Bus Shite

[LightBulbFun]

Snap been on that one! on the very few times I have been able to catch a running day, this was September last year  

it was a bit surreal waiting at the bus stop and just casually having an RTL pull up to pick you and everyone else up, even more so when an 1930's STL  casually goes the other way!

sorry to hear about the passing of your friend! its a great way to remember him by!  

[Yoss]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

 

sorry to hear about the passing of your friend! its a great way to remember him by!  

Colin Taffell. Quite a well known figure in Routemaster circles. He died last year aged 70, which used to sound old but now I've just passed 56 it really doesn't. 

In the 1990s he had his own small Routemaster hire business and he would do anything, the usual weddings and trips to the seaside but also school buses, proms and rail replacement work and anything anybody might want one for. At one point he had three buses, RM 1571, 1959 and RMA 10 but it was hard work and eventually he decided it was easier to just drive for other people and I can't say I blame him. The maintenance and red tape did look like a nightmare. 

At the height I was doing a couple of jobs a week conducting for him, happily driving from Southampton to Watford to do so and spending more in petrol (usually in a Wolseley 18/85S auto) than the job paid but that wasn't the point. Most of my best Routemaster moments and all of the most ridiculous ones involved Colin.

I'll find some photos at some point. 

 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

I'll find some photos at some point. 

Hope you can, sounds like you had a great time

[Yoss]

On 11/08/2024 at 23:10, High Jetter said:

Hope you can, sounds like you had a great time

I've started going through some stuff. Unfortunately my photo cataloging system looks like this. 

I have four boxes of these and the only way I can tell roughly when anything is from is by the different types of envelopes they come in so it can be quite time consuming. I've been through one of the four boxes so far. 

So let's start here. Colin spent many years with London Transport in scheduling before he left to start his own mini bus company so he knew pretty well how the system worked. Now we all know that London is not deregulated and you can't just run any old route you want to like you can anywhere else. But what most people don't realise is that you can run a route that starts outside London into London. And that you can then run short journeys anywhere along that route even if that section is wholly within London. I am surprised that nobody else has ever picked up on this. 

And also from his days in scheduling he knew the N29 was chronically under bussed. Running from the West End through Camden with all the night life they possessed up through Harringay and Wood Green every bus was full and standing. So Colin registered a route from Harlow, for no other reason than it was near where he kept his buses, to Trafalgar Square on Friday and Saturday nights only, with Thursday night being added later on. Numbered the H29 partly because it came from Harlow but mostly because the H looked a bit like an N in the dark! 

I went along as a passenger the first night but soon offered to conduct (I mean you did get paid but that really wasn't the point).

I think these pictures I've found are from the first night it went up from a one bus to a two bus operation. The two buses ran together on the inward journey from Harlow to London in the evening arriving at Trafalgar Square about 9pm. This was really just a run to get them in to place so it didn't matter that they ran together. 

Harlow. 

One bus taken from the platform of the other bus which is why it is piss poor quality. These are not digital photos remember. 

 

Arrival at Trafalgar Square North Side. 

And a bus stand somewhere near Pimlico.

After arrival in London we had about a three hour break before the first northbound bus. This was done so the crews could go off and have a proper meal together, either a curry or a pizza or whatever but usually somewhere different every night. This night was a curry somewhere around Victoria. We then did two short runs to Wood Green or Tottenham  and back before the final run to Harlow left Trafalgar Square about 03.30. I have very few pictures of this as it was mentally busy even at 3am but here is a shot at either Hoddesdon or Broxbourne (my memory fails me now, it was 1992).

This one was taken by resting my tripod gently on the Ford Capri you can see in the bottom corner. Again, proper film and time exposure needed to get decent night shots. 

 

Soon after this the place that Colin kept the buses in White Roding objected to him coming and going at all hours despite him having asked them if it was alright beforehand and he had to find a new base. This was Mullaneys Coaches yard in Cardiff Road, Watford and so the outer end of the route was moved from Harlow to Hertford because it still began with H. Also at the same time he registered the garage run from Watford to Hertford as the 624. We got the occasional passenger on the evening run but I don't remember ever having a passenger from Hertford to Watford at 04.30 on a Sunday morning! But we had to drive the route anyway so we might as well do it in service. 

This all turned out to be a blessing in disguise as not only was Watford much nearer his house near Pinner it opened far more opportunities in the long run. 

The service lasted over a year but then suddenly his partner in the business, who was very much a sleeping partner disappeared with a large amount of the money and crucially his operators licence. For a few weeks Colin decided to run it as a free service whilst he very hastily applied for his own licence on the basis that he didn't want to lose his customer base.

