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On 2/13/2022 at 8:52 PM, CaptainGustav said:

Hi, can I add some exotic coaches here?

That would be brilliant. Variety is the spice of life. I like to find photos of old eastern bloc buses, hopefully in action, after a couple of brief visits there in the late 80's. Identifying the types is half the fun. But if you've got pictures/knowledge from further east that would just add to the whole topic.

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16 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

A couple of small operators local to me operated a number of Plaxton Supremes and Paramounts over the years. Frances Motors/Ideal of Marker Weighton ran Volvo B58s, Volvo B10Ms, AEC Reliances and Leyland Leopards and Baldrys of Holme on Spalding Moor ran mostly Ford's and Bedfords. By 2011 when they sold out to York Pullman Frances had updated their fleet a bit with mostly Premieres and Excaliburs, however Baldrys were still running Bedfords that were nearly 30 years old. Baldrys were told they had to update their fleet to keep school contracts. 

I may have posted this a while back but this one is still on school runs near me; obviously a bit of a pet but great to see it in action (photo from flickr).

 

Henshaws Executive Travel - BKO447Y

 

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2 hours ago, jon.k said:

I may have posted this a while back but this one is still on school runs near me; obviously a bit of a pet but great to see it in action (photo from flickr).

 

Henshaws Executive Travel - BKO447Y

 

I must admit I am surprised they are allowed to use a vehicle of that age regularly on school runs, it is nice to see a Supreme still in use though. 

One of the Supremes Baldrys had was SWW 165W, a Ford R1014 with bus grant doors which was regularly used. It was about 20 years old when they bought it and was approaching 30 when they finished with it, sadly it went for scrap as it was too far gone. 

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10 hours ago, martc said:

That would be brilliant. Variety is the spice of life. I like to find photos of old eastern bloc buses, hopefully in action, after a couple of brief visits there in the late 80's. Identifying the types is half the fun. But if you've got pictures/knowledge from further east that would just add to the whole topic.

Only a few traditional buses and coaches still in action and most are all gone, because it is really not fun driving a 8-10m bus with a small 126 hp petrol engine to conquer any steep slope and no power steering, in summer the driver always needs nearly a noisy stove, truck chassis ensures passengers are always bouncing up and down. That is Good Old Days but no passengers and drivers want to come back.

1404782881_2022-02-15174654.thumb.png.c9a3132ca3fb904b6a318351030c5cd7.png

A typical old style Chinese coach, the chassis is specially for coach but still developed from truck.

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25 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Thank you for sharing this with old Chinese buses it is interesting. Since they were so old fashion, I guess air suspension did not come until recently? Or do they still have leaf springs?

This usually depends on how much the user pays, there are a lot of small vehicle factories in China operated by privates and local governments, often with very strange combinations like original leaf springs with truck chassis, electric engine and fancy modern bodywork but the big group produces good quality buses such as BYD, King Long. Most buses in major cities currently have air suspension, air conditioning and low entry, also 100% electric.  Some conservative operators rejected air conditioning and air suspension and still ordered diesel engine is nothing new even it happened in Beijing.

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There’s a combination of words you don’t see often together - ‘Dennis Javelin’ and ‘goes well’. 

I’ve driven a few, and almost all were absolute shite. Tanat Valley Coaches of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant had some on school runs.

IAZ3454, Dennis Javelin/Duple 320

IAZ 3454 was a Javelin with Duple 320 bodywork, seen here at the depot having new metalwork welded in (because Duple). It was a gutless old thing, and universally known as IA-Shed. But it rarely gave much in the way of trouble and plodded between Llanrhaeadr and Llanfyllin school twice a day for several years. 

R1 STW

As part of a deal acquiring some of Mid Wales Travel’s business, 3 of these turned up. Slow and very uncomfortable to drive, with the added bonus of a UVG body that did what all of them do - leak. Attempts were made to tidy and polish them but even a nice paint job can’t disguise the fact that they were all still turds.

415 P115 HCF

This one was the best of the Javelins, it went well and was fairly comfortable. Not exactly reliable though. 

However Tanat also had some great machines to play with and its probably the operator I enjoyed working for the most. Things like:

A41XHE, Leyland Tiger/Alexander TE

Another ‘schools only’ machine, Tiger/Alexander TE A41 XHE was the longer-lived one of a pair, the other had been sold a few years prior to a local school as extra accommodation. Pictured here on its last day in service in November 2009 on the way back from Welshpool. It wasn’t the fastest of the Tigers at Tanat, but it was a very pleasant thing to drive and ended up being the last Tiger at TVC. 

