Colin Jenkins

Following the takeover of a number of Arriva routes tomorrow Carousel Buses newly Repainted 513 YX69NVG and 80957 BX09PGU are both Seen at High Wycombe on Test runs to make sure things run smoothly for the takeover tomorrow

Gavin Francis

... who has provided a large selection of the recent days of operation between 27th and 31st July.

Recent arrivals in new UK fleet numbering system.

Hazel Richardson

Lewis Nagle

408 on one of the first 32As this morning outside Micklefield Library. This is one of currently 5 buses that wears the new 'Wycombe Bus' livery.

Nigel Peach

I don't think that High Wycombe has ever seen such a large overnight change over of buses (over 30) during my lifetime - that's over 70 years! There have been times when the company names have changed, and ownership has changed, but vehicles have then been taken over by the incoming organisation. Wycombe Bus Company did lose all its Bristol VRs overnight in 1996, but that was fewer than 20. 

I returned there the following day (Sun 28th) and the gates were locked. I noticed that some buses had already gone, including elderly Citaro 3920. A gentleman approached me hoping that I had the keys to unlock. He (and presumably a colleague) had come up from Arriva Tunbridge Wells to take a couple of Versas back there. He wasn't sure where the other vehicles would be dispersed to. His dilemma was resolved soon after as someone approached from inside the depot.  

Back to Saturday evening and I drove to the Carousel depot. Suddenly their fleet has increased in size from about 55 to 95 vehicles! I was interested to see how they would all fit in! A challenging exercise in logistics! My pictures show that buses were parked in the car park of "Country Baskets" next door, along the whole length of the service road, back to Hughenden Avenue, and utilising many of the parking spaces along the way.  An employee told me that (very commendably) they wanted to ensure that only buses in Carousel red livery would be running on the first day of operation (Sunday), so all the vehicles that have not yet been repainted, and those on loan, were parked in the nearby carpark. 

I also took some pictures on Sunday afternoon. Frustratingly, 408 on route 32A moved away from the Booker Asda terminus just as I approached! I like the cheeky comment on the rear of some of the buses "We're going back to the 30s. High Wycombe's well established route numbers are back." The bus station was completely dominated by red buses! Freshly painted 409 shows the destination covered by "The Wycombe Bus Company". The destination blind on 80478 is very clear - the "CROSSTOWN" element is a nice touch. 

Blain Rhys

 
408 during route familiarisation in Reading on July 26th.

Michael Coombs

508 leaves the Eden Bus Station on July 26th whilst driver training.

Malcolm Crowe - Editor 

Pictures on July 27th.l

Ryan Butler

.... on the 29th July during the first days of change.

     
     
     
   
The variety is significant and the company has made every effort from day one.Ed.

A history in pictures by Gavin Francis

Back in 2000 a new bus company named Carousel starting operating in High Wycombe with a handful of ex-London Metrobuses. Over the following years more routes were started, the size of the fleet increased with a variety of new and used buses to become a major operator in the town.

On Sunday 28^th July with the closure of Wycombe and Aylesbury garages of Arriva, Carousel took over virtually every route based in the High Wycombe area. This involved the purchase of buses from a variety of previous operators, recruitment of staff, acquiring premises, training and many other factors involved in such an exercise.

On Saturday I was in Wycombe Bus Station and posters for all the new services were up, the stands displayed the new departures from each of them and detailed timetables for all the routes were available. I checked a few terminus bus stops and all the new timetables had been posted.

Overall a terrific effort by Carousel and it showed. !

Year by year - 2004 - 2024

A wonderful memory of 21 years of Carousel. Ed. 

The last days in AYL & WYC in  pictures

It is hard to believe that 25 years ago Arriva arrived in High Wycombe and the Wycombe Bus Company was sold to Arriva. Ed.

Gavin Francis

.... the last pictures in Wycombe on July 27th

Gavin's pictures reflect the last day of Arriva service in the town. Ed.

