HT 448 DAB-Leyland in Copenhagen

My latest scanner doesn't scan colour prints as well as black and white and some of them look a bit too rich. However it can make for s nice enlarged postcard look and who doesn't want to see a street-scene of an HT DAB-Leyland in Copenhagen.
 

HT Scania 1682

In Eighties Leyland lost it's grip on some of it's key customers like the Danish HT of Copenhagen where as well as Volvo which it had always vied with Scania started to take chunks too. Looking very much like one of the former DAB Leylands was one of those swedish buses dating from about 1984-5. 

HT Buses on the move in Copenhagen

These two buses were very typical of the Copenhagen HT fleet in the Eighties. The Leyland DAB's were to be found closer to the centre and this style of Aabeneraa bodied Volvo B10M had been the choice for the outer district, but later deliveries joined the throng too. 1432 was new in October 1981 and 1062 December 1979 and both are heading for the island of Amager over the bridge.

HT DAB 717 Bound for Valby

HT DAB-Leyland No.717 dated from 1976 and was seen in Copenhagen in 1982 bound for Valby where it was garaged. As you can see my girlfriend there at the time always walked on and I was forever trying to catch up.

A DSB DAB in Kolding

With the exception of Copenhagen's PTE HT with 1250 buses in 1986, the Danish Railways or as they were known DSB was the largest bus fleet in Denmark. Unlike many Danish operators which nixed a fairly balanced Volvo Aabeneraa and DAB fleet, the Silkeborg Leyland factory had only supplied them with about twenty of the almost six-hundred strong fleet and one of the second batch was seen in Kolding.

A.P Harson DAB: Roskilde Rejesbureau DAB

If you travel to train to Copenhagen the last major town before you arrive is Roskilde famous for it's Viking connections and museum and is situated just on the border of  their equivalent of the capital's  PTE. But as well as yellow HT buses there were town network 'by-buses' and even red DSB railway buses. But the most notable operator was Hansen who operated routes to villages like Jyllinge beside the fjord and of course it did excursions of which this then quite new DAB Leyland was acting as an advertisement in a bold presentation here in August 1989. I'm surprised nobody has picked up on my Danish bus photos yet for as in places like Britain and Portugal the bus scene has changed beyond recognition since I was there in the Eighties.

Freshly repainted yellow HT 406

My favourites in the Greater Copenhagen HT bus fleet were these Leyland DAB's especially the ones with the large route number box like 406 looking very cheerful in it's fresh coat of all-over-yellow as it pauses outside the BD main railways station before heading off to Sundbyvester Pl. on Amager.

Dab Leyland HT 1475 Cosses Anager Bridge

Even though they are not always as sharp as properly composed views, these scenes full of objects and movement often capture the true nature of a place and in this instance it was Copenhagen in the Eighties.

Limfjords Ruterne in Thisted

In Denmark once outside Copenhagen there was a wealth of tiny family run bus operators operating often one basic but quite long route and whose services were now highly regulated and requiring modern vehicles like this DAB Leyland of Limfjords Ruterne seen in Thisted in Jutland in 1982.

1682 DAB bodied Volvo in Copenhagen

Usually in Denmark Aabenraa supplied most of the bodywork on Volvos whilst on the other hand DAB bodies were on the Leyland. But later they were also available on the open market and the Copenhagen PTE called HT had them on both chassis. Four year old Volvo 1682 was seen in 1988.

Stylish Camper in Denmark

It looks like some Germans from Aachen had turned this Dutch Leyland Royal Tiger Worldmaster into an attractive travelling home and was caught on the quayside in Copenhagen. Still in it's original livery complete with fleet number many here will know what it is.

VBK bodied Volvo in Roskilde

Generally one had to get a good distance away from Copenhagen to enjoy a rich variety of Danish bus operators. But just in the HT outer zone area the famous Viking city of Roskilde offered an interesting number of liveries and operators. Like most Danish towns it had a 'Town Bus' too which wore this cream and light green livery. As well as DAB-Leyland buses there were a number of Volvo's with VBK bodywork like No.20 HB-92-707 seen outside the railway station in 1982.