Tanat Valley: 259 L409 TKB, Ellesmere

I may have recounted the story around these things before, if so apologies for the repetition. The owners of TVC wanted to go towards operating more accessible vehicles, and in 2009 Arriva in Liverpool were getting shot of these weird things, Neoplan N4016s. The batch ordered by MTL in 1993 remained unique in the UK, and most went straight from being thrashed around Merseyside to scrap. However 3 were sold on for further use at TVC (with a 4th for spares) and they had one big advantage - they were cheap, music to the ears of an operator who were fond of keeping capital expenditure to a minimum where possible. 

They were fitted with a 3-sp Voith and a 5-pot MAN lump, and take off was something to behold - the favoured party trick was to really give it the beans away from a standstill, which in typical Voith fashion meant engine revs went straight to maximum whilst road speed caught up, whilst laying a thick blanket of black smoke that a battleship commander would be proud of. 

Their undoing was that being unique in the UK parts were inevitably hard to come by, even things like a replacement throttle cable had to be made specially (fitting that outdoors in the snow was no fun!) and it was pretty well known that once a major component failure (especially the engine) occurred they would be scrap. There were vague ideas to try and shoehorn a Cummins L10 in one  but after the tape measure came out that plan was swiftly dropped. 

Tanat Valley: 268 J658 UHN, near Llanfyllin

And finally, everyone likes a Lynx, don’t they? TVC’s owners certainly did, operating a number of Mk.1s and Mk.2s over the years. Why? Because they were cheap and rugged. And they didn’t come any more of a bargain than J658 UHN, bought with J653 UHN for £1500 the pair, and both wearing a brand new set of Michelins all round! The initial idea had been spares for the fleet, but J658 went up on the ramps and it was realised it was in pretty good shape, so it was put through an MoT, painted in the shed with rollers and brushes, and gave 4 years good service with minimal trouble. J653 was stored and gave up many parts to keep the rest of the Lynx fleet going. 

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On 08/02/2022 at 13:54, Inspector Morose said:

1710461773_SOE975H(21).thumb.png.fd68c402d73f928bb6096c9a31a87f65.png

By 1995 there was just one WMPTE 'Jumbo' Fleetline left in public service. This was 3975 (SOE975H) operated by Jolly Rodger Coaches of Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. We had come across this bus before when purchasing 3997 from Partridge coaches a few years previously; this bus had been sitting at their yard - we had commented then that it seemed in very good condition for it to be scrapped.
We made contact with Jolly Rodger (run by a captain Birdeye lookalike it seemed) and after much discourse, we borrowed it to accompany our Jumbo to a rally at Bridlington in March of that year. As we had been added to their insurance for this, every time we visited Jolly Rodger we were pressganged into operating some school service or other. We did get the pick of the fleet though, and what a fleet it was. Choice of a chariot was from this, another later WMPTE Fleetline that had been blown on its side at least once, single deck ex-Darlington Fleetlines (a rare thing in itself) and a few others. 


Sadly time moved on and the traffic commissioners caught up with this most outpost of outposts and Jolly Rodger had his operators licence taken off him, something about a relaxed attitude towards paperwork and, erm, anything official really. He wasn't a cowboy operator though; the fleet was always kept safe and well maintained, he just didn't believe in the rigmarole involved with the 'other', legal stuff!
Sadly 3975 dropped off the radar (pre internet forums on every street corner) and the last known mentions were that it had been broken for spares for the restoration of 3913 (SOE913H).
And that's where the tale got murky. We had visited 3913 in the past and took a fairly comprehensive review of it. Without a doubt, '75 was in far better condition both structurally and mechanically than 13. I've no doubt that '13 undertook a comprehensive rebuild but if you've two side by side and one has a far better structure, which one would you restore?

I knew I had a photo of this one while it was stuck at the back of the yard at Partridge.

SOE975H.thumb.jpg.3dd44a008106c45a772cb9cd78f6018d.jpg

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On 2/16/2022 at 10:33 AM, sierraman said:

As a kid pretty much every trip on a coach to the seaside was on a Plaxton Supreme, you still see them occasionally, I’m guessing they’re a pretty tough old thing?