Kevin Fuller

On Saturday I was in Henley for a few final Arriva pics before the end of their service on that day, 27th July: 

3013 crosses the Thames at Henley with an 850 service from Reading to High Wycombe. 

3013 again, pausing in Bell Street, Henley. 

3015 heads in the opposite direction as it waits time in Hart Street with a Reading bound 850 service. 

Nick Ross

The Oxford bay at Aylesbury Bus station wont be the same without an Arriva Enviro 400.

5463 has just arrived with the 0650 X7 from Oxford on July 27th 2024

Arriva Enviro 400 5465 at Aylesbury Bus station with the 0930 X9 to High Wycombe on July 27th 2024

Noisy Arriva Volvo 6144 at Totteridge, Tyzack Avenue with the 1100 13 to Wycombe Bus station on July 27th 2024 

Nigel Peach

I don't think that High Wycombe has ever seen such a large overnight change over of buses (over 30) during my lifetime - that's over 70 years! There have been times when the company names have changed, and ownership has changed, but vehicles have then been taken over by the incoming organisation. Wycombe Bus Company did lose all its Bristol VRs overnight in 1996, but that was fewer than 20. 

I went into Wycombe on Saturday evening, 27th July, the final day of Arrive operations. At Cressex, buses had returned to the depot, rather like any other Saturday night. A few photos are attached. (Although I wasn't around to see it, I understand that the final journey into Wycombe bus station was made by Citaro 3015 on the 800.)  

 
For comparison, I also attach two photos taken when Arriva moved in to the Cressex depot on 8th and 9th October 2005. 

Tom Bradford

.............last Arriva service to Reading in Wycombe.

   
July 27th and the last Arriva 800 service.

Tony Bungay

Arriva, in it's last weeks at High Wycombe and partial disappearance from Aylesbury.

As you could possibly get a lot of last day or so contributions, i have attempted to provide a slight difference in providing photos more based around some of the more scenic places served.     

Photos as follows: 

Citaro 3013 in Henley on Thames town centre on Service 800 Reading via Shiplake 

Skirting the river Thames in Henley is Citaro 3010 on the 850 to Reading via Wargrave,
through passengers on this route get to do this part of the journey twice! Due to the one-way system in operation. 

Citaro 3029 approaches the river, again working Service 800, this vehicle was originally at Milton Keynes and was branded in Platinum livery for Service 300.
Behind can be seen signage for a Brewery, this used to be the Breakspear's Brewery building, now converted to apartments.
The building also featured at least externally in an Inspector Morse episode.

Proceeding through picturesque Mill End, again the Thames is very near the road in places,
is Citaro 3015 reading bound and 3010 working back to High Wycombe.
Given the bright sun and variances of whether the camera catches the destination,
it is not always easy or possible to get the display, 3015 does actually show destination. 

In Alder Valley post MAP days, and successor's days the Service numbers for these routes for many years was 328/329  

Moving round to the attractive village of Cookham, in the village centre by the war memorial.

 
Versa 2979 still in previous Arriva livery works service 7 to Maidenhead,

On the other side of the road Enviro 400 5457 works Service 7 back to High Wycombe via Wooburn Green,
no problem getting the destination on the Enviro, but the Versa!

5457 seems to have had various fleetnumber's, being shown as 5456 and 6460 previously. Before High Wycombe it had been at Aylesbury, and before that Hemel Hempstead, of which some posters inside the bus still relate to. 

Pre MAP days, the route from High Wycombe was numbered 20/20A and continued onto Windsor from Maidenhead on a 20 minute frequency! Some if not all journeys only served the bottom of the village, continuing via Bolters Lock, indeed in the popular ITV series the Professionals, an episode filmed around Bolters Lock catches an Alder Valley National whizzing past in the background!

