi-auto. The Cummins L10 and ZF 5HP500 was easily the best engine and gearbox combo ever to go in an Olympian, bags of power and would cruise along nicely at 60 (and then some...) 

The L10s didn't half sound good too.  Especially E130DRS that First had.  Not sure if it was challenged in the baffle department, but it had a properly thunderous exhaust note. 

Though you could hear all of them rumbling away from halfway up Union Street.  Was never the same when they left.

[hammy]

8 hours ago, 83C said:

I never could understand the spec, though they were solidly reliable. Drove several in Gloucester (a few of the G-AAD batch, G808 RTS & G211 SSL) and a couple of H-SAOs for Routemaster Buses in Nantwich, all went well but I always felt the engine and gearbox combination was mismatched, the ZF 'box always felt like it had been specced for something far more powerful than the slow-revving Gardner which was at its best with the Leyland semi-auto. The Cummins L10 and ZF 5HP500 was easily the best engine and gearbox combo ever to go in an Olympian, bags of power and would cruise along nicely at 60 (and then some...) 

Yes, they always seemed an odd mating. With a Leyland gearbox you could get the best out of the engine in the situation. 

Oddly the Gloucester examples G1xx AAD were almost totally Stagecoach spec, but ordered before C&G were taken over. In their later lives in Stagecoach livery, you were hard pressed to tell.

The TL11 was quite a good engine in the Olympian, I drove an early London Country one once and it went very well.

 

[mk2_craig]

All this talk of Olympian engines reminds me that there was a one off in the Lothian fleet which apparently had a Cummins M11 retrofitted in place of the original L10, though I never got to drive it due to the bus being based at a different garage to the one at which I worked.  There were a few built to a single door spec with high back seats for airport express work and an extra gear to get them over 45mph flat out, this was literally locked out with a key switch but amazingly it used the same barrel as the padlock for my council lock up garage. I did get a shot of one of those when they were later allocated to the service 15 route and can confirm the old crate could be wound up to a decent speed on the old A1 out of town. 

[quicksilver]

13 hours ago, hammy said:

620-633 I think, then they reverted to Northampton issued registrations. 

Typically Stagecoach spec, save tuppence on everything which is why they had Gardner engines instead of Cummins engines.  That being said though they were absolute workhorses! 84 seats gave decent capacity, and the Gardners were reliable engines with decent running costs, if a little gutless on hills.  I started driving at UC in 2001 and the F and G regs were the best we had. The later J/K regs had been messed about by Volvo - noisy viscous fans. 

Those are the ones, the first new deckers under Stagecoach ownership IIRC. They were followed by 634, an odd one with a F-MSP registration that I think was a replacement for a damaged bus, then the F-YRP and G-EVV batches. Finally the small batch of H-VVV, all but one of which went in the aforementioned Huntingdon sale, then they moved on to the shorter wheelbase with Northern Counties bodies. I remember them all well and in the early 2000s Olympians seemed to be everywhere in UC's territory.

[Yoss]

14 hours ago, vtec-e said:

Some excellent pictures that have bought back memories of Shirley High Street and Guy Arabs from 50+ years ago. I see there is even a Lidl on the old High Street opposite St Boniface, where we used to cut though from Cherry Walk!

It's amazing how much smaller those buses look compared to moderns.  

That Lidl was built on the site of the old police station because we need another supermarket more than a police station don't we? Especially as Shirley High Street was on the national news last week for the feral teens running amok whilst the police station was relocated to the middle of a dual carriageway between Central station and the docks that the public can't get to. But that's probably a rant for another thread and to be fair I do use the Lidl quite a lot. 

I use the cutway through the church every day. Our office car park isn't big enough and the spaces are stupidly narrow anyway so I park in Cherry Walk or Gurney Road and walk through. 

