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As we are on page 100, have a Stagecoach South West bus in their 100 years of Devon General livery (OK, it was last year, but it's still in use and I pictured this on my way into 'spoons which just behind the Dart barely half hour ago).

IMG_20200919_160217.thumb.jpg.452ed7bd85416f12c35c0dac5a314115.jpg

As for registration plates; ADL buses built at the old Alexander plant at Falkirk are generally registered with plates starting with S, those built at Plaxtons in Scarborough have registrations starting with Y. 

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26 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

As we are on page 100, have a Stagecoach South West bus in their 100 years of Devon General livery (OK, it was last year, but it's still in use and I pictured this on my way into 'spoons which just behind the Dart barely half hour ago).

IMG_20200919_160217.thumb.jpg.452ed7bd85416f12c35c0dac5a314115.jpg

As for registration plates; ADL buses built at the old Alexander plant at Falkirk are generally registered with plates starting with S, those built at Plaxtons in Scarborough have registrations starting with Y. 

All our MMCs were Scarborough built and buses tend to get factory registrations as its apparently easier for the manufacturer to register them than the operators 

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I thought Scarborough built single decks and Falkirk doubles? Born out of the Pointer being broadly the more successful SD and the ALX400 the more successful DD. I wonder if one will close in favour of the other, it already seems odd that the ADL chassis have to be shipped up from their factory in Guildford which must have hyper-expensive running costs.

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

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2 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

I thought Scarborough built single decks and Falkirk doubles? Born out of the Pointer being broadly the more successful SD and the ALX400 the more successful DD. I wonder if one will close in favour of the other, it already seems odd that the ADL chassis have to be shipped up from their factory in Guildford which must have hyper-expensive running costs.

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

They have built double deckers at Scarborough for several years. There is talk of the Guildford plant closing though

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23 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

London's stupid Boris buses still have NI plates for some reason, all other English Wrights I've seen are registered more locally.

The first Borismasters were London registered. Then Wrights did a deal with the authorities in NI and got the full allocation of 1 to something like 800 (and re-registered the first lot) of a local reg and then a different starting letter for the last lot.

Scarborough has been building a lot of milk floats for London not least because they can get them South on a full charge. 

Wrights were generally Scottish reg until they went tits. Then the operators that got the completed ones (Diamond) registered them locally.

Mercs tend to be registered starting with B as there main place is in Coventry. Scania's tend to be Y reg as their place is at Worksop, so Sheffield.

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6 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

The first Borismasters were London registered. Then Wrights did a deal with the authorities in NI and got the full allocation of 1 to something like 800 (and re-registered the first lot) of a local reg and then a different starting letter for the last lot.

I think they did this to get registrations with the letters LTZ. 

Many Routemasters had registrations with VLT, some of which are now owned by fans.  I remember my Dad pointing this out when we saw one on a drive.

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22 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

I think they did this to get registrations with the letters LTZ. 

Many Routemasters had registrations with VLT, some of which are now owned by fans.  I remember my Dad pointing this out when we saw one on a drive.

SLT VLT WLT CLT DYE ALD-B ALM-B CUV-C JJD-D NML-E SMK-F (only ones not listed here are the Northern general and BEA RM's and RM1000 which got 100BXL and FRM1 KGY4D)

a lot of the suffix-less ones got robbed from their RMs and ended up on other buses and sometimes cars sadly (they where mostly robbed by fleet operators rather then private individuals, so mostly ended up on other buses) 

personal humorous favourite of mine is the fact that RM1666 happened to be in the DYE range so got the registration 666DYE :mrgreen: (sadly has been robbed from the bus)

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11 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

On the early RMs I think the registration no. matched the fleet no. on most of them? Not sure how they organised that, but ISTR RM 664, which I saw when new, was WLT 664.

on pretty much every London Transport RM not just the early ones, the registration matched the fleet number, (within the confines of the registration system of course), the last Routemaster made RML2760 is SMK760F for example :) 

 

 (which is one of the reasons I hate the robbery of plates on RMs especially, as the number plates where not just randomly issued, but actually part of the bus and its identity) plate robbery was/is also very annoying as it made IDing the Routemaster that drove past impossible then and there 

