Eastern Scottish Fleetline OSG 75V

The Scottish Bus Group differed from the likes of the BTC and BET Group as they were not only able to buy Leylands, AEC's and as here Fleetlines it was also bought large numbers of Bristol ECW products which not only made for a strange mix the whole lot looked even more remarkable in the rich local liveries. By the time I took this view in Edinburgh in the Eighties like the NBC companies in the England and Wales once great companies were about to be broken up ready for Privatisation and that interesting bus scene might go through a fascinating new chapter but sadly little would remain the same within the former SBG.

West Mon Leylands await the Scrapman

Despite it being about ten years younger than the two Willowbrook bodied Leyland PD2/40's of 1957 and 1958 this F-Reg Leyland Leopard looked as if it too would shortly also find it's way to the scrapyard here in this view at West Mon's depot at Blackwood in 1980. As you can see on these buses even before it was renamed Islwyn Borough Transport all Leyland fleet was being painted in a what some might call a more cheerful light blue and white but my myself I much preferred proper colours like the traditional maroon and cream which the Leopard had arrived in too.

Odense Volvo Aabeneraa No.104

In 1982 the Danish city of Odense might be famed as birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson but but by Danish standards it was not so interesting buswise as the town buses seemed to be just these Aabeneraa bodied Volvos and the other main operator DSB ran mostly similar buses.

Even First Bus is greener in Somerset

I read that the First Group is trying to distance itself from the bad old days not so long ago and here in Somerest introduced a much more friendly local livery. What surprises me about this bus seen in Weston-super-Mare is the fact that it seems to carry no company logo at all in it's livery something that rarely happens but the long fleet number and well-trodden cherished registration gives the show away to the knowing enthusiast. The only problem is someone will spot this clean and attractive bus and think "Ah a nice Stagecoach Bus.".

London & Country Mercedes C311 CPL.

Like most I wasn't much of a minibus fan but I quite liked the Mercedes van derived conversions like this one seen in I think Guildford as I used to drive the vans. This time in the Nineties changes within the industry were rapid and they look a lot more interesting now as change was so rapid as operators came and went with cosmetic or just as often real change of ownership. Ray Stenning's Drawline group liveries were quite attractive by today's standards.

"Mavis this must be the new Doctor Who Tardis I think."

The so-called Borismaster is so strikingly different, if it actually matters one has trouble trying to decide whether it's ugly or not as most people just seem to like it's quirkiness. Stagecoach have painted this one silver and amongst all the polished vehicles and aircraft at Duxford for Showbus it looked far less like a bus than anything else there and in this view at least slightly surreal as it looks modern yet it's shape harks back to the over-streamlined Thirties.

Nico's Lederfashion MAN

I didn't always like the schemes but I must admit I took photos of quite a number of Berlin's advertising buses simply because they were different. Today I wonder if any of these photos of the less well known ones are rare. Here Nico's Lederfashion vies for our attention with a colourful newsvender as BVG MAN 1833 heads down the Kurfurstemdamm in 1982..

Ribble Alexander Bodied Atlantean CRN873D

Ribble was so disenchanted with it's early MCW bodied Atlanteans it bought few others till the NBC era, indeed even prefering the Lowlander. But both of these later batches were the less satisfactory low-height variety but the Alexander bodied buses didn't look at all bad as these looked better than other operators full height models. Initially the Northern Counties buses looked nice and modern too with their curved glass fronts but once the novelty wore off it was easy to see how it was just grafted on to the old design and was slightly 'wrong' and probably not very strong. CRN 873D 1873 was seen in Blackburn when the bus was in it's second year in 1968.

WMT 5405: Green Enviro Bus in Wolverhampton

In a special enviromental green livery to advertise their Dennis Enviro electric hybrid buses is West Midlands Travel 5405 off it's more usual Route One to Dudley but heading out another way from Wolverhampton to the large Ashmore Park Estate which I remember having difficulty finding my way out of in the middle of the night when I first started doing the Airporter.

H809 GRE: Optare Delta carries the Staffordshire Knot.

PMT had a batch of rather superior Optare Deltas to try alongside the Leyland Lynx. In the end nothing came of it as big buses went out of favour for a while as smaller Plaxton Pointer Dennis Darts were bought instead. SAD 809 was lettered up for the quicker X60 but was working the slower 260 as it passed some rather battered Transits belonging to a contractor digging up Tipping Street.

Die Poste Mercedes 0405 at La Chaux de Fonds

This Swiss post bus seen in La Chaux de Fonds inherited the registration number off a Saurer DUK which had been withdrawn and sold a number of years earlier. There was not much of numbering system once the Die Poste was split off what became Swiss Telecom but it didn't matter too much as a few years later vehicles were to lose their famous P-Reg for Cantonal marques. The problem with that was each time a bus moved to a different area it received a new number and most likely something else when it returned. With that in mind one might have thought the large fleet would have by then carried fleet numbers but they don't and so the onlooker can guess very little about it.

RM 1414: A Mancunian Routemaster

Okay I might not be a huge fan of seeing red Routemasters outside London but it would be churlish of me not to enjoy seeing former RM 1414 in Manchester as it was on loan here when new. If orders had been obtained I'm not sure if I would have preferred them to proper Manchester half-cabs but by the time they would have arrived Atlanteans and Fleetlines were the order of the day and so I concede they might have been nicer for us enthusiasts, but no doubt as well as cost that was one of the reasons why they did not gain widespread support. But fate was to play tricks for as a gimmick following Deregulation s a small number did take to the Manchester streets as fast loading and a cheerful clippy made them a 'trump card' on the cut-throat bus congested streets. I might be wrong but one might even expect to see 414 CLT out and about on Event Days such as this at Heaton Park for if I'm not mistaken this bus is now part of the transport museum collection.