But the service never really recovered. Again though this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as he now had his own licence and plenty of other work was to be had in the Watford area. 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Yoss said:

I've started going through some stuff. Unfortunately my photo cataloging system looks like this. 

Great, there must be a book in this

[lesapandre]

Tonight folks my other car is a bus...off London - Paris to pick up my C15 which has been languishing at a country station car park for a few weeks...I'm trying the overnight route. 

Boarding at the distopia that is Stratford. Bus nice and quiet this time of night...

Uncomfortable seats...and these international coaches always seem to have interesting drivers, lady tonight looks like Bette Lynch...fab jewellery too.

[Yoss]

9 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Tonight folks my other car is a bus...off London - Paris to pick up my C15 which has been languishing at a country station car park for a few weeks...I'm trying the overnight route. 

Boarding at the distopia that is Stratford. Bus nice and quiet this time of night...

Uncomfortable seats...and these international coaches always seem to have interesting drivers, lady tonight looks like Bette Lynch...fab jewellery too.

For a company that are little more than a decade old Flixbus do seem to have swept away all before them and now completely dominate the long distance coach market all across Europe. 

[Remspoor]

6 hours ago, Yoss said:

Flixbus do seem to have swept away all before them

It was the takeover of Eurolines that was the winner.

[lesapandre]

They did what they say on the tin - London to Paris 66€ via the Dover ferry. Arrived early too which was good and no intermediate stopping.

Left London 11.10pm  arrived Paris 9.50am.  

[Asimo]

Do you have to stay in the bus whilst it is on the ferry?
 

 If no, does the ferry have a bar?

[martc]

Ikarus 280 bendy buses in Sochi.

Did I tell you about the time I travelled in one in der DDR? Well, it was packed and I was stood in the flexi bit. Each time it turned left a massive fissure opened up in the right hand bellows as they were split from top to bottom.  I could have fallen out. I didn't complain.

[Dyslexic Viking]

School have started after the holidays. And I was quite surprised on the way to town this morning, all the school buses were 
electric Yutong now.

[lesapandre]

8 hours ago, Asimo said:

Do you have to stay in the bus whilst it is on the ferry?
 

 If no, does the ferry have a bar?

The Dover-Calais ferries - everyone decants and comes off the car decks - lorry, car and bus passengers - and goes 'upstairs' where there are the usual cafes and bars. 

All a bit pricey and generic - thought I suppose you could bring your own or drink the duty-free. It's only an hour and a half crossing - I usually bring my sleeping bag and have a kip.

I'm here in France- and have just seen a Routemaster bus at a rural fuel station - a little bit surreal! Being driven up from the South of France. It's used as a 'food truck/ restaurant - but looked very tidy and up together. 

Pulled away before me - and I did not catch it again - so making a good pace on the hilly roads here.

It's off to Dives-sur-Mer on the north coast if you are ever that way and spot it.

Quite a tribute to the design that it will do this. They said they'd been on the road 5-days so far.

France always throws up something interesting - I saw a very early XJ40  Jaguar Sovereign at the station. Just beautiful.

[EyesWeldedShut]

8 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

 

France always throws up something interesting - I saw a very early XJ40  Jaguar Sovereign at the station. Just beautiful.

Last time I was over it was a 2 door Rolls Royce (Corniche??) towing a horse trailer - that's a first

[Yoss]

Lots of Enviro 400s in Newport bus station today. 

And one in Cowes 

These are identical to the recent batch we got at Blue Star. Ours start from 1748. They have very nice seats. 

[Inspector Morose]

9 hours ago, martc said:

Ikarus 280 bendy buses in Sochi.

Did I tell you about the time I travelled in one in der DDR? Well, it was packed and I was stood in the flexi bit. Each time it turned left a massive fissure opened up in the right hand bellows as they were split from top to bottom.  I could have fallen out. I didn't complain.

My lasting memory of those was sitting in a Maccies in Dresden and watching some poor kid wrestle one of those at great speed (he must have got the short straw as most of his workmates were swanning around in new stuff), missing every gear he aimed for. The bellows were bouncing up and down like an accordion at a Polka contest.

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, Yoss said:

Lots of Enviro 400s in Newport bus station today. 

And one in Cowes 

These are identical to the recent batch we got at Blue Star. Ours start from 1748. They have very nice seats. 

Big overhang, tho!

[Yoss]

Back to the Nineties in the second of an occasional series. 

Colins next venture was the Christmas Day bus services in London. These ran in various forms for seven years from 1992 to 1998.

