National Express: United Counties to Birmingham

United Counties operated the 200 Service from I presume Northampton to Birmingham which terminated at the Bull Ring Bus Station rather than the operator's Digbeth Coach Station. I reckon that is because it was classified more as a local shopping coach as opposed to a long distance travel service. As you can see it did stop outside Digbeth but many years ago when Midland Red ran the Limited-Stop X96 between Northampton and Shrewsbury a distance of over ninety-miles and which took five-hours buses from either end used to meet-up inside the Coach Station where the crews going in opposite directions from Shrewsbury and Rugby used to swap over for the return journey home. From 1963 the X96 was usually entrusted to dual-purpose Leyland Leopard buses but by the Eighties even though the Midland Red livery had given over to a National Express White the vehicles used were still the same faithful Leopard like Duple Dominant bodied coach No. 230 from 1978.

PTT Uznach

Most PTT garage bus allocations were fairly standardised especially the smaller ones but Uznach was an exception with in September 1992 a very mixed fleet of about thirteen that included Mercedes 405's, Saurer RH, NAW BH2, NAW BH4, MAN SM11 Saurer DUK buses plus a seven-seater Land Rover with a snow plough. The building itself though with the cream painted glass windows was typical of the older premises. That could be frustrating should one come when there was nobody about but in certain instances such as Scoul and Sion each stall had it's own bus and the number was most helpfully written on the obscuring glass. Many times coming on a Sunday I've tried looking through cracks and key-holes trying to identify my quarry. New in 1992 P25370 preparing to go to Reichenburg was one of a pair of O405's along with P25371 whilst the Saurer I think was P24222 at this time also one of two along with P24210 both dating from 1979.

Shades of Orange and Pink: That's just the buses!

Before Stagecoach and First Group livery put an end to the fun buses in Manchester sported a number of different but quite similar livery styles that must have been quite confusing and little help to anyone who was not an expert. Here at the Victoria Station terminus one would never guess that the cheerful sparkiling brown and orange is the old GMT livery and the tired looking 'tomato sauce' variety was the new improved recipe that came from Strathclyde with it's General Manager. Interestingly all four buses are different double-deck types being an Olympian, a Daimler Fleetline, a Metrobus and most probably an Atlantean all now owned by Stagecoach and carrying their branding added to the fleetname.

Trent 's Tree-Lopper

Trent converted a former Midland General Bristol Lodekka into this fine tree-lopper which like it's buses looked immaculate which was quite something in the NBC era. A28 518 JRA was seen at the main Derby Meadow Road Garage.

Of the people: Porto's old Trams

Progress is not always so brilliant, I would much rather travel on an old bone-shaker of a tram with it's windows open to the elements than to be sealed up in an air-conditioned glass box on wheels. But on a cold winter's day in Russia it might be quite a different story and modernity and comfort would be welcomed. No.273 was of Bogie Americano type delivered between 1926-8 and built by CCFT whilst the bogies came from Bergische of Remscheid of Germany. What a wonderful place Porto was with it's ancient trams, British Buses and even double-deck trolleybuses.

Lloyd of Nuneaton

This coach is a real gem indeed so much so I know little about it. Built in the early Fifties it might have well been a Regal rather than a Reliance and was first registered in the London area. My guess though when comparing details with other contemporary vehicles is that it might have bore bodywork by Mann Egerton but that is a pure guess as they were better known for bodying fine cars like the Bentley and Rolls Royce and few buses remain. This AEC was seen at the Nuneaton Avenue Road premises of Lloyd in the late Sixties whose once well-known interesting fleet of blue and cream buses and coaches numbered in the region of Eighty.

Southend Routemasters

With deregulation of the bus market in the Eighties operator's up and down Britain used all sorts of gimmickry to attract custom and one of the better ideas was the purchase of London's rugged reliable and popular Routemaster double-decker for promotions or regular use with a clippie. Sadly because operator's could only get hold of the short variant holding about five-eight passengers the economics of low fares and two-man running didn't always weigh up. But some operators loved them like Southend which always turned out a smart fleet including No. 114 former RM 2005, which was viewed along with the back end of a now also much missed bus the Daimler Fleetline of which Southend build up a decent sized fleet including some badged as Leyland with lowheight Northern Counties bodywork.

Ikaalisten Scania Ajokki

Copenhagen of course is not a bad place to see coaches from all over Scandinavia including Finland which tend to be rather more elusive further down in Europe compared with let's say Sweden. They often carried very different coachwork too like this rather boxy unusual looking Scania bodied by Ajokki and belonging to Ikaalisten Auto Oy seen in sunny 1982

1983: a very good year

Even though sadly new AEC buses had not been available since the Seventies when British Leyland did away with them, East Kent had ten ten-year-old Reliance coaches rebodied by Berkhof in 1983-4. Originally carrying the Registration HFN 28L No. 8197 bore a Duple Dominant coach body whilst parked next to it and much closer to home from Combe Martin when seen in Plymouth was Loverings A207 JTT a Plaxton Paramount 3200 bodied Leyland Tiger also of that 1983 vintage.

Southdown Coaches: Before Shearings was King of the Road:

Southdown was always associated with Leyland coaches and that tradition continued through the NBC era. At fist they were painted in that all-inclusive boring white but as time went on more local colours were added to the various operator's improving the image considerably. Even as this spotless Plaxton 3500 bodied Leyland Tiger shows this much esteemed fine Sussex operator was still something to be reckoned with. However who would have thought that Shearings Pleasureways whose fleet included slow noisy lightweight tin-can R1114-5 Fords really would one day actually be what seemed like a joke calling themselves 'Kings of the Road'. But that has come to pass for they are now by far the driving force in what's left of the UK coach tour industry even through a formality swallowing up the likes of Wallace Arnold. I first thought this was a Ford too but as TND 431X was a Volvo B10M with similar Plaxton Supreme bodywork I guess this one No.429 might well be the same. The shot was taken in the mid-Eightes on the M1 Motorway probably at Toddington Service Area.

Bern Trams

An old Bern tram meets a modern suburban light-rail car just outside the city in the early Nineties. I read as modernisation continues here in the Swiss Capital there are plans afoot to bring this other operator's cars right into the old city.

BUF in Scarborough

Probably after London types most enthusiasts favourite double-decker might be one of these. The well known Lincolnshire Independent Appleby ran this well travelled Southdown Leyland PD3 Queen Mary open-top bus on the sea front service at Scarborough when I visited there at the end of the Eighties and compared to the other more recent rear-engined buses working this highly competitive run was certainly the star turn. After Appleby's this fine bus went on to serve with Wallace Arnold as a publicity bus but saw some open-top service work in Torquay with them too.