HSX 78X Eastern Scottish Ailsa in Edinburgh

During the Eighties buswise a visit to Scotland made a refreshing change from the scene in England and Wales especially as the still colourful Scottish Bus group escaped the drab fate of the NBC operators. A green and cream Alexander bodied Ailsa makes a nice contrast with the seemingly always immaculate Lothian Leyland Atlanteans in Edinburgh.

In this seaside scene of mostly elderly people eating ice-cream and fish and chips it seemed happily  nothing much had changed over the years except the open-top United Auto Bristol VR was now part of East Yorkshire from Hull and operating here as Scarborough and District.

GMT Fleetline TNA 309M at St Peter's Square

A Greater Manchester Northern Counties bodied Daimler Fleetline stops at St Peter's Square before heading down Moseley Street on it's way to Piccadilly and then out to Moston.

BVB Saurer in Chesieres

BVB used to run trams down from Villars to it's adjoining village of Chesieres about a kilometer away but this was discontinued probably when the new road bridge was built between it and Villars in the early Sixties. A replacement bus service was operated using a rather functional looking faded old blue Saurer but sometimes a rather stylish green coach was used instead and both were housed at the former tram shed in the village. Not a brilliant print I know but as a schoolboy I had to rely on my point and shoot Ilford Sporti with it's awkward for buses square negatives.

PNH 182: Thomas of Barry

I recognised the registration of this Plaxton bodied Volvo B10M at Victoria Coach Station as being a former Happy Days coach. Interestingly it bears a rising sun motif on the side which of course was a hallmark of the Austin families Woodseaves coach fleet.

Yorkshire Rider Tiger WSV 407

I can't remember where I took it but Yorkshire Rider ran this smart Duple bodied Leyland Tiger in National Express livery on contract.

Provincial and a Murky Day in Pompey

Portsmouth lost it's municipal buses for minibuses, Southdown became a Stagecoach stripe but on the plus side long established Provincial from nearby Gosport became a familiar sight. It was a pity though that they mainly ran Leyland Nationals but at least they still wore their traditional colours and looked quite pleasing on a nice day!

Die Post Setra on a Valais Grey Cold Day in Brig

Switzerland when bathed in sunshine has a magical quality and even the railway system with it's old wooden stations and it's period industrial concrete sheds has a toy-town fairy-tale feel about it. Perhaps that's because it's still the way I remember it from my schooldays in the Sixties. But go there when they get some British weather with dense cloud and rain and it seems like an old-fashioned dump. So yes of course they get horrid weather here too but when in winter it was bad I used to take the train up into the mountains for I could live with the alpine snow outside the window. Usually after a lousy week the last two days were just perfect and I ended up not wanting to come home. As well as being a well know pont on the rail route from Geneva to Milan the town of Brig has a Die Post bus fleet which always interested me but this Setra which looked very much the same was actually owned by one of it's many contractors.

Showing Our Age. Eastern National VHL 177L

The destination of this preserved Eastern National ECW bodied Bristol RE at Lincoln might not be PC enough for some but is perhaps appropriate all the same as like heir vehicles a lot of preservationists are getting old too. Let's hope in the future our less official heritage will be taken more seriously by society as once we lose it we will never get it back.

Thamesdown Dennis Dominator SMW 56Y

As well as the South Yorkshire PTE the Dennis Dominator gained a lot of orders from the remaining municipal operators including Thamesdown. No.56 with Northern Counties bodywork looked rather smart in the blue and cream livery.

When the Ku-damm was Berlin

One forgets how busy this key area of West Berlin was for all the real action now is centred in the old East Berlin around the once quiet and deadly dull  former city centre area of Lindenstrasse. So as the old saying goes  what goes around comes around. But  from this view we can easily imagine how people in the East who obviously knew what it was like must have longed to eat in the restaurants and buy the goods in the shops in this bustling utopia of Capitalism. Now they can live in debt like every one else who loves shopping too much. Quality wise not one of my best but it certainly catches the lively spirit of the Ku-damm as a Setra of Immel and Kolb ferries the tourists who came from all over West Germany to see it as well. It is still busy here but somehow no longer feels like the very heart of Berlin but that is not such a bad thing either

Slavik Koper at the Customs Post in Trieste

Coaches from Croatia with West Europeans on board leave the Communist East on a day trip to Italy, and Trieste that beckoned was notable for being at the end of the Russian controlled Iron Curtain.