Goodbye Basel Trolleybus: 31.7.1941-30.6.08

Today trolleybus operation finally comes to an end in Basel which is rather sad as Switzerland with it's mountains to create hydro-electricity was always regarded as a natural home for these clean silent user-friendly vehicles. Just a few years ago Lugano closed down it's four routes that operated on a twelve-minute frequency, and I don't know whether it happened or not but the comparatively small Schaffhausen system offering a bus every ten-minutes dating from 1966 like Basel was always under threat. Way back early in January 1990 very old machines were still hard at work in Basel and I expect they were there when I made a school visit in 1964. If I guess and say they were built by FBW someone will correct me so instead I will just add that the trolleybus routes didn't penetrate the centre of the city or go close to the main railway station but Route 33 crossed the Rhine to the wrong side closer to the German Border where there is the Badische Bahnhof.

Basel 2000: Mercedes-Benz-Gelenkobusse

It's a bit of a squeeze trying to get Basel 921 into the viewfinder without standing in the middle of the road and getting run over in the process, but even though it's not perfect it was still worth the effort as this bus and it's sister 922 were shortly to be withdrawn. It seems rather a waste as Swiss buses never appear on the surface to get old and have a timeless quality about them almost making time stand still till they finally go.

Basel 2000: The last of FBW Trolleybuses

In 2000 Basel Route 34 was converted to motorbus operation and out went these 1975 Hess/SAAS bodied FBW machines and the pair of Mercedes-Benz-Gelenkobusse 921-922. In the distance is one of the final generation of trolleybuses delivered between 1992-1996, 923-934 built by Neoplan which continued to work on routes 31 and 34.

Porto: Brill Car 193

I shouldn't have to write captions for images like this one from 1984 as they are enjoyable enough as they are. Sadly I have a book of Portuguese Trams so I can show off a bit of my knowledge. This series of trams numbered between 150-199 were built between 1912 but later examples from the class like No.193 dated from the Thirties and weighed 11.71 tonnes. The genteel charm of this wonderful tram contrasts with the rather uninspiring world of Porto's industrial sprawl of sun baked concrete and brick.

Maidstone & District:: Daimler Fleetline

M & D was an early user of the first generation of rear-engined double-deckers with both lowheight and Highbridge MCW bodies on Leyland Atlantean chassis. But in 1963 the choice swung to Daimler who could not only provide a bus with the more frugal Gardner 6LX engine the comparable Fleetline chassis was far more suited to the provision of lowbridge bodywork and the company took no less than three batches of these attractive Northern Counties bodied buses including DL97 from the middle series of 1966 at Maidstone on the frequent Gillingham route. Sorry about the quality which is not bad at all for my kid's first Ilford Sporty Camera.

First Southern National: Bridgewater Garage

In 1966 way back in my schooldays one Sunday afternoon I cycled the twenty miles or more to Bridgewater to spot the Southern National allocation of 29 buses at the garage in East Quay. As you might expect the buses had changed a great deal since those days when I visited it again to se the buses about five years ago. Of course once up on a time the fleet was all solid dark green Bristol/ECW products and even though there were still a few Bristol VR's and more ECW bodies on the odd Olympian like No.1813 seen here, Mercedes minibuses were very much in evidence too. Secondhand buses and school transport played a big part here too after Privitisation and the fleet included second-hand Leyland National2 buses like this one that had been new to Crosville. But the biggest change for me was that once to reach the garage meant a ride down one of a network of very narrow bumpy streets of terraced houses but all that had all gone as new roads had cut through this part of town coupled with car based retail development. Shortly I was told by one of the mechanics that this small garage with it's larger yard down the side would go too as the site had been sold to Tesco for a supermarket: And that is a surprise!

Mercedes 0303 at Berlin Zoo

I've always taken pictures of coaches knowing they will become more interesting with age but as far as the Germans are concerned they don't seem to get excited about them despite their vintage. Of course long before the Leyland National appeared on the bus scene Mercedes was building almost identical coaches on their sophisticated production-line at it's Mannheim Plant which I was lucky enough to visit with my school in 1964 and this standardised product might explain why they are a bit dull. In the Eighties a fairly new looking but not so pretty 0303 of Berbig of Hamburg was visiting Berlin and if nothing else illustrates how livery and graphics have changed since then.

It's Accrington Stanley not Hyndburn

Yes many will remember the strange dark blue and red buses of Hydnburn, formerly known by it more sensible proper name Accrington till 1974. In those days the fleet was mostly Guy and Leyland but by the time it had it's new name it very much a Leyland fleet with a few Bristols too. This 1978 Leopard was a no nonsense service bus as was it's locally built East-Lancs body fitted with a flat screen and stout bumper. The company got it's unusual livery from the colours of a local army regiment who appropriately enough were called something like The Accrington Boys and who like many others got senselessly massacred in the mad carnage of the Great War of 1914-1918. The company struggled to keep up after Deregulation and by the time it was taken over by Stagecoach this once smart Lancashire operator looked a bit sorry.

Basel, I think this is the last bus

On my Swiss holiday in early 1998 instead of long train journeys chasing post buses I was in Switzerland's Rhineland and had a nice easy unhurried day with time to spare and I remembered that down at the bottom end of the medieval town in Basel glorious noisy FBW buses had been operating in 1990. So once more as usual armed with my hand held tape recorder I thought I would see if my luck was in and check to see if some were still going strong on the 37 Service. The previous ones I had encountered with fleet numbers like 61-64 had all gone but the last survivors of the type were miraculously still hard at work and I got a chance to travel on Nos 82-84. As I boarded No.83 I mentioned to the driver that I had come to enjoy the music. He said in reply there was no music on his bus and so I made a FBW bus sound and he retorted "You mean din!" Well I got my recordings and as the buses were almost empty inside they made a nice deep hollow rumbling sound that seemed to echo through the bus as they ambled slowly from bus stop to bus stop.

Maidstone & District: Highbridge Bristol VR

I don't know if it was because they were not so familiar but the comparatively scarce taller highbridge ECW bodied Bristol VR buses supplied to the National Bus Company looked rather top-heavy and odd. As well as the well known Luton north of London there is also a district bearing the same name in the Medway where Maidstone and District had a former tram shed it inherited from Chatham and District. It was nice to see that in the mid-Eighties there were still plenty of bus services passing this spot.

West Bromwich might not look much but it's buses had colour

Fortunately even the most hard-nosed unsentimental of the big bus groups see the PR benefits of painting buses in commemorative liveries. But National Express owners of WM ( The former West Midlands PTA) did a cracking job when they painted mostly Metrobuses in the colours of it's former Municipal members Birmingham, Coventry, Walsall, Wolverhampton and this the lovingly recreated elaborate West Bromwich. It's a pity when about half a dozen birmingham buses received the treatment it's other big constituent, a hefty chunk of the once very important Midland Red didn't get it's nostalgic bus for photographers to catch as it ground to a halt at all the wretched lights on the Birmingham to Wolverhampton, New Road but by this time there were none of the old Midland Red Garages left on the system to operate it from except of course Digbeth Coach Station which was being used by Midland Red West. West Bromwich is a poor district on the edge of Birmingham and once very much a part of the Black Country with it's over-riding industrial drabness but once like the football club gave the town's fleet of individualistic traditionally liveried buses a little more to be proud of than the smaller neighbours.

More from RN Lisbon

Here is your reward for leaving me some comments as here is another one of those fine AEC Reliance coaches of RN photographed in Summer 1984 and obviously still good enough to serve as tour coaches.