A225VWO A National Welsh Tiger Bound Fror Brighton

The driver might be waiting to get a nod from the inspector but a Duple bodied Laser bodied Leyland Tiger of National Welsh is ready to depart from Marlborough Street Bus Station in Bristol on the long journey to Brighton.

 

A well known Southdown Queen Mary survivor is 1965 425 which was busy doing a open top service with Wallace Arnold in the fresh air for the visitors to Torquay in the Ninities. A few years later I was to ride on her as well after it had passed to Appleby's for service in the raher more breezy Scarborough.

NCH 194E A Line-Up of Mostly Daimlers at Derby

Three attractive half-cab buses and two rather ugly Roe bodied Daimler Fleetlines taking a break at Derby Bus Station whose appearance was not helped much by that awful blue and grey livery. The old olive green was rather old-fashioned and it wasn't exactly cheerful but it didn't show the dirt, it was subtle and sophisticated and more importantly suited the town. I hated the changes in the Seventies, if wasn't bad enough that the NBC ruined all that wonderful visual heritage by unifying it all in such a bland fashion most of the municipal sector and PTE cheapened their image with what were deemed more cheerful and thus more popular colour schemes. I hated it and gave up on buses for quite a while and in case you haven't noticed when I did start taking photographs again luckily I stuck to go old black and white.

All Things Bright & Beautiful: Midland Red North M833 SDA

That childhood fascination when seeing a brand new bus doesn't quite leave us, or does it?  I used to love the look of the new untarnished black and silver alluminium number-plates and some gleaming brightwork against a strong traditional dark bus colour, even a chrome plated radiator on a Leyland was a delight. But alas many more recent buses never have that first week magic like this rather ugly and much too bright looking East-Lancs bodied Scania of Midland Red North in Birmingham on the Tamworth service. The dummy grill looks like it's just been painted over and where is the brightwork!

You Cars Burger Off!

I think this gentleman nearing retirement age is wondering if he will make it as he braves the traffic and fumes at Piccadilly Circus in London. Still it looks like he's made it all the way from America so the short hop to his pitch shouldn't be too much bother. When I was a student I got food poisoning from one of these street vendors here and my advice is steer well clear. I was watching an environmental health documentary and it showed these hot dog stands stored in a back yard with pigeon droppings all over them....Lovely! A bit more appealing for me would have been the roar and exhaust cackle of this Duple Dominant bodied Leyland Leopard taking up some local school duties.

GMT Fleetline TNA 309M at St Peter's Square

A Greater Manchester Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline stops at St Peter's Square before heading down Moseley Street on it's way to Piccadilly and then out to Moston.

Showing Our Age. Eastern National VHL 177L

The destination of this preserved Eastern National ECW bodied Bristol RE at Lincoln might not be PC enough for some but is perhaps appropriate all the same as like heir vehicles a lot of preservationists are getting old too. Let's hope in the future our less official heritage will be taken more seriously by society as once we lose it we will never get it back.

Chaserider Laser Bodied Tiger A602 HVT in Stafford

This was my favorite spot for bus photography in Stafford till they cut out the traffic for pedestrians. A Chaserider Duple Laser bodied Leyland Tiger looked rather grubby and cold in the snow.

Are You a Seddon RU? Yes Darlington had some like this

Standardisation with a very basic livery was very much the order of the day within the NBC Empire so it was very dull compared to what came before it, but those Municipals that didn't get drawn into the PTE's continued to provide a bit more interest. The Corporations traditionally used to usually operate mostly double-deckers but  with the advent of driver only buses they saw a rapid decline during the Seventies. This left Darlington to see in the Eighties with a just a few elderly  Roe bodied Daimler half-cabs, but the now mostly single-deck fleet  was varied and interesting and it included these not too common Pennine bodied Seddon RU buses. This photo was taken in 1980.

Chesterfield National2 at Pond Street, Sheffield

Chesterfield buses used to be green and cream but after privatisation adopted this mainly blue and yellow livery.  As well as National2's like this there were Series Ones, Dennis Falcons and maybe the odd surviving Leyland Panther. Sheffield's sky-line  in this view of Pond Street is dominated by recent architecture and it does look rather boxy and unwelcoming, a bit like the bus station really as bus enthusiasts with cameras weren't welcome here.

