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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:

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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:

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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Because a couple of weeks later it looked like this. 

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

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

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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. 

 

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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. 

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But it gets worse... 

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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. 

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

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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

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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.

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14 hours ago, Yoss said:

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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On 1/6/2023 at 7:36 PM, 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.

I think I have an issue of Buses Magazine that reports these as bodied by Northern Counties. 

They must have been delivered CKD as they don't appear to have any NC parts! 

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13 hours ago, busmansholiday said:

That's quite a find, and quite a price too. The only one of those I've ever known in preservation is 335, this is one of my pictures taken on a running day circa 1985, so nice and up to date. 

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Not the most attractive buses, with the slab sides and the top deck windows are too narrow but good solid things nonetheless.

I've no idea where 337 has been the last 40 odd years but it looks surprisingly original, it just needs that ghastly seat moquette replaced. It might have had maroon vinyl throughout or it may have had the part vinyl part moquette seats downstairs. This was a combination Southampton used at least from the slightly newer Regents right through to the penultimate Atlantean. The last Atlantean, 276, oddly turned up with full moquette upstairs and down. I guess the vinyl upstairs seats was because they were more cigarette resistant in the days of smokers. 

 

Edit: this was the best pic I could find of the classic SCT seat from a book I have upstairs (not everything is on the Internet it seems).

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Thats the rear facing bench seat on the front bulkhead of a Southampton Regent V. The forward facing seats obviously had two moquette inserts, one for each passenger. The same moquette was used from about 1963 right through to the coach seated Olympians in around 1987. You can't see it here but it is sort of black based with maroon and white speccles. 

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4 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

Technically you can (with less than 9 passengers who aren't paying) because it's over 30 years old but I believe getting insurance to do this is really tricky.

Not especially. I had two RMs from 2001 to 2019 and the  insurance went up from about £200 to £300 a year in that time which is reasonable given the 18 year time span. I only have a car licence but maybe it helped that it's an old fashioned one, or maybe not. Obviously it was a specialist preserved bus insurer. I think they were called Towergate at the end. They went through several changes of owner/name in that time but kept the same Northamptonshire address. 

Breakdown cover was only £80 a year too for roadside and recovery which is a lot cheaper than AA or RAC want just to cover your car. 

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Absolutely gutted to see this happened over the weekend:

 

Six little cnuts broke into Reliance Busworks' yard and set about smashing windows on various vehicles, including some which will be nigh on impossible to replace. They also trashed a car parked in the yard, and left a water hose running inside it. The CCTV suggests it was kids. I won't comment any further for fear of being ever so slightly offensive...

A GoFundMe page has been set up and, it has to be said, the support so far is immense, so hopefully the business will continue.  Any donations, even just a tenner, will of course help. Link is here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/reliance-bus-works-destruction-fund?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

 

This one is particularly heartbraking: :(

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23 minutes ago, SunnySouth said:

A GoFundMe page has been set up and, it has to be said, the support so far is immense, so hopefully the business will continue. 

If they're insured (both premises and vehicles), surely their financial risk is little-to-nothing except for a hiked premium?

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2 hours ago, Crackers said:

If they're insured (both premises and vehicles), surely their financial risk is little-to-nothing except for a hiked premium?

Lots of possible insurance scenarios I would imagine; certainly their initial comments very much suggested that they would be needing to find the money to fund repairs. The same situation has occured many times with cars in burnt out commercial garage premises etc, it seems quite a complex area!

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One of the problems is that whilst quite a lot of the glass is flat panel and relatively easy to cut new, curved glass like the windscreens for the Harrington are going to a twat to source. Also, whilst they’re probably insured I imagine they’ll have to upfront a lot of the cost before the insurance pay out, not to mention the amount of time they’ll have to devote to clearing up rather than being productive on work that pays the bills.

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3 hours ago, Crackers said:

If they're insured (both premises and vehicles), surely their financial risk is little-to-nothing except for a hiked premium?

It all depends exactly on how the policy is set up.

Firstly a lot of them will value vehicles in the yard just as a car policy would based on the "book value" rather than any reflection of the time, money and effort that may have been invested in them.  So it's entirely likely they would look to declare at least some of them as total losses.

Plus it's likely to be a "claim it back after the event" setup so they'd need to fork out in the short term to get things sorted out.  Which if they are a little independent organisation may simply not be an option on this scale.

16 hours ago, 808 Estate said:

How the fuck can you drive that on a car licence?

