Ralph Adams wrote "On Thursday morning, a full size white coach with red lining and 001 Oxford on the rear was going down St Aldates. No pen with me at the time but it had a personalised registration number.  I presume that it is part of 001 cars but I not previously known them to operate anything larger than a 16 seat minibus. It certainly will not fit under the arch in St Aldates or in the front of the house in Cowley Road. I would be interested to know its operating centre "

Can anyone help Ralph on this one?

My same correspondent has been trawling the Traffic Commissioners web site and comes up with some interesting information. He says "Peter Blowfield T/A Walters Limousines have registered 2 new routes from 27th Oct.
159 Addenbury - Deddington
259 Deddington - Heyford
You may recall the County asked for quotes on 2 small buses for Cherwell area and they then purchased 2 Optare Aleros. Walters have won the operational contract to connect into the X59. They have also registered changes on the services to Bicester North station (are the train times changing?)

Red Rose have registered changes on the 275 Oxford - High Wycombe  from 27/10/03. I do not know details, but changes do not encourage regular travellers normally.

Stagecoach Swindon 63 Oxford - Faringdon will be withdrawn from 27th October. When talking to the County Transport Officer a few weeks ago, he said that the revised service to be introduced, Stagecoach was not going to tender for the type of operation that would be required in future. No new registration by any other operator made at present. I find it strange that no changes have been registered for the 65/66 either as these services interwork throughout the day.

I also received comment from an irregular visitor to Oxford regarding the confusion seemingly often caused by indiscriminate parking in St Aldates. The picture below sent in shows how buses backed up whilst he was there because a car had parked outside the Town Hall and a log jam had occurred.

Buses and Coaches I have driven

Sometime in 1962 I was offered a one week tour to Great Yarmouth by what was
then Shearings Holidays based in Salford. The livery was red and grey.
My steed was a Bedford SB3 with Plaxton C41F bodywork VBA683

More memories of buses that I have driven came looking at the picture above. This shows a group of tour passengers on the Shearings tour to Great Yarmouth. Tours started from a depot in Salford, close to the gasworks. I can remember how very pleased we all were to get away from the area and breath some fresh air. The coach above is mentioned in the history of Shearings book and was an early member of the old fleet before Jackson's of Altrincham took over and modern development began.

I remember we went through the Potteries and crossed towards Leicester where lunch was taken at The Odeon Cinema. In those days such places were favourite stops for coach operators. I think the 7 day tour cost about £8 and such tours were very popluar with senior citizens of those days.

The coach in question had a Bedford 330cu in diesel and that engine was beside the driver. It was a rather noisy little beast and I think one was better off nearer the back. One did however have a double seat by the driver and this was also popular with passengers. Cases were much smaller by today's standards and one never seemed pushed for space. Top speed was in the low 50s and climbing ability was limited. I do remember as an enthusiast driver how one always wished one could be driving a "proper coach" such as a Leyland or AEC. Such coaches were often beyond the means of the smaller operators and Bedfords or Fords were considered quite adequate. Today a comparison might be made between a Volvo and a Dennis Dart. Such vehicles always seem to be working so much harder than their larger brothers. It was ever so with the Bedford. A week away in Norfolk was quite pleasant and I suppose much as now drivers were expected to help with the passengers at the hotel, running the bar was a chore I seem to remember. We fuelled and parked at the local operator of those days, Caroline Seagull Coaches.

I now have some more details about the Amersham Running Day which this year will be on Sunday 5th October 2003.

Well, now on to the reports for our area. Your contributions continue and I am pleased to receive them each week.

Malcolm Crowe, September 22nd 2003.

Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002

Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002

News of the local companies – 22nd September 2003

Dart MPD 3485 appeared this week on the same working shown on last week's page , when 3823 was in charge.

Surprisingly this week there are no reports on Arriva from all my usual correspondents.  However I notice that Woottens will be taking Olympian 5827 (ex 227) to Showbus. I also note from the latest issue of Buses that 5088 (F638LMJ) and 5083(F633LMJ) have been sold to Western Greyhound.

Carousel Buses, High Wycombe

Brian Matthews took this very nice picture of Carousel's L556, last Sunday, running into Newlands Bus Station.

