Just an hour in Bath: First Optare Solo MX05 RTO

Well less but I love a challenge trying to find my pictures. Here a First Bus Solo 53810 passes the bus station in a view which might have worked better in black and white.

Buses Girls & Street Junk in Liverpool SN65 OES

Probably it should be girls and buses and not buses and girls for in my views it is the women who have prority, however if I can I like to show enough of the bus so that it can be identified but no there are no set rules. But as in this photo I like to include all the bits of street furniture as part of the composition or as I am about to christen it 'urban junk'.By the standards of say Arriva Stagecoach runs a 'brand new' fleet mostly, but these new buses do get monotonous like this Enviro in Liverpool heading for Kirby

NOB 323M: Mister Blue Sky

In this view of a West Midlands Daimler Fleetline I loved the swathes of thin sunlight but as for turning it into a great picture that I think was beyond my skills. However I still like it as not only is it how we sometimes see the world there is a wealth of of defused detail and I think it was taken in the Hockley area of Birmingham and I stopped briefly between making business calls in my van to get it.

First Manchester: Soup then the Rain

I wasn't keen on all the First pre-Barbi liveries especially this horrid orange and purple which along with his golf clubs one of the managers brought down with them from Strathclyde. But it might have been a good idea to hop on one of these First Manchester NC bodied Leyland Olympians for a trip to Leigh as it looks as if those black rain clouds were hurrying over Bolton on their way to drop their load on Manchester, anyway that's what popular myth had us believe. I expect all that soot and dirt in the air during the Industrial Revolution helped seed the showers on the low ground as they approached the Pennines as it doesn't seem so true today. But even in the Seventies on the Yorkshire side they didn't exactly get away with it either as I remember days when the fog hardly lifted all day in the West Riding and  Calderdale area.

Massey Bodied Atlantean on the Tonbridge Road EKP 228C

In my old digs, for the year unbelievably having Maidstone's Atlanteans going passed both ways every three and four minutes during the day makes it hardly surprising that I became a big Massey Brothers fan and of these rather conservative  'County Town Corporations'. No the buses were not as classy as the more traditional more rounded bodies found on the Corporation Leyland PD2's which also went chugging passed to and from the garage usually on service but the Atlanteans had a quirky charm and certainly in their early years were very free of annoying rattles unlike even the new buses of today. In those days I would never have guessed that later in their lives they would show up again in my life this time with Stevenson's of Uttoxeter who had about half a dozen of the twenty strong boxy fleet. Very rare buses they were too as apart from one or even two that went to the A1 Group in Ayrshire Colchester was the only other exponent.

Happy Days XWC 18 or is it 18 XWC?

I'm afraid I'm the only one on the trip who never saw a horse but on the other hand some of the lads might have only seen the bar. No a local bookie organised this trip for his best punters lol, I just went to York for the buses. Interestingly Happy Days also had XWC 18 another similar Neoplan and I wonder how many times when writing it down drivers got them mixed up

Secondhand Buses at Potters Bar GBU 5V

I remember as a youngster going to Potters Bar garage and seeing nothing apart from the ubiquitous RT. How things had changed by the late Eighties as not only was London Buses buying partly used secondhand buses rather than flogging them off, Potters Bar seemed to become a gathering place for as well as it's indigenous LT Metrobuses it gathered Volvo/Ailsa products, Scanias, and even Metrobuses from places like West Yorkshire PTE and as here Greater Manchester.

Terravision YT10 WLD

An Irizar bodied Terravision coatch loads in Manchester on the service to Liverpool Airport. I don't know why because the weather is lovely but I wish I was flying off somewhere at the moment.

Wet Wet Wet at Bretonside

What a wet shocker in Plymouth, but as this Plaxton Paramount 3500 on Rapide 531 prepares to leave for distant Newcastle on Tyne I don't think the weather would be any better up there either just colder. I think it was  Christmas 1987 and I was down there for my mothers funeral so pretty miserable all round ready. As for the coach it was a lot more interesting than it looked for despite Northern on the side it was only on loan being part of the Yorkshire Traction fleet and an uncommon Leyland Royal Tiger delivered new as A72 YDT.

It might not be a real Diamond but it will take you for a ride

You never have to wait long for a bus from Bloxwich to Walsall it's amazing what a little competition will do to boost the service, the trouble is it often leaves other areas under resourced. Almost in town the girl on her phone takes the healthy option and walks anyway but there do seem to be more than it's fair share of overweight people often with mobility problems in the Black Country. The Diamond carries fleet number 30834 but I think you will find they don't have that many buses lol.

JJD 451D: Read all about it!

It looks like RML 2451 spent all it's working life in the London Transport Country Area, and even here at Victoria in the heart of red bus London it was still in worn shades of green and in use as a trainer from Hatfield.

Bristol in the Sun, what a Scorcher!

It might seem like this is the first red hot day we've ever had but it has happened before as can be witnessed by this Bristol Omnibus FLF with all it's windows open.