There's a rule which allows any PCV over 30 years old to be driven on a normal car license on a couple of provisos.  Firstly is that you can't carry more than 9 passengers, the second is that you can't be driving for hire and reward, you must be over 21 and have had your license a minimum of two years, and you of course need to make sure you have insurance in place.  When I last looked at this about ten years ago that was the biggest headache I found as most places that would cover the coach in question wanted me to have a full category D license.

Not sure their claims of MOT exemption are correct though, I was under the impression that commercial vehicles and PCVs still required a regular test irrespective of age and use case.  Prepared to be proven wrong there but that was my understanding at least.

Edited by Zelandeth
Forgot a couple of points.
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1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

It all depends exactly on how the policy is set up.

Firstly a lot of them will value vehicles in the yard just as a car policy would based on the "book value" rather than any reflection of the time, money and effort that may have been invested in them.  So it's entirely likely they would look to declare at least some of them as total losses.

Plus it's likely to be a "claim it back after the event" setup so they'd need to fork out in the short term to get things sorted out.  Which if they are a little independent organisation may simply not be an option on this scale.

There's a rule which allows any PCV over 30 years old to be driven on a normal car license on a couple of provisos.  Firstly is that you can't carry more than 9 passengers, the second is that you can't be driving for hire and reward, you must be over 21 and have had your license a minimum of two years, and you of course need to make sure you have insurance in place.  When I last looked at this about ten years ago that was the biggest headache I found as most places that would cover the coach in question wanted me to have a full category D license.

Not sure their claims of MOT exemption are correct though, I was under the impression that commercial vehicles and PCVs still required a regular test irrespective of age and use case.  Prepared to be proven wrong there but that was my understanding at least.

This is a very grey area. Commercials pre 1960 are exempt from plating (MOT). All vehicles over 40 years are Historic Tax class, so free though not strictly exempt. Buses as you say above. But here is the big BUT....

There is a long standing and little known classification of a "Heavy Motor Car" that has a minimum weight. So, if using a commercial vehicle (be that goods or people) as a motor car, it should be classified as such and hence be exempt from MOT.

Test this out at your own risk, I am not an expert in anything, never mind traffic law.

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It can be summed up as thus:

If a 40+ year old PSV/HGV is used for hire and reward in any way, it must be MoT’d and taxed as per any normal commercial vehicle. 

If it is not used in any way for hire and reward, it can be classified as MoT/tax exempt. 

https://www.gov.uk/historic-vehicles/vehicles-exempt-from-vehicle-tax

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1 hour ago, 83C said:

It can be summed up as thus:

If a 40+ year old PSV/HGV is used for hire and reward in any way, it must be MoT’d and taxed as per any normal commercial vehicle. 

If it is not used in any way for hire and reward, it can be classified as MoT/tax exempt. 

https://www.gov.uk/historic-vehicles/vehicles-exempt-from-vehicle-tax

That is fscking terrifying...bad enough that there are so many potential death trap cars flying around "because they're exempt" - but the thought of 10+ tonne lumps of metal being subjected to the same level of completely absent scrutiny is frankly terrifying.

I guess as all of the vehicles I'd been driving in those categories were technically owned by an actual bus operator and could be hired out they were just treated exactly as any other bus in the fleet from a testing perspective.

Buses are a hell of a lot more of a handful to look after than your average classic car and clearly have the potential to do orders of magnitude more damage if something goes awry.  Especially those old enough to lack safety measures like brakes which require air pressure to release...

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31 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I guess as all of the vehicles I'd been driving in those categories were technically owned by an actual bus operator and could be hired out they were just treated exactly as any other bus in the fleet from a testing perspective.

Sadly, as we saw just before Christmas, at least one major bus operator has decided against that idea after decades of embracing it! :(

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Not quite as interesting as Yoss' Southampton Atlanteans and wotnot, but continuing the south coast theme here's a couple of quick shots of the current equipment in Portsmouth, taken in Hilsea layby today.

Still plenty of rattling Streetshite's about, but First down here have had a recent fling with ADL E200s. Two of them here, in 'Star' livery for two of Pompey's flagship routes and in the local generic 'Solent' colours. I like the Solent livery, it's pretty cheery :)

The current depot building was formerly Southdown's Hilsea West depot, with the main Hilsea Depot building being across the road. That went a good few years ago now, replaced with a 'half arsed art deco' style block of flats named Southdown View. Nice touch with the name, but it's less pleasing to look at than its predecessor! 

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