Issue 195
(OBP-410)
Monday
25th
September 2006
next update week ending 6th
October 2006
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To see the pictures full size just click on the small one
This last weekend saw the annual event at Duxford underway. As usual a great number of buses and coaches took part and this year I think the largest single contribution was from Woottens, one of our local operators. The had a total of eight coaches, all new in 2006 and this made a significant impact.
There were over 520 entries this year and the range of ages and type were a sight to behold. The two pictures below tend to emphasise this point.
Old Aberdeen and new York.
The difference in style, colour and operation is somewhat mind blowing. I could not help thinking how dignified the older livery looked and whilst I am sure many readers, especially the younger end, will not really like the old liveries, some of the older brigade may not like the modern "eye catching" liveries so often seen these days. Indeed to illustrate a point I personally still think red and cream are great bus colours and one operator continues to make even modern buses look good in this livery - Hedingham,
Somehow even the fleet name and
fleet numbers look good. In the end it's all a matter of taste.
Oxford - OTS and bus gates
Last week's Oxford Times revealed that camera enforcement of the OTS bus/taxi only routes is shortly to be implemented now that the law is in place for this to happen. Seemingly cameras are already in place in Reading and one looks ahead with interest to seeing just how this will affect traffic in Oxford. When the police come out to enforcement the no go area for cars etc., there always seems to be bush telegraph at work and car traffic seems lighter.
Roadworks in the centre are presently limited to footpath replacement outside Magdalen College. It seems that further major work will now not take place until next year.
High Wycombe town centre
One downside of the new town centre development in High Wycombe are the mushrooming of traffic lights. This has caused significant delays during peak times and one wonders when everything is finished if this will make an impact on traffic flows in the town centre?
I was also interested to catch three green buses together in the new bus station, and call my picture "Green in Wycombe".
The green Carousel Dart was on Line 2 to Marlow, whilst the green Solo was in from Aylesbury on the Saturdays only X32 from Thame and the VDL Park & ride bus was on the Cressex route 100.
Amersham & District Running Day - this next Sunday
Don't forget that next Sunday is the Amersham running day and one highlight will be an Alder Valley Leyland National which will operate on the High Wycombe-Amersham route. This will see the first operation of a National into the new Wycombe Bus Station.
Again my thanks to all my contributors, both old and new.
Malcolm Crowe - Monday 25th September 2006
Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002 to date
News of the local companies – 25th September 2006
Nigel Peach last week mentioned that Plaxton Derwent bodied Volvo B10M, 3080 (F152 KGS) was parked at Cressex. I can confirm that it is indeed still there and for company Mercedes 2417 is alongside the Derwent as my picture below shows. Seemingly a red band means it is a "scrapper" and a black band means it has been purchased for further use. The Olympian alongside is not withdrawn.
I was surprised this last Saturday to find a currently unallocated Mercedes on staff transport. 2191 is seen leaving the new bus station last Saturday morning.
I was interested to see that the Solo from Aylesbury had been repainted into a plain green livery and has been known to fill in on a 342 working. Who owns these buses now, have they been purchased from county by Arriva?
Ed Maun writes "I understand from several sources that the High Wycombe to Aylesbury service will be revised from Sunday 30th October. Service 324 via Little Kimble will be withdrawn. Service 323 via Butlers Cross will be increased to a 20 minute frequency during the peaks and daytime Monday to Friday. The service will remain with a 30 minute frequency on Saturdays and hourly during the evenings and on Sundays. I believe the service may get some newer buses cascaded from other routes."
What I do know is that we now have half the ex gas bus allocation and I saw DAF 4490 in Wycombe last Saturday. This is in addition to 4429 already mentioned. Seemingly they lack some power needed for Wycombe's steep hills.
I was also advised that a new VDL Cadet is expected for the U9 route.
Glenn Knight writes "I am sending a couple photos for the page."
Arriva
Shires 3414 - P334 HVX Dennis Dart from Ware or Harlow on services in
Stevenage
Luton
garage N908 ETM 2128 on new service 102 from a brake down and sort of buses.
Glenn also sent some pictures of local buses attending Showbus 2006 at Duxford yesterday.
Arriva the Shires 3605 KE55 CTO - 3322 PN02 HVR & K802 DCF from Intalink plus
schools Luton based VR 5000 BKE 847T.