After the April 1980 MAP the main High Wycombe - Windsor Service was routed via the whole village and past Cookham Station as Service 317 I think. The Bolters Lock part of the route was reduced to hourly and continued onto Reading from Maidenhead, sorry I cannot recall the Service number 319 maybe? This Service I think disappeared after deregulation in October 1986, and the 317 was cut back to become High Wycombe - Maidenhead. 

Grahame Wareham for Issue 311. 

H311 LWL306 was an AEC Regent II with Park Royal H30/26R body delivered in 1946. It was renumbered H845 in the 1952 renumbering schedule and was withdrawn in May1957 and sold to Deacon (dealer) of Dorchester. In the same month it was resold by Deacon to Smiths of Reading who fitted it with platform doors and where at lasted until November 1963. In February 1963 it was hired back to COMS for a week to cover for unserviceable buses due to the freezing temperatures. 

311  311MFC  was a 1961 AEC Bridgemaster 2B3RA with Park Royal H43/29F forward entrance body. It featured an offside illuminated advertisement panel for Stephensons for most of its life. It was withdrawn in February 1973 and sold to TPE (dealer), Macclesfield and immediately to Hawkey, Newquay the same month. It was later sold on to Ede, Par and I purchased it as a source of spares for preserved sister vehicle 312MFC in October 1978. Oxford Bus Company expressed an interest in operating a heritage open-top sightseeing bus in the City in 1983 so the top was removed and it  made its way back to Cowley Road depot where it was inspected by the company for possible use. In the end it was thought that without the added luxury of power assisted steering that it would be too unmanageable to negotiate some of Oxford's congested back streets. It was dismantled at the Oxford Bus Museum and the remains sold to Rollinson, Carlton in 1984. 

The next 311 actually started life with Oxford as 101  NUD101L which was a 1973 Bristol VRT SL2-6LX with ultra low (13ft 5in) ECW CH41/25F body to dual purpose specification featuring coach seating for use on London services. It was later up-seated by the addition of two single seats adjacent to the lower deck rear wheel arch space. Its use on London services came to an end in 1975 as the gruelling climb over the Chilterns took its toll on the engine and gearbox units and 101 was sent to Bicester for use mainly on the Bedford service. In September 1982 101 was renumbered 311 due to the new coaches on order requiring the 10XX fleet numbers. 311 was given an overhaul and repainted standard NBC poppy red with a white relief band and stayed at Bicester until the split of South Midland into a separate entity.  311 became South Midland 601 in June 1986 and received the then South Midland traditional livery but was sold to Ribble as their 2040 in September of that year. Ribble kept it until February 1990 and then sold it to Stealey, Bunstead in April 1990 passing it to Ross Hamilton in December1991. It was then sold to London Bus Exports Lydney in September 1994 as an exhibition unit, but was vandalised and still at Lydney today. 

311  HL11OXF was an ADL Enviro E400H with Alexander H47/31F body delivered in 2011 as part of a batch of seventeen electric hybrid buses for Park & Ride services. Finished in a striking two tone metallic green livery 311 became cascaded on to other City services from 2016 with newer buses taking over Park & Ride work, it was repainted red and branded City. When major traction battery renewal came around for the second time in 2018 it was decided to convert the bus back to normal diesel mechanical configuration using reconditioned units as with the rest of the batch and this was carried out by East Yorkshire Motor Services at Hull. 311 has now been transferred to Go South-West/Plymouth City Bus  and re-registered OE11YNN with new  fleet number 5032. 

by Gavin Francis

A classic bus running day in Windsor, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the closure of Windsor bus garage.
We will recreating some of the former London Transport country bus routes, including an obscure “pre-war” route!
Also we are planning to do some former Thames Valley routes, with the help of our friends at “Thames Valley & Great Western Omnibus Trust”.
The running day will be based from the bus stops outside Windsor Parish Church, just beyond the Guildhall and close to the entrance of Windsor Castle.

Pictureview

David Allen

Kevin Fuller

A few pictures from the Windsor running day, held on 28th July.

