BUSWORLD PHOTOGRAPHY

I AM CHRISTOPHER LEACH THE ARTIST. I started this blog so that I can share with everyone my vast collection of transport photographs showing a personal and nostalgic view of the industry with images that span some 45 years taking in the U.K and some of Europe. I have no darkroom and so rather than being the perfectionist after tidying them up I upload the images warts and all, and even those that won't scan squarely or are scratched. In a way it adds age and character. You are all free to download these for your personal use but please remember I still own them and you are not just free to use them without prior permission for any knd of publishing. Click on images to enlarge them and if you want to see more leave your comments or visit my website for the mother-site with galleries including those Buses & Girls: PICTUREWORLD

Thursday 21 August 2008

Driver stop the bus, I want to go to the bank


Yes believe it or not this is not the Town Hall or an expensive hotel it's the palatial Schweitzer Bank in St.Gallen dating from towards the end of C19 complete with feature-fountain draped in symbolist water nymphs. Presumably those customers with just ordinary accounts had to go through the tradesman's entrance around the back. I'm sure as a poor English tourist one would not be too hopeful of getting the best exchange rate here, probably better to follow my example and use Migros. Trailer pulling No.121 probably dating from the late-Sixties was photographed in 1990 not too long before these once attractive Saurer trolleybuses with attractive brightwork embellishing their fronts were withdrawn only to see further service abroad as was often the case with beautifully maintained former Swiss rolling-stock. By 1991 the trolleybus fleet here consisted of 29 articulated vehicles for the three routes and the oldest now dated from just 1984 so I was glad I returned to Switzerland in time to catch much of the old interesting stuff as it was rapidly disappearing.

1 comment:

Andy R said...

HJi,

Unfortunately I missed the "old" days in St. Gallen. I also regret not having visited many of the other Swiss trolleybus cities while older buses were still running. Lugano was one of my favourites that I did fortunately get around to doing.

Fortunately for St. Gallen, the decsion was recently taken to retain the trolleybus system. The current fleet will be replaced by modern low-floor buses over the next couple of years (and will include some double-articulated trolleybuses as also seen in Geneva, Lucerne and Zurich). Whereas this is no doubt a good thing for passengers, it means we enthusaists have to say goodbye to "new" old friends yet again.

Andrew