Winter in Sweden

Winter with it's long shadows, and short dull days isn't usually the best time to take photographs. However cold crisp sunny winter days are not too bad especially when the snow reflects the light. Here in Sweden in the 1980's not only did I get quite a nice atmospheric view of a small community and it's small bus garage I took the opportunity to photograph one of the oldest Scania buses before it was withdrawn.

Sweden: It's a good job the girls are better looking than the buses

Like everywhere it seems, somehow the older buses seemed to have a lot more character than the newer designs and this seemed to apply more to Sweden than other countries I visited. Even the modern vehicles in Gothenburg in 1986 like this SJ state-owned semi-luxury Volvo looked more like a giant snow cat than a bus, yet I have to conceed that it did look different to the norm which of course in these days of 'euro-boxes' is a big plus. I expect the rugged look is to be expected in a vast country where difficult weather conditions is normal..

Willigott but will it go as far as Sweden?

When it comes to image and tidiness the Danes are certainly a bit like the Swiss. I usually found their buses and coach nicely turned out but other Scandinavian countries can be more casual as can be witnessed by the very unprofessional signwriting on the blue Swedish Coach. I'm not sure what it was but it was quite elderly but certainly adequate for the short hop for backpackers and young weekend drinkers who took this short trip via the ferry from Malmo to Copenhagen. Today of course it's spanned by an impressive railway cum road bridge.

Olssons' Busstrafic Delta-Plan in Copenhagen

Not being quite so expensive and especially for those who enjoy a drink Copenhagen was a good choice for a Scandinavian break. For the British till the Nineties there were even plenty of DAB Leylands to see and ride on but also in summer it attracted a large number of visiting coaches and one could see them from Norway, Finland and like this one from Sweden. I rather like the subtle greenish-blue colour on this Delta-Plan bodied Volvo B10M of Olssons' Busstrafik. As you can see even in those long ago days in the early Eighties there was a lax dress code in Copenhagen which was another good reason to enjoy a Tuborg or two.

2008 another bridge: Meet you on the other side

I suppose buses have a working life that is very similar to that enjoyed by our domestic pets like cats and dogs. But whereas in the natural world one generation replicates the last in the bus world at least Darwin's theories on Evolution work faster and with the passing of each generation of vehicles we are left feeling nostalgic and a bit sadder as a bit of their life-blood gets drained away. Maybe it's just not that the newer bus don't seem so interesting but just as likely we feel we've lost something too of ourselves as those years went by. Maybe it was the world where we had more hair picked up girls, people didn't need to lock their doors or when the quickest way to get the mainland was by ferry. I'm not certain where this was taken in Sweden but it is to the north of Gothenberg maybe Lysekil, a place we pronounced Leezasheila. As for the delightful little ferry which the SJ bus No.0417 boards it might well have been replaced by a magnificent concrete bridge by now, but I sure hope not.

Service 999 to Malmo

Apart from the long finger pointing north called Jutland west of it Denmark is a series of large and small islands and those few which aren't joined by bridges employ ferries. It seems even the larger crossings have all been bridged now including the important one between Knudshoved and Korsor. As well as that there is also a long bridge between Denmark and Sweden and even though I expect coaches still depart from outside the railway station in Copenhagen the journey to Malmo most be a great deal shorter bringing the two nations ever closer.

Icey Sweden: Gothenborg 915

Disruptive major road reconstruction,  snow and ice in Gothenborg and a not very pretty WHMA bodied Volvo articulated bus are the ingredients of this bleak winter scene

Scania-Vabis CF76: A Swedish Classic

Built between 1963 and 1967 these urban semi-integral buses were once very common in Sweden but sadly I was too late to photograph any of them except this old bus loaded with bikes and full of noisy kids seen in Copenhagen in 1982.

Copehagen: The Vikings Are Coming

From Sweden in Copenhagen was this Swedish visitor on a Travellers charter, a Scania operated by Viking in an attractive livery with a Viking boat on the side.

Swedish coaches and Danish blonds in Aarhus

Some people prefer coaches to buses but I like both and when it's to make a decent photograph it doesn't matter either way. I'm glad I did as for instance when I caught some of my 'buses and girls views' I snapped some vehicles that I might not have bothered with but which  have become a lot more interesting with the passage of time.
Probably but I can't really remember if I was also after the tall slim Danish blond girl in Aarhus but one doesn't see many Volvo's like this from Sweden perhaps bodied by Kutter carried on the front.

