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..