Blackpool: A grand day at the seaside

From the end of August to October it should be a busy time in Blackpool as trippers come to enjoy an Indian Summer and see the famous Illuminations. But this year has not been the only washout and as you can see we had some pretty awful wet weather in the Eighties too. At least on this one of Blackpool's last new delivery of Leyland Atlanteans from 1984 the large bonded plate windows of it's East Lancs body afforded wonderful views of the rain. All the damp holidaymakers have to decide now is whether it will be an early Fish and Chip Supper or a nice cup of tea next.

Pile them on, room for more on top: OKay it's IOS not Mykonos

It's all go during the summer months on Greek islands like Mykonos which all seem to have a quite different character and charm. Thought of as the Greek Capri as well as being famed for it's white windmills and mascot Pelican, Mykonos has a good deep harbour big enough to support expensive boutiques selling clothes and trinkets for the Mediterranean cruise ships that berth here whilst it's more colourful cosmopolitan side makes it a gay and nude beach paradise. Indeed there are even two famous beaches, one mixed where tourists like us gathered called Paradise and the other for the more brave called Super Paradise which was very gay and colourful. To them you could take a breezy ride on a boat or stand and bake inside rugged buses like this typical Greek locally bodied forward-control Mercedes where the bouzouki music somehow managed to make itself heard above the rattles and groans from the hard working German engine. Still 1981 was a long time ago but I expect Mykonos is just the same, but of course the old buses might still be there on the quayside but sadly they will be a lot newer than this classic beauty.

P.S. Sorry this is Ios, but I'm sure you won't mind reading about Mykonos instead.

Western National: Bristol LH Plaxton

The National Bus Company allocated a large number of Plaxton Grant-Bodied Bristol LH coaches to it's West Country based Western National and associated Devon General fleets including 3313 a narrow 7ft 6ins wide example with a Supreme Express body. Seen at Plymouth Bretonside between duties it looked very smart and more like a coach than a glorified bus wearing Western Nationals bolder post-privatisation livery. As usual some attractive women appear as if from nowhere walking into view. Why does it always happen to me....lol

PMT: A New Leopard Grant-Bus

Buses are only new once and it's always nice to get pictures of them at about the time they enter service. In National Bus Company days a seemingly brand new Potteries Leyland Leopard Grant-Coach Duple was caught passing Stafford Gaol on a private hire in the summer sunshine of 1978.

Snow at PTT Hutten

Although there were always plenty of post buses waiting there at departure time in Wadenswil outside the station, the garage itself with an allocation of seven was some distance away high up in the hills above the town and Lake Zurich at Hutten on the route to Menzingen. Even when I was first there in the early Nineties it had already been for some time a typical in this part slightly less interesting Mercedes stable. However as happens elsewhere on the postal network usually there was an older often non-standard bus too that was officially the garage spare. At the end of it's life with the PTT 1982 P25829 moved from it's home at Winkel (Bulach) to perform that role here. Had they not told me where it had not moved to I might have missed this Suarer RH too. In the end there were only ten I never saw and when I first started seeking them out in 1990 already five had been sold so I did well to see so many. By this time in the mid Nineties I only needed a few so at this closing stage a photo became quite a common accompaniment too and especially when it was a nice crisp bright snowy winter view showing also a more typical Mercedes but the low-key functional nature of these post bus garages which many would never think of making a record of.

To the rescue: Kelvin Scottish

This cut down Alexander Y-Type bodied Leyland Leopard made a very stylish breakdown-tender for Kelvin Scottish. No doubt this scene will make sense to local enthusiasts as there were a lot of changes within the Scottish Bus Group in the Eighties but I'm pretty sure it was taken at one of Central's garages like Motherwell to the south of Glasgow where the failed Alexander R-bodied Metrobus was being collected from. The old trainer is a Bristol LD6G Lodekka of 1961 that started life as Western Scottish No.1634.

Crosville Cymru in Caernarfon

It took a while for me to get used to the Crosville Wales livery but at least it stood out a bit from the rest and was not too dissimilar to the Arriva aquamarine and sand colours which followed. This former ECW bodied West Riding Leyland Olympian DOG 513 was working one of the more profitable routes to Bangor in 1998. In that year there were still five of these buses allocated to the garage there where the other double-deckers, the fast dwindling VR still managed to outnumber them with nine examples.

Bus Fumes: Lisbon Rush Hour

The heat, the noise of traffic and bus fumes. Still a nice place to be in 1984 when Lisbon could still boast plenty of British buses like this, I imagine Utic bodied AEC Reliance which was No.6394 in the RN fleet bound for Buceslas.

A Swift view of Blackpool

As well as the more obvious transport delights that Blackpool had to offer like it's trams, Leyland PD3 half-cabs and then Routemasters, the Corporation also ran a large fleet of the comparitively rare AEC Swift. Sadly all these Marshall bodied AEC's have gone but on a sunny day we can still enjoy watching barefoot girls eating ice-cream perhaps.

Tel-Aviv: Not Expecting Rain Today

Rather in the same way that in Britain sunglasses are more of a fashion item than of any practical use in other hotter parts of the world where they seem to have nothing else even windscreen wipers are there more as a prayer than anything else. Joking apart it is not a good idea to run for too long without wipers and I'm certain unless they were buying them from British Leyland in the Seventies there would not be a long waiting list. Although this view was taken during one of Israels more peaceful periods as usual army personnel are ever present travelling about on the buses including this well used Dutch lantern-screen Leyland Royal Tiger

Cornish Relics

Cornwall has something of a reputation for it's old buses, anyway it certainly did in the Seventies and Eighties when there were plenty of small operators running these elderly machines. In about 1980 just off the main A30 in North Cornwall I spotted these three interesting vehicles slowly decaying in the corner of a yard. To the left is what was previously one of Gliderways of Smethwick's fine Harrington bodied Leyland Leopards. At the other end is a Weymann bodied Leyland Tiger Cub from Portsmouth and like the Cavalier alongside it the small Albion Nimbus squashed in the middle was also bodied by Harrington of Hove and once ran for Maidstone and District.

MAN and long-legged woman

Perhaps it's a good thing that young people no longer seem to wear nothing but denim but still it did look good on a long pair of female legs. Taken perhaps at the end of the Seventies this rather upright small sized MAN coach visiting Berlin and belonging to Paul Kanz looks rather like a relic of the late Sixties.