Gavin Francis sent a nice picture of an Olympian on the 342 service in Stokenchurch. However whoever set the blinds got things a little mixed up and it is displaying 243 !!!
Gavin Francis noted that the 280 was worked last week by one of the route 724 DAFs 3447 now painted into Inter-urban livery. It looked very smart indeed.
The company has closed its Baker Street premises and is currently using a secure site at Cressex Park & ~Ride facility for parking most of the fleet. This change took place late last week.
Gavin Francis caught a new addition to this fleet early last week being prepared for service.
From 6th September:-
Gavin Francis also took this picture of Dart DPL479 in Countyrider livery
working the 158 early last week.
John Hammond writes to say "Tappin’s new open topper PO56 JEJ – Volvo B7 / East Lancs semi open top has arrived. It is going to become fleet number 56 on entry to service but so far hasn’t entered service as it is still undergoing preparation on the commentary system."
Legoland comes to Wycombe in
this picture of a First Dart on the 74 last Tuesday.
Heyfordian Coaches
Last week we learned of the re-registrations of various coaches and Steve Warwick has provided some pictures.
L743 YGE is now 8252 MX - June 06. Picture by Steve Warwick taken in Brighton.
T723 UOS is now 2622 NU - May 06. Picture by Steve Warwick
Motts of Aylesbury
Motts provided this Volvo coach 90WFC as the
Judges "office" at this year's Showbus.
A surprise repaint was that of Volvo B10B 641 which has appeared in the new livery more often applied to the Citaros and Volvo B10BLE fleets. Gavin Francis was on had to record the event.
On the subject of Volvo B10Bs last week I mentioned that 603 and 612 were now up in the Birmingham area with Diamond Bus. Ben Morroll kindly sent pictures of these two buses.
The new Go-Ahead fleet book for 2006-2007 has been published by British Bus Publishing and this gives details of all the current fleets including the Birmingham operation and of course Oxford. Sadly there are a number of really poor errors including wrong registrations and other misinformation.
For example the re-registered Volvo coaches, 9, 10 and 12 are shown in the OBC section as R287DWL, R289DWL and R288DWL whereas they should be R25X DWL. However under the Diamond section coach nr 10 is shown correctly as R259DWL with a fleet number of 56.
Somewhat amusingly the three Dennis Lance buses which came to Diamond from Stagecoach in Carlisle, having originated with Thames Transit for the Chipping Norton service are shown as ex City of Oxford.
Oh dear!
The ex Thames
Transit-Stagecoach Dennis Lance now with Diamond Bus.
I know how difficult it is to get everything correct but these books are a source of historical reference and are quite expensive. I do think they should take more care.
The group was well represented at Showbus and a number of buses more local to our area are pictured below.
Bedford Dart for the Mars
route 34833 in pictures taken by me and Glenn Knight.
United Counties as it might have been, SC Olympian 16221 looks very special even
down to a fleet number plate.
The SC East Lodekkas 19952 and 19553 make a fine comparison of open and closed
top.
Branding Northampton style on 55 reg 34772. Like the wheel trims?
Gavin Francis caught two Tubes in Gloucester Green with their branding removed.
Woottens Coaches
As mentioned above Woottens were well represented at Duxford this year and the fleet looked great.
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
The latest ADL "Dart" model was on show at Duxford. Picture by Glenn Knight.
Emblings provided just three Bristol VRs at Duxford this year but one was an
COMS bus. AUD460R
HISTORY IN PICTURES AND WORDS
Ian White wrote to say that he had not seen any older pictures on the page recently and thought readers might like to see the selection below.
A COMS Bristol VR originally intended for Southern Vectis and converted to open
top by COMS pictured by Ian White.
Who would have believed that COMS now OBC and Southern Vectis would one day
belong to the same owners?
Coming events & models
Duxford - Showbus - 24th September 2006. http://www.showbus.co.uk/
Running Day as advised by Peter Cartwright, Running Day Organiser Amersham & District Motorbus Society
Sunday 1 October 2006 - the 18th Running Day at Amersham.
As route 724 is 40 years old this year, apart from the feeders, I want to schedule a service between Watford and High Wycombe via Amersham - the original route south of Watford. This will be 29 years to the day since MA Garage took over duties from HE - High Wycombe Garage which closed the previous day, 30 September 1977.
This year should see the brand new bus station at High Wycombe open by this date and this would be the ideal place to terminate. More on this Running Day in due course.
