In Zurich every day is a new day

 

By the early Nineties bus-wise at least the remaining FBW and Saurer buses in Switzerland were being pushed out as the German Invasion continued and not surprisingly the Mercedes-Benz 0405 played an important part. There is no point saying that No.581 looked new as like the Post Buses,  Zurich's fleet spent their whole lives looking new. How us humans would like to learn from them.

Hearn's of Edgeware

 

A Tiger in the sunshine: Spring is in the Air

Normal blogging service has been resumed again as my comp is back up and running. Thankfully we did not need to do a reload to fix it which means I haven't lost my saved files either. However there are still glitches left with traces of the virus.

NO BUSES TODAY

I'm afraid my computer has 'gone down' with a virus and so I'm sorry but there will be no new posts till I get it fixed. Still it's not so terrible as you now have an excuse to delve into the vast archive of photos i've uploaded for you all to enjoy.

Heckmondwike: Just in case you are not yey sick of snow

I know you must be getting sick of snow and my glorification of it's chilly misery so here is another one, Yorkshire Woollen District Alexander T-Bodied Leopard No.14 confidently bound for Manchester on the 223 at  maybe Heckmondwick or Batley before heading for the hills and the endless sunshine of Lancashire..

Snow in Klosters

Deep snow in Klosters in Winter is hardly newsworthy, and indeed it's the fact that there is not enough snow that gets the newspapers writing headlines for the white-stuff is the iceing on the Alpine Cake. When I last visited switzerland in 2000 the current modern bus era was well under way and no doubt still quite uncommon new types like the Mercedes Citaro were still worth a second glance then. But as you can see as well as the urban streets they had reached the quieter resorts too like this PAH operated Swiss Post Bus meeting the rail arrivals at a rather slushy Klosters

Long lived Queen Mary's

Surprisingly the rather clever idea of buying convertable open-top double-deckers never really caught on, perhaps seaside operators prefered to store the usual elderly more-or-less time expired conversions instead during winter when the workload fell. But examples from the two best known operations from Southdown with it's Queen Mary Leyland PD3's 400-429 of 1963/5 and Devon General's 1961 'Sea Dog' class MCW bodied Atlanteans 925-933  not only gave sterling service but their novalty value and usefullness gave them interesting extended careers as they could be used not just on the coast but for sightseeing in cities, a VIP platform at sporting events like Ascot, a welcome home platform for triumphant footballers or even of course for the manual-gearbox PD3 an operator's tree-lopper cum training vehicle. Strageley enough former Southdown BUF 425C spent some time with Wallace Arnold which included service work in Torquay before taking on a similar roll with Appleby who had a large share of the Scarborough sea-front service. This restrained livery suited these rather elegant buses well and riding on top with the sounds of seagulls and the cackle of the exhaust the 50p fare was money well spent.

Rail Replacement Blues

Let this be a warning to you, weekend rail travel in Britain, especially Sunday's is not a good idea in snowy conditions as it helps to make the usual cold carriages, long delays longer and irritatingly slow shuttles more unbearable. Still it gives me something to photograph like this rare visitor from Wolverhampton in Stafford awaiting it's unfortunates. In 1985 West Midlands Travel took five of these rather basic but sturdy looking Alexander P-Series Volvo B10M buses and the same number of the new Leyland Lynx for comparison. As much for political reasons I expect the under-developed poorly constructed Lynx won the day winning a large order but had this Anglo-Swedish ugly duckling been chosen instead it might have turned out to be a nice little nest-egg to carry the newly Privatised former PTA through difficult times. Indeed you could call the two types chalk and cheese.