For the first couple of years it was just us with three buses. The first year we ran from Shepherd's Bush to Wood Green via Trafalgar Square and Russell Square. The bit from Shepherd's Bush in to town was to capture the tourists in all the hotels along Queensway and Lancaster Gate and likewise around Russell Square.

The thinking behind Wood Green was partly because we were still running the H29 at this point which also went there and Green Lanes through Harringay and Turnpike Lane was full of Greek and Turkish shops which were always open even if it was Christmas. Despite this nobody really wanted to leave Harringay so that bit was dropped after the first year. 

 

RM 1571 at Russell Square 

 

This is the only picture I've found of RM 2156 still in its Burnley and Pendle livery. This was only used in 1992 before it went off on loan to the short lived and somewhat shambolic Routemaster Bournemouth operation. Though they never used it and Colin later sold it to buy RMA 10 which was a sound move as that was a much more versatile bus. This was taken from the platform of another bus on the garage run somewhere near Pinner. 

A timetable at the terminus at Russell Square which was installed by one of Colins contacts at Camden Council. 

 

So Wood Green was dropped after the first year and we ran from Shepherd's Bush to Russel Square  or St Paul's. just to cover as many hotels as possible. I remember bombing round London on Christmas Eve evening in my Triumph 1300 going round all the hotels dropping leaflets off. That was fun in itself. 

I should add here that that this was a completely private service with cash fares only and we weren't accepting passes because we were nothing to do with London Transport. Unlike the H29 in my previous post there was no need to start outside of London because London Transport themselves ran no services and hadn't done since 1973 saying there was no demand. 

This confused and annoyed a lot of people especially as we turned up in red RMs albeit with all LT paraphernalia removed. So of course I spent a lot of time trying to explain all of the above to almost entirely tourists. Some of them would ask why LT had issued them with seven day travel cards if they were only running services for six of those days. That's something they needed to take up with LT.

And a lot of the foreign tourists couldn't believe that there were only three buses running in the whole of London. Across most of Europe there is at least a Sunday service everywhere on trains and buses because people do actually want to travel. 

I've found my 1992 duty sheet. 

Quite a long day but it would fly by. In later years we got more volunteers so we had much longer breaks but in reality most of us would spend our breaks helping out on somebody else's bus. Just look after the platform while they did the fares. 

 

RMA 10 and RM 1571 at the Shepherd's Bush terminus 

 

In later years when Colin was down to two buses, Stagecoach East London got involved. Their manager, John Batchelor was a proper bus enthusiast. That showed in the condition of their buses. Upton Park had RML 2760, the last routemaster as a showbus but the whole fleet were immaculate. 

So here Stagecoach's RMC 1461 has joined the fun. 

And RM 1959 which had also been loaned to Bournemouth and was used had returned and can be seen at the back of the queue still in Bournemouth green. 

Following this John wanted to get involved properly so the following year Stagecoach set up the 714. This ran from Russell Square to Earl's Court to serve all the hotels along the Cromwell Road. The 715 then ran from Shepherd's Bush to St Paul's Cathedral instead of alternating between there and Russell Square as it had before. 

After a couple of years of this, other bus companies started noticing and thought they wanted a piece of the pie. Unfortunately they didn't really understand how, or more to the point why, it was working and just sent out normal one man buses driven by normal drivers on triple time or something. The Stagecoach buses were of course all Routemasters and still crewed by enthusiasts who were going to make it work. 

In fact for the last couple of years after Colin had packed up his own business we all worked directly for Stagecoach out of Upton Park which is why I own a Stagecoach tie. 

So the others turned up in normal buses still decked out with the LT signs and lettering so when they get to the bus stop the driver either has to explain to every single passenger getting on that it is not a London Transport service and you can't use your pass, leading to massive delays, or they gave up and just let them on leading to loss of revenue. 

 

This is a leaflet from 1998, the last year it ran. 

And the route map showing how many people had joined in. 

Some timetables. 

And fare charts. It was proper stage work. Mostly £1.50 but also £1 or £2 depending on distance so you did sort of need to know where you were. 

 

T85. This was deposited at Trafalgar Square and used as an information bus and somewhere for crews to hang around in between duties. This was taken outside Upton Park. 

 

After this Colin had had enough. Even though he was technically employed by Stagecoach for the day he was still the main organiser liaising between all the other companies to bring it all together. 

For 1999 nobody else wanted to organise it so it just stopped and there have been no Christmas Day bus services in London since. TfL still claim there is no demand which is utter bullshit but no more than you would expect from TfL. 

I mean we even have Christmas Day services in Southampton! 

You can't tell it's Christmas day from the pictures but it was. 

