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

Saturday 23 August 2008

Alton Towers


Staffordshire's best know tourist attraction came under the microscope of the media this week following a fatal accident when a Plaxton double-deck coach full of overseas workers on a day out from a farm in Peterborough ran off the road and overturned falling down a bank and into a garden. Had it's fall not been interrupted by a historic Austin truck awaiting restoration it might have done even more damage as it landed in someones garden close to a house. Fortunately coach and bus accidents are comparatively rare but when they do overturn it can seem as dramatic as a plane crash. One thing is certain, even though Alton Towers brings prosperity and jobs to this rural village like a honeypot it certainly does attract masses of coaches from far and wide. I only went to the pleasure park once with a group of friends but I quickly became bored with the rides and feeling a bit sick headed for the much more exciting coach park where mostly mid-life or older vehicles had come from as far as Cornwall. I don't suppose this four came as far as the Webbers Leopard that was here too, but this is an interesting line-up nonetheless with firstly a Yorkshire based former Aston's of Kempsey Wallace Arnold Bova Europa followed by a former National Travel East Plaxton bodied AEC Reliance of Eastcliffe International and then two similarly bodied Leyland Leopards with the last of the four being an ex-Barton machine..

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