Two Classics in Copenhagen

Two of my favourite vehicles are seen side by side in Copenhagen in 1982. Of course one is the quality solid looking and very sophisticated for it's time Volvo Amazon car and the other is the DAB-Leyland BL2d. There were 250 of these buses and along with the similar BL1d made up a modern fleet of 510 buses whose delivery commenced in 1964 to replace the much loved trams from the streets of the Danish capital. No.475 was from the final year's delivery in 1970 and this Leyland O680 powered bus was allocated to the HT Garage at Valby.

HT 448 DAB-Leyland in Copenhagen

My latest scanner doesn't scan colour prints as well as black and white and some of them look a bit too rich. However it can make for s nice enlarged postcard look and who doesn't want to see a street-scene of an HT DAB-Leyland in Copenhagen.
 

1979 Copenhagen HT Volvo 887

I must admit I tended to look down on this rather square Aabenraa bodied Volvo's in the Copenhagen fleet of HT as they lacked the character of the earlier well rounded Leyland-DAB BL1-2 Series buses that reminded me of Leyland Panthers bck home. The last of those DAB's was No.510 quickly followed by the first of these in 1970. However as you can see No.887 was still only one year old in 1979 and I came to rather like them as they made a distinctive 'whine'.

HT Buses on the move in Copenhagen

These two buses were very typical of the Copenhagen HT fleet in the Eighties. The Leyland DAB's were to be found closer to the centre and this style of Aabeneraa bodied Volvo B10M had been the choice for the outer district, but later deliveries joined the throng too. 1432 was new in October 1981 and 1062 December 1979 and both are heading for the island of Amager over the bridge.

Birkenrod Bus DAB Leyland

Since the 1980's as in Britain much has changed in the bus scene of Denmark and of course not only does one no longer see Danish DAB built Leyland Buses on the streets and out in the coutryside many of the bigger operators themselves have dissapeared into larger groups, some with English sounding names like Arriva. But I guess many small operators still remain and I wonder if Birkenrod Bus still operate in the North Copenhagen suburbs on the 328 route to Horseholm and Kokkedal Station. I would like to think so.

1682 DAB bodied Volvo in Copenhagen

Usually in Denmark Aabenraa supplied most of the bodywork on Volvos whilst on the other hand DAB bodies were on the Leyland. But later they were also available on the open market and the Copenhagen PTE called HT had them on both chassis. Four year old Volvo 1682 was seen in 1988.

Denmark: Running between the islands

With the exception of mainland Jutland above Germany where Aarhus is  the largest city with in the Eighties a population of 250.000, the rest of Denmark is a series of big and samall islands and moving between them made the country seem a lot bigger. Today many are connected by spectacular modern bridges but as seen here a trip to Copenhagen via the ferry at Ebeltoft would have added 1.40mins on to the journey of this Ahidskau DAB Leyland in 1982. It even took five hours to get to Copenhagen by train which was far quicker and to get from the top of Jutland on a Sondergaards Rutebiler to the capital would have taken a bottom numbing nine-hours!.

HT DAB-Leyland 1292

HT operated a small number of DAB-Leyland articulated buses or as the Danes call them the 'ledbus' on a rush-hour commuter limited-stop service to Kokkedal to the north of Copenhagen . By then two years old No.1292 which entered service in November 1980 was the first of the ten and HT already had earlier vehicles of this type dating from 1976 Nos.808-813.

Wonderful Copenhagen 1979

Another view from my 1979 trip is of a very smart one year old Leyland-DAB in the centre of Copenhagen with another one going the opposite way.

A.P Harson DAB: Roskilde Rejesbureau DAB

If you travel to train to Copenhagen the last major town before you arrive is Roskilde famous for it's Viking connections and museum and is situated just on the border of  their equivalent of the capital's  PTE. But as well as yellow HT buses there were town network 'by-buses' and even red DSB railway buses. But the most notable operator was Hansen who operated routes to villages like Jyllinge beside the fjord and of course it did excursions of which this then quite new DAB Leyland was acting as an advertisement in a bold presentation here in August 1989. I'm surprised nobody has picked up on my Danish bus photos yet for as in places like Britain and Portugal the bus scene has changed beyond recognition since I was there in the Eighties.