[cms206]

2 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

All this talk of Olympian engines reminds me that there was a one off in the Lothian fleet which apparently had a Cummins M11 retrofitted in place of the original L10, though I never got to drive it due to the bus being based at a different garage to the one at which I worked.  There were a few built to a single door spec with high back seats for airport express work and an extra gear to get them over 45mph flat out, this was literally locked out with a key switch but amazingly it used the same barrel as the padlock for my council lock up garage. I did get a shot of one of those when they were later allocated to the service 15 route and can confirm the old crate could be wound up to a decent speed on the old A1 out of town. 

964 was the M11, one of the few Lothian Olympians I did drive!

[lisbon_road]

On 28/09/2025 at 19:54, Yoss said:

Ah, so time for me to dig some more old photos out again! Give me a few days. 

More photos from the last Atlantean day.  @Yoss you might remember these.  This one lived next to the Fire Station in Lyndhurst for years:

Apparently that was weighed in despite some attempts to save it.  This one, 270, I believe left the last Atlantean day to apparently be 'preserved' somewhere near Manchester, 

It is still listed by the DVLA but hasn't been taxed since 2005, and in the recent leaflet for the Soton running day they refer to their Atlantean and 274 as the only survivors so perhaps this has gone as well?

I do remember this one on the Isle of Wight, some sort of playbus or something:

This was OCR155G so a very early survivor, but doubt that it is still around.  There was a burnt out one too hidden in the undergrowth somewhere in Northam.

All this is in great contrast to the number of surviving Regents.  I have a picture of a depot open day about 2003 and everyone still exists.

Incidentally, to continue our Soton bus gossip, I saw a massive three axle Blue Star bus today in Eastleigh, brand new so something to look out for.  Schools perhaps?

That's enough Hampshire for today.  

 

[Yoss]

10 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

More photos from the last Atlantean day.  @Yoss you might remember these.  This one lived next to the Fire Station in Lyndhurst for years:

Apparently that was weighed in despite some attempts to save it.  This one, 270, I believe left the last Atlantean day to apparently be 'preserved' somewhere near Manchester, 

It is still listed by the DVLA but hasn't been taxed since 2005, and in the recent leaflet for the Soton running day they refer to their Atlantean and 274 as the only survivors so perhaps this has gone as well?

I do remember this one on the Isle of Wight, some sort of playbus or something:

This was OCR155G so a very early survivor, but doubt that it is still around.  There was a burnt out one too hidden in the undergrowth somewhere in Northam.

All this is in great contrast to the number of surviving Regents.  I have a picture of a depot open day about 2003 and everyone still exists.

Incidentally, to continue our Soton bus gossip, I saw a massive three axle Blue Star bus today in Eastleigh, brand new so something to look out for.  Schools perhaps?

That's enough Hampshire for today.  

 

Yes, they all look quite familiar. 270 was the official last Atlantean and the only one in normal service that day, the rest were already preserved. 

268 did make it in to preservation but I don't know if it has survived, after all that day was twenty years ago! It belonged to somebody I know simply by the name of Big Phil. He also owned Southampton Lynx 111. Both buses were being kept at Flexford when I had mine there but when that shut down all the vehicles there were scattered far and wide. 

I am off to the Czech Republic on Sunday morning but I have another week and a half off when I get back so I shall try and find my pictures. 

I shall look out for any three axle buses but the Eastleigh and Southampton fleets don't mix much and I rarely go to Eastleigh because it's over five miles away and that would be madness! 

[SunnySouth]

11 hours ago, Yoss said:

I shall look out for any three axle buses but the Eastleigh and Southampton fleets don't mix much and I rarely go to Eastleigh because it's over five miles away and that would be madness! 

A three axle bus!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FibQEIM-M4U

They’re to replace the last ‘long’ Scanias on the Barton college runs.

[Yoss]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out, we do get Barton Peveril buses in Shirley. 

