Berlin: Methanol Bus

In the Eighties BVG in Berlin experimented with methanol as an alternative fuel on this 1982 Mercedes and No.1387 carried the message on it's sides. When still quite new the bus is about to leave one of the smaller garages with about 120 buses at Lichterfeld. Sadly with cut-backs it was closed several years later which was a pity as it was both modern and quite attractive.

Percivals

I rather liked the traditional old dark red and metallic blue livery of Percivals coaches of Oxford and Cambridge before they went for white with blue scheme as it reminded me somewhat of the colours once worn by my local coach firm Greatrex Tours of Stafford who had a similar sized fleet of about thirty vehicles. A smart and still fairly new Plaxton bodied Leyland Leopard was seen unloading at Luton Airport at the start of the Eighties.

BK Buss

Berlin Zoo is one of the best places in the city to photograph buses, coaches and of course girls. Earlier in the Decade I shot this little group of visitors with a Swedish Setra coach completing the informal little scene.

W.Norfolk from Suffolk and Essex in the rain

It's not so easy photographing buses in bad weather but the idea certainly appeals to me. In summertime despite the gloom it is still often bright enough to get reasonable results but if it's really wet one needs to take cover as I did here beneath a bus shelter in Colchester Bus Station in 1979. Still it was worth the effort as this former Nottingham City Transport No.69 of the Suffolk operator Norfolks of Nayland, one of a pair of Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline from the first Nottingham batch of 1963 before it evolved it's Standards was certainly worth getting slightly damp feet for.

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.

528: Gothenborg Scania CR110M

Favourites of mine amongst Swedish buses are these Scania CR110M Integral vehicles built at it's factory in Katrineholm. I think most of these dated from the late-Sixties and Seventies and a few were still running around in 1986 when I visited Gothenborg.

Outside Porto Station: A constant stream of passing buses

I expect this AEC belongs to Moreira Gomes & Costas, from Avintes, Vila Nova de Gaia whose buses seemed most numerous amongst the many Independents as they queued up ready to pick up home goers during the Porto, or if you are English the Oporto Rush Hour back in 1984.

Ribble's Final Leyland PD3 No. 1850

Numerically at least 1850 a MCW bodied bus of 1963 was the very last of these Leyland PD3's delivered to Ribble. When new it entered service at Morecambe and towards the end of it's life it was seen not very far away inland at Lancaster where it was doing a local service to Newmarket Avenue. One of the good things about black and white photography is that it's easy to forget that the proper colour had been replaced by that NBC poppy-red and the bus still looks a lovely sight.

Pretty Devon or a Narrow Hell?

I don't travel on buses very often these days so it was really enjoyable to take an interesting bus ride in Devon on First's Mayflower Link between Plymouth and Dartmouth two hours away. The drivers certainly earn their money as this route is a slow roller-coaster ride of steep hills, sharp bends and painfully narrow roads as we squeezed through quiet villages or swished passed overhanging trees in what seemed like lanes. Also on offer were some spectacular views of the wild unspoilt countryside across which Buzzards glided or we nervously glanced down steep rocky wooded banks at the sea far below. For the drivers it doesn't pay to take their eyes off the road for as well as the oncoming cars and motorcycles come equally big Plaxton bodied Dennis double-decker 93 Route Buses coming the other way. In a perfect world they would plan it so they met in the right places but with buses running late inevitably one should meet at least one in absolutely the worst place. Luckily there were a couple of policemen on board our bus making their way to busy Dartmouth where the town was enjoying it's Regatta and they stopped the traffic so the other bus could reverse into a better passing place. However advanced they are this backbreaking work certainly doesn't suit modern buses like these examples that when new battled their way more comfortably through the streets of Bristol as our embarrassingly example T812 LLC broke down on the way back with slipping gears.

BVG Neoplan 1009: Berlin Kurfirstendam

In 1992 Berlin's BVG bought ten Neoplan N4014 single-deckers 1001-1010 and put them to work on the prestigious 109 route from the central Zoo area out to Tegal Airport. Later they found themselves relegated to suburban services in the East where they joined most of the other Neoplans including some three axle single-deckers N4021 Nos 2501-2518 working from the large bus cum tram depot at Lichtenburgerstr. Of interest as well as a Fifties Mercedes car in this early Spring Kurfirstendam scene are the colourful Guardian Angels who patrolled the streets and subways at that time. Whether they made the streets safer I'm not so sure, but it certainly made the place seem a bit like an American import.

Climbing out of Barry

Barry is not far from Cardiff on the Welsh side of the Bristol Channel and before the advent of the National Bus Company was home to about fifty Western Welsh buses, but by the end of the Eighties this once very BET Leyland and AEC dominated little corner of the now NBC National Welsh territory had become far more like it's other main constituent Red and White operating many ECW bodied Bristol VR's and using that operator's former numbering system like this bus H (Highbridge) R (Rear-Engined) 818, and no doubt making a lot of noise as it climbed out of Barry in the sunshine on it's short journey way to Penarth just along the coast.

1st September a new month: Plymouth No.1

I am quite fascinated by numbers and some appeal to me enough sometimes even to prompt a photo. I have a favourite number but that I tend to photograph more than anything else perhaps, but on this blog at least I think you would have to look very hard to find it. In theory though on our travels we should see far more buses carrying No.1 than anything else, but even though I concede they are a lot more common than say No.9999 they don't turn up all the time. Of course all the low fleet numbers should be equally common as there is little point carrying numbers if a fleet contains say less than ten vehicles. Another factor to consider too is that often the low numbers are kept for service vehicles or some operator's are not that humble and they have nothing less than 101 or even 1001. I guess it is our interest in this kind of trivia that gives enthusiasts their reputation for being anoraks but still we don't get soaked to the skin as we await bus No.2 or is it 22202?