Dab Leyland HT 1475 Cosses Anager Bridge

Even though they are not always as sharp as properly composed views, these scenes full of objects and movement often capture the true nature of a place and in this instance it was Copenhagen in the Eighties.

HT DAB 717 Bound for Valby

HT DAB-Leyland No.717 dated from 1976 and was seen in Copenhagen in 1982 bound for Valby where it was garaged. As you can see my girlfriend there at the time always walked on and I was forever trying to catch up.

Hovedstadsomradets Trafikselskab: Just call me HT

From it's formation in 1974 HT, The Greater Copenhagen equivalent to one of our PTA's ran mostly DAB bodied Leyland-DABs or Aabenraa bodied Volvo's, but in 1979-80 it took it's first forty Scania BR 112 buses with much more upright looking DAB bodywork which were followed by another ninety-five similar buses by the end of 1984.

Freshly repainted yellow HT 406

My favourites in the Greater Copenhagen HT bus fleet were these Leyland DAB's especially the ones with the large route number box like 406 looking very cheerful in it's fresh coat of all-over-yellow as it pauses outside the BD main railways station before heading off to Sundbyvester Pl. on Amager.

Roskilde Bus Station

The bus scene in Denmark when I went there during the Eighties seemed to be a fairly equal split between the two dominant combinations of Aabenraa-Volvo and DAB-Leyland and examples of each could be seen here at the busy bus terminus beside the Station in Roskilde which marked the southern boundary of HT's operations. The Greater Copenhagen HT network was split into three zones and the outer one Area 3 was served largely by this type of Volvo vehicle, and later batches of this bus which it chose for it's country routes were also delivered to the central areas too.

Limfjords Ruterne in Thisted

In Denmark once outside Copenhagen there was a wealth of tiny family run bus operators operating often one basic but quite long route and whose services were now highly regulated and requiring modern vehicles like this DAB Leyland of Limfjords Ruterne seen in Thisted in Jutland in 1982.

Dane Geld: The DAB Leyland

The Danes might not excel at skiing or mountain climbing but they gained a worldwide reputation for good modern design and I believe this extended to many of it's buses including smart looking DAB Leylands like this in the Greater Copenhagen HT fleet. When trying to find your bus don't try pronouncing the full title of HT Hovedstadsomradets Trafikselskab as by the time you've pronounced it correctly the bus will have long gone before you've finished the sentence. I'm not quite sure which actual bus this is but it's a BL5c and could be No.1038 dating from 1979 and allocated to the garage at Valby. This batch were favourites of mine.

Two DAB Leylands at Lyngby

Like many European cities commuters tend to use local buses to take them to the local station and then on to a train into the congested city centre. Copenhagen is no exception and there is a large busy bus station at Lyngby to the north which forms a local hub. From these two Danish built DAB Leyland buses we can see how the styling evolved between 1976 and 1982. HT No.760 a 1977 bus was heading for another railway station at Ballerup.

HT 1753: A new bus and the old at Lyngby

Seen at Lyngby Station north of Copenhagen was this still sparkling new Aabenraa bodied Volvo belonging to HT. It must have been about 1988 and therefor examples of the early Seventies Leyland/DAB parked up to the right would have been by now a rare sight.

A DSB DAB in Kolding

With the exception of Copenhagen's PTE HT with 1250 buses in 1986, the Danish Railways or as they were known DSB was the largest bus fleet in Denmark. Unlike many Danish operators which nixed a fairly balanced Volvo Aabeneraa and DAB fleet, the Silkeborg Leyland factory had only supplied them with about twenty of the almost six-hundred strong fleet and one of the second batch was seen in Kolding.