[SunnySouth]

On the subject of So’ton Atlanteans, the interweb has lots of photos of 271 doing the rounds with fresh panels taken around 2018; did that one not make it either? Hell of a shame if not, as it seems someone was looking after it back then.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kk70088/39422021755/in/photostream/

[lisbon_road]

1 hour ago, SunnySouth said:

On the subject of So’ton Atlanteans, the interweb has lots of photos of 271 doing the rounds with fresh panels taken around 2018; did that one not make it either? Hell of a shame if not, as it seems someone was looking after it back then.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kk70088/39422021755/in/photostream/

According to DVLA, 268 is taxed and 271 is SORN'd.  Looks like I was wrong when I said we had two survivors.  Happy to be wrong, especially as 271 looks to have some decent work done on it.  

[cms206]

As alluded to elsewhere, I have once again packed my bags and Auf Wiedersehened - wife_cms's health isn't great and the money is all far, far away so the deep end beckoned once again and off I headed to the land of the bee.

This is a somewhat different assignment to usual in being my very first agency role; not something I had planned as I do like the stability of working for an operator. With my recent Go-Ahead London shenanigans I had tried to get myself seconded on loan to Go North West but this hasn't come to pass and may actually be the reason I'm not here all that long... the agency have been at it, somewhat. We'll see how it develops.

 

Anyway; starting at the beginning, and hopefully giving an insight as to how the agency setup works for these gigs.

Sunday 21st September I arrived at my allocated accomodation, a double room in an end terrace on Dunedin Drive in Salford. It was fucking filthy, the heating was jammed on and the bedroom window wouldn't open. I lasted one night and booked a hotel as I physically could not bring myself to bare my arse - or feet - in the shower. 

Monday 22nd was a maths & English assesment in Bolton itself; I raised my concerns with the agency liason regarding accomodation on the Monday morning and didn't get any resolution, so I booked a hotel for the evening and made arrangements to move in with three former London colleagues in Little Hulton, about three and a half miles from the garage.

Tuesday 23rd was a medical, driving assessment and induction. The driving assesment was in GNW's 6175, ticking another box off as my first B7RLE (yes, really).

Assesments all passed with flying colours, Wednesday 24th was handover to the route trainers; I'm working with Vicky who I have been terrorising mercilessly since; this begins my four (potentially five) week training schedule, with twelve routes to learn - 20, 21, 22, 36, 37, 471, 520, 524, 561, 562, 571 & 572. We started with 16 on the training bus but as of Thursday passed we've dropped to 6, though on Wednesday coming the next batch will join us.

The training schedule is broken down as a 3 day first week, Saturday off, Sunday to Thursday week two, Monday to Friday week three and Sunday to Thursday week four with the aim of being released into traffic from the following Tuesday, UNLESS you're put forward for the Vantage busway services which then involves another week of training.

Thursday 25th saw my first drive, with Citaro 6231 being my steed - and another box ticked off. Bolton garage dead to Agecroft, 21 Agecroft to the Trafford Centre & back, dead back to Bolton garage.

Friday 26th was a passenger day, but over the first three days we covered everything once with the exception of the 20 and 524.

Saturday 27th was a day off.

Sunday 28th was vehicle familliarisation drives. BYD 2013 and Wright Electroliner 2103 being the two buses used, the diesels were only VF'd in the yard with no drive.

Monday 29th was the start of week two and both it and Tuesday 30th were classroom days covering Introduction for Service and ticket training.

Wednesday 1st we rejoined the guys from the previous week who had been furiously learning dead runs and Thursday 2nd saw those guys signed off into traffic. I did another spot of driving, consisting of a dead run from Bolton to the Trafford Centre then a 22 back to Bolton Interchange - 6231 did the honours again.

After the shift I popped home for the long weekend - back in Monday 0600 for week three.

[Yoss]

18 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

On the subject of So’ton Atlanteans, the interweb has lots of photos of 271 doing the rounds with fresh panels taken around 2018; did that one not make it either? Hell of a shame if not, as it seems someone was looking after it back then.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kk70088/39422021755/in/photostream/

I know the two guys who owned 271. They had preferential treatment at Flexford as they basically acted as security. They were very keen and were up there at all hours, I mean literally all night sometimes, had built their own workshop and break room and fitted cctv at their own cost so that's fair enough. Very talented lads, that Atlantean had half it's framework replaced and it was all fabricated on site by themselves. They even repaired the platform edging on my bus. They were very handy to have around. 

