West Yorkshire: 843 to Scarborough

In the Eighties the National Bus Company replaced the Bristol VR and Leyland Atlantean with large numbers of the new Leyland Olympian all with ECW or fairly similar bodies by Roe. These included a good number with coach seating for longer services like the West Yorkshire examples used on the long 843 route to Scarborough. Here No.1854 is pictured leaving Leeds Vicar Street Coach Station with some rather naff very day 'Festival of Britain' style NBC signs on display. Britain had a long way to go to achieve the standards of street design enjoyed in European countries like Holland and Denmark.

De Bla Omnibusser, Holte

Although the Copenhagan operator HT was responsible for running the buses in the three city zones many of the middle and outer area services were still worked by their former companies under licence. A good example was the Da Bla Omnibusser of Holte which in 1989 was working the hour-long 191 from the busy interchange at Lyngby to Holte. However many short journeys though like this one to Nybrogard worked by a Van-Hool bodied Volvo B10M would take less than ten minutes.

Kentish in Lewisham

Two single-deckers in the smart Kentish livery stand in Lewisham Bus Station during the Nineties on London Transport tendered services, a Northern Counties Countrybus bodied Dennis Dart and an Optare Metrorider.

Porto: Chris I'M an OM

Amongst the many interest buses to be seen in Porto in 1984 was this attractive OM Fiat based midibus.

Chilton Queens

When sold this former City of Oxford AEC Reliance didn't travel far moving to the well known fleet of Chilton Queens from Didcot at the southern edge of it's area. This operators main routes headed into Reading where TJO 55K was pictured outside the railway station in the Eighties.

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.