I must admit I never really took to the dutch inspired Bee-Line livery with it's cartoon busy bees as part of the logo and it might sound like a bit like a contradiction in terms but this muted yellow with dark grey seemed a bit dull and drab. Maybe unlike say Badgerline down at Bristol it just seemed to lack flair and imagination giving the whole concern a transitory come and buy us out feel. The fleet inherited a lot of Leyland Nationals from Alder Valley and went on to buy Metro-Riders and Dennis Darts but my favourite new buses were a batch of these proper Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympians bought soon after the new company was formed. One of these looking rather empty was seen leaving Reading Railway Station one Saturday Afternoon and would pass close to some expensive real-estate on this the London stockbroker-belt and convenient film star hop to Hollywood via Heathrow or even down the road to Elstree Studios. Yes the wide Thames Valley is the most affluent area of outer London but I've heard Sandbanks near Poole is now the most expensive place in Britain to buy property. Of course pockets of Central London like Westminster and Chelsea are even more pricey per-metre but close to Camberley where this bus is heading is the very Art-Deco sounding outer suburb of Virginia Water which gives you all that for the same money plus a large rustic villa or bungalow, garages, garden and of course swimming pool. No with some much affluence once beyond the rougher housing estates this is not really good bus operating country.
I actually lied the Bee-Line design. Maybe it wasn't the cleverest or most innovative ever but it was a welcome change to the rather drab and uniform red of Alder Valley. This of course was how I felt back then. Even the name Alder Valley sounded (and still sounds) so 1970s newspeak and were maybe fitting in 1970s new towns such as Bracknell but not really in Reading which was then still an old-fashioned market town.
ReplyDeleteThat of course has since all been swept aside and Reading today is the same faceless and boring melting pot of corporate architecture with no respect for loacl history or peculiarities as you can get in any other place.
With liveries having got increasingly spurious and short-lived since then I have come to long back for the solid presence of a long term operator who maybe made some mistakes (and Alder Valley did) but also got some things right.
Forgive my ranting.
Andrew