Unfortunately when Flexford closed they were thrust in to the world of commercial bus storage rates and something had to go and they wanted to keep their Regents. Personally I'd have had one Regent and one Atlantean but they're not my buses. 

These are their two Regents on display last Sunday. 

You can see a theme here. Most bus owners don't dare remove their panels for fear of what's underneath (unless you have a Routemaster of course when you know it will be okay) but Ian and Charnie embrace it and have the skills to repair almost anything. 

They did tell me where 271 went but I forget now, but it wasn't local. Hopefully it's still okay because they put some serious work in. 

[busmansholiday]

7 hours ago, cms206 said:

6231 did the honours again.

Nice to see buses in proper colours, especially when you can actually remember the original operator. Presume that 6176 is in a version of Maynes livery.

[320touring]

 

I'll rely on @rml2345 to provide the info on this fine specimen 😁

[SunnySouth]

9 hours ago, Yoss said:

I know the two guys who owned 271. They had preferential treatment at Flexford as they basically acted as security. They were very keen and were up there at all hours, I mean literally all night sometimes, had built their own workshop and break room and fitted cctv at their own cost so that's fair enough. Very talented lads, that Atlantean had half it's framework replaced and it was all fabricated on site by themselves. They even repaired the platform edging on my bus. They were very handy to have around. 

Unfortunately when Flexford closed they were thrust in to the world of commercial bus storage rates and something had to go and they wanted to keep their Regents. Personally I'd have had one Regent and one Atlantean but they're not my buses. 

These are their two Regents on display last Sunday. 

You can see a theme here. Most bus owners don't dare remove their panels for fear of what's underneath (unless you have a Routemaster of course when you know it will be okay) but Ian and Charnie embrace it and have the skills to repair almost anything. 

They did tell me where 271 went but I forget now, but it wasn't local. Hopefully it's still okay because they put some serious work in. 

Ah that’s a shame, but doubtless a familiar tale sadly. Let’s hope, as you say, 271 lives on safe and well somewhere!

[Cavcraft]

Not my picture, but from today in Hooton, Cheshire

[SunnySouth]

1 hour ago, Cavcraft said:

Not my picture, but from today in Hooton, Cheshire

Lovely!

That Mk2 looks superb!

[Cavcraft]

The (green) Crosville one is my favourite. They seemed to be everywhere locally back in the day.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

19 hours ago, Cavcraft said:

Not my picture, but from today in Hooton, Cheshire

Do I spot C49OCM; the last National built? 

[lisbon_road]

A busy week.  Wednesday, I went to BusWorld, the exhibition in Brussels.  New buses, parts, systems, all of that.

Now, roughly 50% Chinese manufacturers, some with really huge stands with endless buses and coaches.  Mostly electric - even long distance coaches.

The Chinese manufacturers vary between really scarily competent (Yutong and BYD) and some who look a good deal more basic.  European companies are there, of course, though ADL and Wright were not present.  Just a few British companies - Graysons being perhaps the biggest.

Anyway, you want some pictures.  This 1966 Merc Minibus was totally fab and a bit shite:

In contrast, this BYD long distance coach is amazing.  Their batteries are remarkably compact.

MG now do buses too.  Who in Cowley would have predicted?

There were fuel cell buses too.  A German man on a stand took a long time to explain to me how the work and it really sounds as if the fuel cell technology is well established - the mechanism by which they get the hydrogen sounds very complex and frankly all a bit unlikely.  Well here's a Citaro  fuel cell bus.  Nice green and lighting (!):

All in all an experience.  Got there by Eurostar - recommended.  And Brussels public transport - a bit less so.

What a day out!

[vtec-e]

Out of interest what was the long range on the BYD bus ?