Several people have asked about livery and destination displays on the Oxford Tridents.
Here 112 shows new livery and old display.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of news this week is the reinstatement of Volvo coaches 1-5 on the X90. These have returned to service to cover for further warranty work and the need to ensure service regularity in view of the ever increasing traffic pressure on services using the M40 and M25. There has also been an increase in services on the X90 at weekends when the need for additional coaches has been felt in recent months.

As ever Rob Williams sends his usual spottings and jottings.

Mon 15^th 

101 on 4A    511 on 5A

Tue 16^th

223 on 22A card     403 on 5

646 on X13 - it was unable to show the route number on the front

633 has circular tail lights fitted, similar to those one or two of the Tridents and 8xx Volvos.

104 on 4A     511 on 5A

Wed 17^th

224 on 22A

14 branded 502 on 5A

The Olympians seem to have disappeared, the 22 has been wholly single deck operated for most of the week.

103 on 4A

Thu 18^th

222 on 22A to start    502 on 5    104 on 4A

To clarify the double deck rosters, I am led to understand now that a red Trident is scheduled for a working on the 4 group of routes, two red Tridents on 5 road and the final red one on 2 road. Of course this cannot always happen and for operational or engineering requirements odd allocations can and do occur. For example 22 road is not scheduled for low floor buses but as can be seen from the picture below 803 was on 22 road last Saturday all day.

Last Saturday Volvo B10BLE 803 is seen coming down New Road on route 22.

Olympian 224 is expected to attend Showbus along with Citaro 822. Oxford Bus will also have a stand there.

The very avid VCS spotter, a gentleman pictured some weeks ago on these pages tells me that he has now seen both Airline Volvo B12Bs 29 and 30 on X90 workings into Victoria. This is in addition to 26-28 which now very often see service on the X90.

Neil Gow wrote saying "Here's a picture I took Saturday of 633 passing under the station bridge while a Turbo train of sister company Thames Trains goes over."

First Berkshire

Pictured leaving Newlands Bus Station, Wycombe, last Sunday is First Berks 234 on a 74 working.

David Whitley, Marketing Manager of the company has asked for the latest attached fleet list (period 6 - September 2003) to be published in this week's page. you will need Adobe Acrobat to view this file. Click here to view.

Dart Alexander Dash 32705, out of Banbury depot works an X59 in Oxford.

Vario 42381 out of Witney depot works an 18 service in Oxford.

Volvo coach 52373 out of Bedford depot, devoid of any branding, works the X5 in Oxford.

Rob Williams writes "Stagecoach sighting of the week in Coventry must go to Withdrawn 14935 working an X18 service in from Stratford ! ECW Olympians are incredibly rare on X16/X17/X18 workings and this is particularly rare as 14935 is a Rugby vehicle !

Tues 16th:

31331 on X4

32069 on 1

20417 now has Stagecoach in Oxford fleetnames, 20423 has just Stagecoach

31333 still has its microscopic numbers - ignore my comment on Monday about 31330, it always had normal numbers!

Wed 17th:

Work started on 16031 to allow ticket machines to be fitted. None actually fitted though.

Thur 18th:

X4 branded 20007 on X31

16031 went out on route learning / driver training for a spell today. Still no ticket machines or blinds are fitted to either, but at the same time there is no internal sign of either of their lives in Warwickshire. The cabs do still have the old London VN3x numbers painted onto one of the panels though!"

Ralph Adams writes "The 2 Leamington Olympians on loan are 16614 & 16615 (S914 / 915ANH). These are from the same batch as S920ANH which was here a couple of years ago when the service 20 went through to Stratford for one season.  

Stagecoach X4 has one journey from Abingdon (0735 I believe) that is operated by a Kilo duty. After arrival in Oxford it takes up 7A duties, so route marked 7As can be seen regularly in Abingdon. This is the first time I am aware of a City service operating any other route on a regular basis.

LOTS have quoted that Stagecoach have placed a large order of 261 buses for provincial fleets comprising of: 21 Trident/ALX400 (18000-18020), 40 Trident/President (18021-18060), 50 MAN/ALX300 (22011-22060) and 150 Dart/Pointer 10.7m (34401-34550).  I presume this is a new order and not a late report of the current order, from which the Brookesbus vehicles are taken from.