I went on a couple and they weren't heavily loaded but I only did the northern end of the 17 where I live. The driver said it was quite busy from town to the hospital. But the point is if Blue Star can justify a service in Southampton there's no way TfL can say there is no demand. 

[LightBulbFun]

33 minutes ago, Yoss said:

it so it just stopped and there have been no Christmas Day bus services in London since. TfL still claim there is no demand which is utter bullshit but no more than you would expect from TfL. 

so what your saying is we should should buy this together, spend the next few months hastily chucking it back together and get all* our money back by doing the first Christmas run in ~25~ years?  

[Yoss]

2 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

so what your saying is we should should buy this together, spend the next few months hastily chucking it back together and get all* our money by doing the first Christmas run in ~25~ years?  

Yes, plus two others. Then one of us has to apply for and pass their CPC, Certificate of Professional Competence, to got the O discs to be allowed to operate, find at least four drivers and conductors (to be fair that bit wouldn't be hard), get some blinds made and publicise it and print the leaflets and I'm sure at least a dozen other things. Sounds easy when you put it like that doesn't it? 

[LightBulbFun]

53 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Yes, plus two others. Then one of us has to apply for and pass their CPC, Certificate of Professional Competence, to got the O discs to be allowed to operate, find at least four drivers and conductors (to be fair that bit wouldn't be hard), get some blinds made and publicise it and print the leaflets and I'm sure at least a dozen other things. Sounds easy when you put it like that doesn't it? 

I did realise/remember after posting that this exists these days https://londonerbuses.co.uk/ I wonder if they will run a Christmas day Route?

 

the 9H/15H Heritage Routemaster routes is a similar sad case of TFL being useless/missing the mark, they withdrew the routes citing low demand and high costs, but they never bothered to actually advertise them at all, and its obviously clear there is demand and they are profitable, or there would not be another company operating a private venture on the Route's old corpse LOL 

 

thats pretty Awesome that you worked directly more or less for Stagecoach briefly, a little bit of a small world moment there for me as, Bow and West ham where my old Haunts when I used to regularly ride on the H15, just riding back and forth on the Route enjoying the Routemaster, always keeping an Eye out for RML2760, and having a good time chatting with the conductor, Driver Mandy and  Conductor Big Paul where my Favourite crew, I hope they doing well these days! and then we would ride back to the garage at the end of the day, both Bow and West Ham where always very nice and accommodating, especially once I got my own Hi-vis Vest to keep the health and safety bods happy 

its one of the things that made me sad to hear that actually overall Stagecoach was a bad company, since my experience of them in London was always top notch, and as you say their Routemasters and other buses where always kept in pretty nice condition (in addition to the 15H above, Stagecoach also operated a lot of the routes in East London, most notably the 26 48 and 55 which I all rode on frequently)

for example the Routemasters on the 15H all had explictly the correct *white* and Black number plates made of painted/transfer digits, but the Route 9H operated by First their RM's had naff looking Silver and black pressed metal plates, it is legitimately one of the reasons I never rode on Route 9 LOL

and I remember being really excited at catching TA1 while going on the 55 somewhere, , TA1 was Stagecoach's First ALX400 Dennis Trident, I was not only excited because it was the first of its class, but it was also the only one still with "Routemaster style" as I called it, tubular metal seat frames and the grey and rainbow seat fabric  

 

[Yoss]

 

11 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

I did realise/remember after posting that this exists these days https://londonerbuses.co.uk/ I wonder if they will run a Christmas day Route?

 

the 9H/15H Heritage Routemaster routes is a similar sad case of TFL being useless/missing the mark, they withdrew the routes citing low demand and high costs, but they never bothered to actually advertise them at all, and its obviously clear there is demand and they are profitable, or there would not be another company operating a private venture on the Route's old corpse LOL 

 

thats pretty Awesome that you worked directly more or less for Stagecoach briefly, a little bit of a small world moment there for me as, Bow and West ham where my old Haunts when I used to regularly ride on the H15, just riding back and forth on the Route enjoying the Routemaster, always keeping an Eye out for RML2760, and having a good time chatting with the conductor, Mandy and Big Paul where my Favourite crew, I hope they doing well these days! and then we would ride back to the garage at the end of the day, both Bow and West Ham where always very nice and accommodating, especially once I got my own Hi-vis Vest to keep the health and safety bods happy 

its one of the things that made me sad to hear that actually overall Stagecoach was a bad company, since my experiance of them in London was always top notch, and as you say their Routemasters and other buses where always kept in top notch condition (in adition to the 15H above, Stagecoach also operated a lot of the routes in East London, most notably the 26 48 and 55 which I all rode on frequently(

for example the Routemasters on the 15H all had explictly the correct *white* and Black number plates made of painted/transfer digits, but the Route 9H operated by First their RM's had naff looking Silver and black digits, it is legitimately one of the reasons I never rode on Route 9 LOL

and I remember being really excited at catching TA1 while going on the 55 somewhere, , TA1 was Stagecoach's First ALX400 Dennis Trident, I was not only excited because it was the first of its class, but it was also the only one still with "Routemaster style" as I called it, tubular metal seat frames and the grey and rainbow seat fabric  