Couldn't you get a little closer?

It's terrible isn't it the way these lazy looking girls get in the way when I'm taking photographs. In a way though today it seems coaches are becoming more interesting than local buses as the old types quickly disappear being replaced by even more standardised modern types. With the passage of time coaches seem to be getting more modern as well of course but because some travel great distances that in itself it is some reason to show an interest. Here where many of the tourist and visiting coaches stop outside The Zoo in Berlin were found quite different machines lurking behind that girl who so annoyingly got in the way, or rather as you have probably guessed given me an excuse to take this panorama shot. Firstly an Italian bodied Iveco from Italy, then next to it is a Mercedes-Benz carrying the rather less common than the Citaro bus, the attractive dual-purpose Integro. Setra seem to have lost their sleek looks of the past as can be seen on this more wedge-shaped high-liner type, perhaps from Sweden with a similar but more messy profile to be found on the Neoplan at the far end. The other coach of course from Holland is the Bova Futura, a classic torpedo-like design that seems to go on and on in a timeless way just like those pretty girls whom I like to sneak into my pictures. I'm sure you don't mind.

Ikaalisten Scania Ajokki

Copenhagen of course is not a bad place to see coaches from all over Scandinavia including Finland which tend to be rather more elusive further down in Europe compared with let's say Sweden. They often carried very different coachwork too like this rather boxy unusual looking Scania bodied by Ajokki and belonging to Ikaalisten Auto Oy seen in sunny 1982

Not Just a Scania A Norweigen Viking

Copenhagen being so close to Sweden and connected to the rest of the European mainland was a mecca for visiting coaches especially the rarer sightings from the rest of Scandinavia like this Scania from Norway in a popular Viking inspired livery and at work for Travellers which of course we get in Britain. Behind it is another well-traveled coach from Switzerland.

Leicester:The best of times, the worst of times

The Seventies in theory was a great time for those bus operators who were not swallowed up by the National Bus Company or the PTE's surrounding our large cities for not only was there a British Government that wanted to modernise public transport they were willing to throw money at it via the bus grant system. The trouble was a highly individualistic and confident industry became little more than a branch of some indifferent Whitehall Department and even though there was money to buy buses they were not always the one's the operators wanted. Leicester having operated a small fleet of dual-entrance Leyland Tiger Cub and longer AEC Reliance single-deckers began to extend it's fleet with a decent number of new flat-front ECW bodied Bristol RELL's. But once British Leyland had launched it's new bus the Leyland National even operators beyond the control of the NBC were through lack of choice forced to buy it. Of course there were rebels like Geoffrey Hilditch the General Manager of Leicester who famously told Dennis to go away and built him a Daimler Fleetline with no Leyland parts. In the meantime Leicester City Council was not going to buy those horrible smokey Nationals and turned to the bodybuilder MCW who had teamed up with Scania from Sweden to build both new double and single-deck buses for the British market. Newport like Leicester took to them and for a period as these sophisticated buses were both popular with staff and the public but as time progressed it became obvious that they were expensive to run and not totally reliable.

Still flying the flag: Wallace Arnold Leyland Leopard

In the Seventies Wallace Arnold of Leeds adopted a much more modern livery based on light grey with brown relief but together with the orange wheels and WA logo the effect was not at all drab and most attractive. If I remember rightly they retained the traditional yellow and orange based colours for the Devon Fleet based in Torquay but somewhat surprisingly after a few years once more painted the whole fleet back in these old colours complete with the traditional roundel that had been dropped and this staid image lasting till the concern was merged recently with Shearings. In styling when the Plaxton Panorama Elite came out at the end of the Sixties it was in looks years ahead of anything else on the road. Sadly PNW 314W was one of Wallace Arnold's very last Leyland's because about one year later having placed a large order for about 25 Tigers the Leyland workforce went out on strike and this once valued friend told them what they thought about it by transferring their allegiance to Volvo of Sweden. I'm sure this decision was not taken lightly as Wallace Arnold was the sort of operator who would have always preferred to buy British and fly the flag as we were all being encouraged to do at that time.