Re above comments.

Most of 18021-18060 have already been delivered to Manchester. All have been allocated and include the Oxford 8, probably ALX.
The Darts numbered above lead on from the last London Darts and the Darts have already been allocated (7 to Oxford)
In this weeks Coach & Bus it reports that Stagecoach has advanced an order by 6 months for a further 100 ALX Tridents and 50 10.7 Dart Pointers to fill a gap at the Falkirk factory. No doubt it has been at a very competitive rate if Falkirk wanted the capacity. No allocations yet announced for these yet.

Of relevance to Oxford is the first 7 Darts. These have been promised for X4 and 10, both needing all 7 buses. It does therefore appear that the latest order will posibly include some Darts for Oxford.

Note that all potential allocations can change if another operating company can make a better case for the new buses."

I am now advised that there is a three delay on the arrival of the new M A Ns.

Correspondents  advise that the branded BrookesBus fleet is as follows:

31330, 31333, 16072, 16076, 16078, 16079, 16614, 16615 

Spare vehicles that may be used on BrookesBus routes are:

16140, 16141, 16144

Spare, but not for use on BrookesBus routes is:

16524

Interesting because I photographed 16524 on the first day of the U1. Ed. 

Vehicles not be used on BrookesBus routes, (but I think may go to cover others coming from outstations) are:

16439, 16031, 16032

It is reported that a normal Olympian service bus operated at least one Megabus round trip to London. Sadly no one seems to be en able to report which one.

Changes to the fare structure is reported this week from a number of sources. One can quite easily see what is going on by visiting the web site.

Adrian Lancer notes "Megabus.com fares have been risen after the initial "all tickets for £1" start.  When trying to book a ticket today (19th) all tickets bought for journeys up to and on 22nd are priced at £2 each way and from 23rd are £1 as before.
It therefore seems that if you buy your ticket less than 3 days in advance you pay £2 (even for last minute journeys as i tried the fare for a departure in 70 minutes time), otherwise it's still £1 "

Ralph Adams says "Looked at the fares today (Sunday).

For a return today, it was £4 each way  (£8 total) -  same prices for Monday & Tuesday - Wednesday onwards was £2 each way - Next Monday was £1

BUT, if you wanted a single today, it was only £2 - Monday single was £2.

So today, to make a return, you make 2 single bookings and pay 2  x 50 pence booking fees."

There are in fact two ways of looking at the way these fares are done. One is to perhaps wrongly assume that if the fares go up they are not making enough, rather perhaps the opposite that if you book late, load factors can decide upon the eventual fare. On most low fare airlines, if you book late you pay a very high price. I am flying on Ryanair to Malmo on Wednesday, back Thursday. I booked the ticket three weeks ago and paid £30. The same ticket today is over £150.

Swanbrook

Adrian Lancer notes
"The Oxfordshire county council forthcoming service changes page at:http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/index/travel/publictransport/changes-2.htm
reports that the 53 will be reduced to three return journeys M-S and just one Sundays.  I have always been a little surprised that the route is not very busy outside of peak times, as Cheltenham and Oxford are both busy, tourist towns.  I  suppose part of the problem is that the route is unattractive as it is very infrequent.  When I travelled on the route last week, the 1145 departure from Oxford (Thursday 11th) only picked up 6 passengers at Oxford, however the 0710 from Cheltenham (Monday 15th) was very busy all the way.  I was surprised that there were 2/3 people on each trip who were prepared to pay £3.90 for a single trip between Oxford and Witney, especially when the 11 and 100 are cheaper (although slightly slower)"

Thames Travel

It is reported that new Solos are arriving within weeks for route 103.

PHOTO CORNER
If you have a digital camera and wish to submit photos for this page please send them to the me at 
malcolmhc@aol.com

Pictured in High Wycombe I came across this Plaxton owned by Sodexho which appears to be something to do with the MOD?

Plaxton OU52DPO provided transport for RAF personnel at a parade in Wycombe.

The legal ownership details.

Scania/Irizar visitor to Oxford, Battersby's W916BEC.

I welcome your photos for inclusion on this page. Please send them to me at
malcolmhc@aol.com

This is a most interesting site which I do recommend

Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002

Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002