HT DAB-Leyland 1292

HT operated a small number of DAB-Leyland articulated buses or as the Danes call them the 'ledbus' on a rush-hour commuter limited-stop service to Kokkedal to the north of Copenhagen . By then two years old No.1292 which entered service in November 1980 was the first of the ten and HT already had earlier vehicles of this type dating from 1976 Nos.808-813.

Wonderful Copenhagen 1979

Another view from my 1979 trip is of a very smart one year old Leyland-DAB in the centre of Copenhagen with another one going the opposite way.

1979 Copenhagen HT Volvo 887

I must admit I tended to look down on this rather square Aabenraa bodied Volvo's in the Copenhagen fleet of HT as they lacked the character of the earlier well rounded Leyland-DAB BL1-2 Series buses that reminded me of Leyland Panthers bck home. The last of those DAB's was No.510 quickly followed by the first of these in 1970. However as you can see No.887 was still only one year old in 1979 and I came to rather like them as they made a distinctive 'whine'.

HT 1753: A new bus and the old at Lyngby

Seen at Lyngby Station north of Copenhagen was this still sparkling new Aabenraa bodied Volvo belonging to HT. It must have been about 1988 and therefor examples of the early Seventies Leyland/DAB parked up to the right would have been by now a rare sight.

Denmark: Running between the islands

With the exception of mainland Jutland above Germany where Aarhus is  the largest city with in the Eighties a population of 250.000, the rest of Denmark is a series of big and samall islands and moving between them made the country seem a lot bigger. Today many are connected by spectacular modern bridges but as seen here a trip to Copenhagen via the ferry at Ebeltoft would have added 1.40mins on to the journey of this Ahidskau DAB Leyland in 1982. It even took five hours to get to Copenhagen by train which was far quicker and to get from the top of Jutland on a Sondergaards Rutebiler to the capital would have taken a bottom numbing nine-hours!.

Two DAB Leylands at Lyngby

Like many European cities commuters tend to use local buses to take them to the local station and then on to a train into the congested city centre. Copenhagen is no exception and there is a large busy bus station at Lyngby to the north which forms a local hub. From these two Danish built DAB Leyland buses we can see how the styling evolved between 1976 and 1982. HT No.760 a 1977 bus was heading for another railway station at Ballerup.

Copenhagen: Talking of favourites

I'm glad to see that I am now able to welcome a few Swedish bus enthusiasts to my Bus World Blog and even though I don't have a huge stack of photos from there, now that we're in 2008 they have reached that certain age that makes them interesting. I have quite a few more but as my regulars know I like to slowly trickle them through so you wont go away. Far more numerous items at home though are my views from Denmark as I spent a lot of time in the 80's visiting towns and photographing the buses in all those often striking traditional liveries. So here are two more Scandinavian favourites, a red Volvo Amazon (a girlfriend's father had one in the Sixties) and one of my most favourite HT types the Leyland-DAB with the large route-number box. BL2d No.475 was new in April 1970 allocated to Valby and seen in 1982.

A green 3x34, HT417 & Sundbyvester Pl

Memories of Copenhagen where I had a Danish Girlfriend come flooding back so it was well worth bringing this second division image to life for you with a little TLC. Indeed there's nothing I enjoy more than making something from nothing. The HT of those days is still a favourite operator of mine and these nicely rounded DAB Leyland buses had so much character like 1969 No.417, a lucky bus that outlived many of it's BL2d contemporaries receiving this yellow repaint in 1984. It is heading towards the Amager Bridge and on to the island of that name where the bus was garaged at Irlandsvej and carries the code Ir. I particular like these later examples of this bus which had an enlarged route-number-box making them that bit more memorable.