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11 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

on pretty much every London Transport RM not just the early ones, the registration matched the fleet number, (within the confines of the registration system of course), the last Routemaster made RML2760 is SMK760F for example :) 

 

 (which is one of the reasons I hate the robbery of plates on RMs especially, as the number plates where not just randomly issued, but actually part of the bus and its identity) plate robbery was/is also very annoying as it made IDing the Routemaster that drove past impossible then and there 

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

IMG_20200314_0015.jpg

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1 minute ago, Richard_FM said:

Here's another bus with a Routemaster registration.

IMG_20200314_0015.jpg

Yeah, I remember I once walking around west ham bus garage with the nice manager as you do

(this was before I crippled myself and used to ride the Routemasters on Route 15 regularly and go back to the garage at the end of the day with the crew :) )

and I must of pulled quite the face going by the reactions around me when I spotted an Enviro 200 they had wearing the number plate "VLT14" (especially as I knew RM14 was/is a survivor) it must have worked because VLT14 is back on the RM it belongs to :) 

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19 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Ahem.

14654654675_971b44daec_b.thumb.jpg.dc83294bcafd67853fad59227d971e90.jpg

I thought you dont do Routemasters, so what where you doing at RM60?  :mrgreen: (or have you just borrowed someone else picture? :) )  

but yeah as you post, the 4 Prototypes (RMC/CRL4 SLT59 not present at the time due to still being under its front end rebuild at the time IIRC?) registrations did not match the fleet numbers, but they did go up together (did not forget them just forgot to put it in my notes at the end in the post above LOL)

 

as a side note make me wonder what the longest someones reserved a registration for? they obviously must have reserved the 4 registrations long before the last prototypes where made (according to the DVLA RM1 was registered in Jan 56 with RML3 the last prototype to be registered was not done so until Jan 58)

obviously would have to be something from the pre suffix days (or a NI reg) that would not get "voided" every time the suffix/prefix changes

 

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55 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

as a side note make me wonder what the longest someones reserved a registration for? they obviously must have reserved the 4 registrations long before the last prototypes where made (according to the DVLA RM1 was registered in Jan 56 with RML3 the last prototype to be registered was not done so until Jan 58)

SLT 56 was not RM1 s first registration. It was going to be registered in the RT series (along with the other prototypes) but it was pointed out a brand new bus with an 'OLD' registration wouldn't look that great. I have a feeling it was going to be OLD862 with the others following on fro that. 

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6 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

SLT 56 was not RM1 s first registration. It was going to be registered in the RT series (along with the other prototypes) but it was pointed out a brand new bus with an 'OLD' registration wouldn't look that great. I have a feeling it was going to be OLD862 with the others following on fro that. 

Yeah I remember hearing about that many years ago and was thinking about it just now, quite amusing :) was RM1 actually registered under that registration tho? Im honestly unsure, I always thought the prototypes ran around on trade plates before being given their SLT registrations

 

3 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Why choose VLT? TfL has more recently used three letter identifiers that made some sense, I can't remember exactly but VLWnnn would mean Volvo Long wheelbase Wright, or something.

just because its a Routemaster registration and also hides the age of the bus, its nothing to do with the bus itself (its not its fleet name or anything such)

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2 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

Why choose VLT? TfL has more recently used three letter identifiers that made some sense, I can't remember exactly but VLWnnn would mean Volvo Long wheelbase Wright, or something.

It was a way of reusing plates; the Dart was DT32, originally G32 TGW.

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3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Yeah I remember hearing about that but it was many years ago was quite amusing :) was RM1 actually registered under that registration tho? Im honestly unsure, ...

No, none ever ran with their RT series registrations although they were allocated and technically registered with them before they were completed.

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1 hour ago, cms206 said:

Best use I've seen of a Routemaster so far, plate raping to put on a Dartline.

10/10, would like to drive frequently.

I was going to come back on that remark by saying the Dart is highly unlikely to still exist so chances of being able to drive frequently are minimal. So I checked the reg in the MOT history checker only to find that VLT 240 is now on a 2011 Hyundai i10! This probably makes you even happier.