Ulsterbus

This Alexander (Belfast) bodied Leyland Leopard now preserved by local operator Select sometimes appears in Stafford. Here it stands at Pitcher Bank along with some much newer buses but I have to confess I know which one I find the most attractive.

West Midlands Metrobus BOK 8V Bound for Rubery

Memories of Birmingham with one of WM's first Metrobuses No.2008 bound for Rubery and fresh-faced schoolboys in the lunch-hour, I wonder what they are doing now.

Mightly Leylands and Feeble Bristols

Bus enthusiasts tastes depend on where and when they they were brought up. I grew up alongside the mighty Midland Red and had plenty of exposure to other nearby BET fleets with their Leylans, AEC's, Atlanteans and Harringtons. So the Nationalised BTC empire with it's rather monotonous standardised fleet of ECW Bristols was not only a bit alien to me they were dull. But like anything else get a bit of exposure to something and the niceties start to show. So I have ended up liking some of them quite a bit and probably Southern/Western National who also owned Royal Blue is probably my favorite. Not only was this one of the Tilling concerns with huge operating areas it ran a more varied fleet than a lot of them including a whole load of SULA4's including coaches. On a bus trip last year I was telling my friends I had never been on a single Albion Nimbus and nor I had never been on the small four-cylinder Albion powered Bristol and sure enough five minutes later one phutting away merrily pulled up alongside us. I suppose I could have asked for a ride to Bristol but as well as taking an extra slow half-an-hour plodding embarrassingly down the M5 was hardly a breeze across Dartmoor.

Bee-Line-Buzz ECW Olympian D824 UTF

Seen in High Wycombe and branded in yellow and red for the fast 15 service to Reading this Leyland Olympian also carried route details for the X14. I am not so sure the modified design of there ECW bodied double-deck coaches was any more attractive than the earlier more angular buses which had a certain distinctive look, but very few of these were built and were much less common.

Beauty and the Beast LSK 835

No I'm not going to drawn into saying anything i shouldn't as I'm much to nice for that. I'm thinking more about the leviathan in National Express livery, certainly it strong form looks good in that familar white livery and it may fit in nicely alongside the Daliesque Birmingham Bull Ring shopping centre but is it's brutality attractive? Well if nothing else I can feel a bit of nostalgia coming on as I'm sure I've seen this registration LSK 835 on various generations of these express coaches. I've come to accept that today is today and we can't bring the past back so it's best to try and enjoy it. I imagine it's a Caetano body they usually are.

GHA; Beside the shop not only BHS goes bust in Chester

I've heard GHA has gone bust and with a fleet of 200 buses covering parts of the former Crosville empire and even into former Midland Red and North Western territory. The sprawling network of services will take some covering. The trouble with private operators who pick up the bits the big groups won't do, they bigger they get the harder they fall. A similar thing happened to Western Greyhound in the South West. Perhaps the administrator might let them or someone-else run the existing stock as even the likes of Arriva and First don't keep many spare buses these days, a far cry from the Sixties when for example most London Transport garages had a row of dusty delicenced buses but still ready for the road.

PMT MVT 210K in Burslem

The ECW bodied Bristol RELL looked rather attractive in PMT's new colours after Privatisation including this coach seated example but an enjoyable ride was spoiled by a terrible din as one of the overhead luggage racks was hanging off at one end.

A Bowens Taken in Manchester

Taken last December, I think this one is a VDL lol.

Yorkshire Woollen District Leyland Tiger PS1 HD 7905 at Lincoln

In a Fifties world where most people in Yorkshire didn't have a car I can much more understand a young boy's fascination for magnificent beasts like this 1948 Leyland Tiger PS1, obviously one which was not rebodied as an MCW Orion in 1954. Of course the often dour image of BET firms like Woollen was dependability rather than luxury and even though the colours do look much better than many liveries today it would not sparkle like this for long out on the wet streets.

SVV 587W United Counties National2 in Northampton

The trouble with trying to take buses in action is not only can they easily blur shadows appear in the wrong places but I still prefer them to those taken in a more familiar location such as in the bus station. Also of course if one has a good imagination they can still hear them roar by like the distinctive roar of the National2 in Northampton.