It is hoped to celebrate 40 years since RMLs took over route 363 Totteridge - Holtspur in February 1966. Weather permitting it is hoped to have RML/RMLs running over the route on Sunday 19 February. Likewise a month later to run over the full length of Route 347 Hemel - Uxbridge which received RMLs on 20 March 1966. Anyone else interested in joining us?
Please feel free to contact me by phone 01494 437750 or by e-mail - Peter_Cartwright@wycombe.gov.uk - or post at 54 Guinions Road, HIGH WYCOMBE, HP13 7NX.
DVD s by Robin Clare
The full details of DVDs available from Robin Clare may be found at his web site :- http://www.robinclare.co.uk/
Latest Citaro models revealed
Dave Rogers sent the following press release.
CREATIVE MASTER NORTHCORD - PRESS RELEASE
Mercedes-Benz Citaro - ukbus 5004 Arriva Manchester - ukbus 5007 Oxford Bus
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Creative Master Northcord Limited is proud to release two brand new liveries on its well known Mercedes-Benz Citaro casting. Both models have received significant, yet different, modifications to the tooling in order to represent, as close to 100% accuracy as possible, the real buses on the roads.
ukbus 5004 represents fleet number Arriva North West’s 2851 (CX55 EAA). This Mercedes Citaro is one of three such vehicles with dedicated route branding for service 700 and with the destination set to Manchester. The model features a redesigned interior layout that includes the reduced seating capacity and luggage racks.
Starting on 29th October 2005, Arriva North West’s service 700 runs from Manchester’s Piccadilly Railway Station to Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport. For the service, 3 Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses were purchased and numbered 2851-3. They were painted in the same style and colours as the Scania OmniCity buses that already operated between John Lennon and Liverpool city centre.
ukbus 5007 represents fleet number 830 (X13 OXF) of Oxford Bus Company. 830 entered service in December 2003, to upgrade the X3 & X13 Oxford – Abingdon services. The bus was painted in a new and distinctive livery designed by Best Impressions.
ukbus 5007 features the smooth, curved windscreen with the destination display set behind the windscreen glass rather than the protruding destination found on the Park & Ride Citaros in the fleet. This feature is one of the standard specifications on other Citaros that the Go-Ahead Group has purchased.
Mercedes-Benz Citaro ukbus 5004 and 5007 models are each a one-piece casting whose clean lines accentuate the square-mounted, double-glazed windows and the livery application on which all logos and lettering are clearly legible. Another main feature on both models is the extensive portrayal of handrails. The headlight / indicator units at the front and indicator / tail light units at the rear are made of individual components to look more realistic.
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The brand new single-door Mercedes-Benz Citaro bus models will be distributed by John Ayrey Die-Casts Limited (UK), Porte Publishing Company (Japan) and Concorde Hobby Shop (HK) respectively. The ukbus 5004 and 5007 models are limited to 1700 pieces worldwide respectively.
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Model Buses for Sale
prices revised with immediate effect
I have a revised deal on Models for your readers...
Each of the following models are available for the following price :
Each Model = £10.00
Postage is £4.00 regardless of the number of models.
UKBUS 1014 - CREATIVE MASTER OXFORD P&R TRIDENT
UKBUS 5002 - CREATIVE MASTER OXFORD P&R CITARO
UKBUS 2012 - CREATIVE MASTER BROOKES BUS TRIDENT
CORGI ORIGINAL OMNIBUS OXFORD ESPRESS EXCALIBUR
Once again this offer is only available by emailing me direct at modelsmk@aol.com
More models are for sale on my eBay store, http://www.modelsmk.co.uk/shop
Thanks! James
Would readers who respond to the above please quote my site when doing so.
If you wish to be included on a mailing list where
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please let me know on malcolmhc@aol.com
Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002
Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002 to date
Links
These are three most interesting sites which I do recommend
Mike Penn's photo page with much from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire as well as Buckinghamshire
Chris Lowe's Photo page - mainly North West UK
|
A web site which has paintings of buses.
|
|
http://www.britishbuspublishing.co.uk/
The latest handbook from BBF was
on sale at Cobham and was the ever popular Stagecoach edition now in its 13th
year. As in earlier editions it includes the 2006 new bus orders. |
Links
Bus Services in Buckinghamshire
Where are the Chilterns?
Visit this informative site through the link below.
Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002
Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002