So I then tried G32 TGW and that says unknown Dennis with first MOT due September 2021. Not sure what that means. RM 240 is long gone, I think the Dart probably has too. 

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21 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I was going to come back on that remark by saying the Dart is highly unlikely to still exist so chances of being able to drive frequently are minimal. So I checked the reg in the MOT history checker only to find that VLT 240 is now on a 2011 Hyundai i10! This probably makes you even happier.

So I then tried G32 TGW and that says unknown Dennis with first MOT due September 2021. Not sure what that means. RM 240 is long gone, I think the Dart probably has too. 

exported apparently! (although my 3rd party tools dont show an export marker so go figure!)

image.thumb.png.e6dfd98914d9bb2280e73360d275de0c.png

you can find more general info on a vehicle from the general 1st party vehicle enquiry service here :) https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

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42 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I was going to come back on that remark by saying the Dart is highly unlikely to still exist so chances of being able to drive frequently are minimal. So I checked the reg in the MOT history checker only to find that VLT 240 is now on a 2011 Hyundai i10! This probably makes you even happier.

So I then tried G32 TGW and that says unknown Dennis with first MOT due September 2021. Not sure what that means. RM 240 is long gone, I think the Dart probably has too. 

Dart was last known in Antigua!

VLT 240 was carried by Titan T1131, DT32, a Citaro and now an i10. RM240 became PSK 823 in 1992 and was scrapped by the end of that year.

The RMs for RMs sake arguement is still something I don't understand and even having driven them I still don't see the appeal, though I'm quite sure we'd have managed 60 years out of a Dart by copious re-engineering, rebodying and repowering ;)

2020-09-21_05-45-07.jpg

20200921_191423.jpg

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I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of a Routemaster argument again as I think we've had that conversation before. Each to their own and all that. 

But I like that picture of the Titans, particularly that T240 is on the right. You'd have thought that would have been a more suitable recipient of VLT 240 wouldn't you, especially if it was allocated to the same garage. 

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32 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Hang on. T1131? That was prototype No.5 (originally BCK706R)!

looks like it :)

image.thumb.png.9ffcab5b4428408b34cf0714f2fd0bb8.png

the plate change record is interesting because TMX535R is an age related plate given back in the 1993, and back then when you put on then took a private plate off a vehicle they did not give you the plate original  but just gave you an age related plate

I always wondered if you could claim back the originial plate (since it automatically just goes on retention and they obviously give it back these days when put on and take off a private plate) evidently it looks like you can :) 

(the plate history looks familiar I wonder if I have looked it up before...)

 

 

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while on the subject of a vehicles history I was curious if someone could explain to me how keepers worked when it came to PSV vehicles? I always assumed the registered keeper was whichever company owned the vehicle etc

but i Know RML2760 has been through a different companies in her existence 

(I always regret never getting a chance to ride on her back to the garage back when she was still running heritage Route 15, with an original AEC engine and tungsten lighting, being one of the very few RML's to not have been refurbished in the 1990s, I did get a chance to catch her in service, but never with big paul the friendly conductor who would let me and mum ride back to the garage)

yet she only shows 2 total keepers (the 2013 one i assume being when she was donated to Cobham bus museum?)

and even assuming the keeper count only goes back to 1983 id of still expected a couple keeper changes because I London transport obviously disappeared then East London then stagecoach etc  so im curious who the keeper was between 1968/1983 and 2013!,

image.png.8196ee6e31043cc06d21f7b26161ffa1.png

 

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4 hours ago, Yoss said:

I was going to come back on that remark by saying the Dart is highly unlikely to still exist so chances of being able to drive frequently are minimal. So I checked the reg in the MOT history checker only to find that VLT 240 is now on a 2011 Hyundai i10! This probably makes you even happier.

So I then tried G32 TGW and that says unknown Dennis with first MOT due September 2021. Not sure what that means. RM 240 is long gone, I think the Dart probably has too. 

I found this out when I first bought the photo & checked out the details.

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