 

I'm sure there are places where Stagecoach are a truly terrible company. They didn't get where they are by being nice to other bus companies. But as with all big companies some bits will be better than others which will be down to individual people. Royal Mail is certainly like that. 

Perhaps we could ask @cms206, he seems to have worked for most of Stagecoach in the last few months. 

[cms206]

5 hours ago, Yoss said:

Perhaps we could ask @cms206, he seems to have worked for most of Stagecoach in the last few months. 

I absolutely adored my year with Stagecoach East London (and fortnight with Selkent!) but as was mentioned, we were all punted up to Oldham.

I may* have lost my shit a bit and as a result may* have handed in my notice... start next week with a small independant doing PTE tendered work of an evening.

Interesting fleet, they can still muster a Duple 300, an Optare Vecta and a couple of manual coaches along with the usual Solos and a solitary Wright Streetlite DF which has always been independently owned.

Back to Stagecoach; it's very much a mixed bag but they've got it absolutely right in the capital and I miss it greatly.

[Yoss]

2 hours ago, cms206 said:

I absolutely adored my year with Stagecoach East London (and fortnight with Selkent!) but as was mentioned, we were all punted up to Oldham.

I may* have lost my shit a bit and as a result may* have handed in my notice... start next week with a small independant doing PTE tendered work of an evening.

Interesting fleet, they can still muster a Duple 300, an Optare Vecta and a couple of manual coaches along with the usual Solos and a solitary Wright Streetlite DF which has always been independently owned.

Back to Stagecoach; it's very much a mixed bag but they've got it absolutely right in the capital and I miss it greatly.

I don't know whether to put a like or a sad face on that. But you always imagine a small independent would be a better place to work for. I hope we'll get lots of pictures one way or the other. Good luck. 

[cms206]

4 hours ago, Yoss said:

I don't know whether to put a like or a sad face on that. But you always imagine a small independent would be a better place to work for. I hope we'll get lots of pictures one way or the other. Good luck. 

Yeah... I'm leaving on good terms and my OM has stated he'd have me back without issue so no burned bridges.

The outfit I'm going to work for are known to me; back when I was operating we used to loan buses back and forth and I remember when he was a one man band with a solitary Transit. Did a few shifts for him when he was short before and since moving into big stuff he's always had a somewhat eclectic fleet. More importantly, the pay is much better than Stagecoach so hopefully it'll mean I work less and spend some more time at home.

I'm a workaholic so I doubt it, but we'll see...

[lesapandre]

More bus - I'm not usually one to post here but I've travelled on an international bus - seen a Routemaster 'en route' here in France and now spotted this ice-cream 'van' conversation. I had an ice-cream cream too....very nice.

[cms206]

It is done; my last shift with Stagecoach is complete and I am now a free agent until Thursday when I start with my new employer.

Last bus driven was Enviro 400MMC 10516; this is a HUGE batch of 16-plates and is countrywide, drove most of the 10308-332 batch at East London, the handful of 106xxs allocated to Oldham plus I think all of the Cumbernauld ones. The only "bad" ones I think I drove were Barking's 10321 which was always just a bit flat, and our own 10517 which has the heaviest steering I've had in a decker this side of a Daimler Fleetline. By and large they're a decent bit of kit and one of the things I will miss.

 

A small photodump of my last few weeks, finishing with 10516 at Abronhill on my last run.

[Asimo]

Tatra T72 bus

[Yoss]

3 hours ago, Asimo said:

Tatra T72 bus

As much as I like Tatras I'm glad the Škoda 706 became the bus of choice in ČZ. 

[cms206]

On 16/08/2024 at 20:58, Yoss said:

Yes, plus two others. Then one of us has to apply for and pass their CPC, Certificate of Professional Competence, to got the O discs to be allowed to operate, find at least four drivers and conductors (to be fair that bit wouldn't be hard), get some blinds made and publicise it and print the leaflets and I'm sure at least a dozen other things. Sounds easy when you put it like that doesn't it? 

I've got my TM CPC... 😉