More abundant and easy to mend than tough, although the chassis they were fitted to were also quite rugged and easy to fix when they went wrong. Even the lightweights (Bedfords and Fords) were quite long lived due to being easy to keep on the road. 

Supremes tended to dissolve slower than the contemporary Duple offerings as well but so did aspirin in water. 

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Saw these on faceache and  thought you guys may be interested in them

20220217_152156.jpg.736dbf05bcbfa1c1ac1224da46b6ae95.jpg

 

20220217_152141.jpg.ff1a57ceaf924cff1e6bf1aac8d8c06e.jpg

These 2 become 1. 

20220217_152205.thumb.jpg.9c71cc68b1dfdf8e48fa6912bce4d46a.jpg

 

Driven by Marvin Aday in the film Spiceworld.  I've never had the pleasure or misfortune to see it. 

You can now rent the former spice bus for a staycation.

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20 hours ago, EML said:

Saw these on faceache and  thought you guys may be interested in them

20220217_152156.jpg.736dbf05bcbfa1c1ac1224da46b6ae95.jpg

 

20220217_152141.jpg.ff1a57ceaf924cff1e6bf1aac8d8c06e.jpg

These 2 become 1. 

20220217_152205.thumb.jpg.9c71cc68b1dfdf8e48fa6912bce4d46a.jpg

 

Driven by Marvin Aday in the film Spiceworld.  I've never had the pleasure or misfortune to see it. 

You can now rent the former spice bus for a staycation.

I've never seen the film either, was never a fan of the Spice Girls 

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On 2/16/2022 at 8:04 AM, 83C said:

 

Tanat Valley: 268 J658 UHN, near Llanfyllin

And finally, everyone likes a Lynx, don’t they? TVC’s owners certainly did, operating a number of Mk.1s and Mk.2s over the years. Why? Because they were cheap and rugged. And they didn’t come any more of a bargain than J658 UHN, bought with J653 UHN for £1500 the pair, and both wearing a brand new set of Michelins all round! The initial idea had been spares for the fleet, but J658 went up on the ramps and it was realised it was in pretty good shape, so it was put through an MoT, painted in the shed with rollers and brushes, and gave 4 years good service with minimal trouble. J653 was stored and gave up many parts to keep the rest of the Lynx fleet going. 

I thought that looked familiar, one number out from this.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Corgi-OOC-43110-1-76-Leyland-Lynx-II-United-Auto-Services-6-Durham-Unboxed-VGC-/353911177815?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

I've got one of these somewhere, bought because it was the bus I would catch home from school (when it was heading to Bishop Auckland).  Funny how we've both ended up down here.

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1 hour ago, Inspector Morose said:

Manchester 1992. An ex-SYPTE Atlantean owned by Citybus passes what looks like an ex-WYPTE Optare bodied Leyland Cub (although I could be mistaken on that one).

VET613S.thumb.png.4ad6fc8165ad6ebd8b4ebffee810cd3b.png

 

Edit: You know, on second thoughts, I think it's a ex-SYPTE Dennis Domino

Looks like a C-HDT Domino to me too.

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1 hour ago, 83C said:

Looks like a C-HDT Domino to me too.

 

3 hours ago, Inspector Morose said:

Manchester 1992. An ex-SYPTE Atlantean owned by Citybus passes what looks like an ex-WYPTE Optare bodied Leyland Cub (although I could be mistaken on that one).

VET613S.thumb.png.4ad6fc8165ad6ebd8b4ebffee810cd3b.png

 

Edit: You know, on second thoughts, I think it's a ex-SYPTE Dennis Domino

 

1 hour ago, 83C said:

Looks like a C-HDT Domino to me too.

Pacer Bus, had three, 41,44,54.

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On 17/02/2022 at 18:25, EML said:

Saw these on faceache and  thought you guys may be interested in them

20220217_152156.jpg.736dbf05bcbfa1c1ac1224da46b6ae95.jpg

 

  @EML

Thought those colours looked familiar... Mansfield buses pre-privatistion. The number 7 route went past my childhood home thus highly likely I was on this very bus at some point. Thanks @EML. The destination, Oak Tree Lane is a large late 70's built Council estate - under half a mile from my old front door.

Edited by auntiemaryscanary
My own stupidity
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