The warm sunny weather certainly brought the crowds out, and most services looked to be well loaded. As you can see from the photos the vehicles were all very well presented - a credit to their owners and all those assisting in running the event. 

Red Routemaster RM188 is at Langley Sutton Lane with a 417 service from Windsor. 

Leyland National SNB449 departs Windsor Parish Church with a 353 service to Chalfont St Peter.
The MAP 'Thamesline' vinyls were a nice touch on this and similar SNB448 which was also in attendance.

RML 2456 is also on stand at the parish church, waiting for to continue its 441 journey from Beaconsfield to Staines. 

Michael Wadman

You mentioned a few week ago that Herbert’s Travel surrendered their Bedfordshire contracted services towards the end of May, being replaced in slightly different form by Grant Palmer. Here are a few photos that I took of their operation on 11^th April. 

MX61 BBN on service 188 in Sandy (Market Square);
this Enviro 200 was originally used by National Express on a BBC staff contract in London. 

MK10 ZFN leaving Biggleswade bus station on town service 85; another Enviro 200, new to Jim Stones. 

X124 HKY on service 190 in Potton (Market Square); this was a surprise, a Volvo B7TL / Alexander
new to Dublin Bus registered 00-D-40084. Sadly the destination display was not in use
and information was conveyed purely by a bit of cardboard propped up in the bottom of the windscreen.  

And a blast from the past: H844 YSU was a Leyland Swift / Reeve Burgess new to Greens of Kirkintilloch,
in Milton Keynes on long-gone service 197 on 16th March 2004. 

Ian Hardy

In response to Andie Broom‘s about Go-Ahead using what he calls second-hand cast offs for the ex-Arriva routes. 

If the ex-Arriva routes were making enough money for a business case for new vehicles to be viable from when Go-Ahead starts operating them, then they wouldn’t be ex-Arriva routes, because Arriva wouldn’t be packing up and leaving the area.  

I would say that Go-Ahead are being sensible, taking on the routes using cheaper (and therefore unfortunately older buses) to test whether the services are going to make money or not. They have done this before. 

In Southampton, Go-Ahead took on routes when First closed their Southampton operation in February 2023. Initially they used ex-Go-Ahead London WVLs (dating from 2006) which had been withdrawn from London in 2018/2019 and transferred to Go North East. However, in April 2024 a batch of new ADL E400MMCs were delivered to Southampton to replace the old 2006 vehicles.  

I could imagine that if the new network in High Wycombe takes off financially, then Go-Ahead will probably do the same in High Wycombe. However, if they are not hugely profitable then Go-Ahead will continue to use “second-hand cast offs” until they are.   

Ian Hardy

OCBP Weekly Briefing nr 310 - July 25th 2024

A couple of comments: 

1. RM40 was held in the Royal Docks (roughly where the western end of the Excel exhibition centre is now) and not Finsbury Park, with a bus link to the LT Museum at Covent Garden. RM50 & RM60 were the only two held at Finsbury Park. I also went to RM70, however the Chiswick Park site used was not as good as Finsbury Park as it was far too cramped.

2. The batch of NXWM E400s that have come to GoAhead were leased by NXWM from Dawson Group. The reason they have been gone from the NXWM fleet and not the older vehicles is because the leases expired on 30/06/2024 and so they had to be returned to the lessors on / or before that date. They were the only batch of double decker buses that NXWM had leased, all other buses are owned by NXWM so there isn’t the same deadline to remove them from the fleet. Due to delays with expansion of the numbers of chargers at Perry Barr and Yardley Wood depots, NXWM currently have about 85 x BYD / ADL electric double deckers (with another 43 on order) that are unable to be used at present. When the chargers available, those 128 buses will replace indirectly most of the old 03, 53, 04 reg buses in the NXWM fleet. One thing to note is that Birmingham City Centre has a LEZ, so the older buses in the NXWM fleet are used on the routes that do not anywhere near Birmingham City Centre, so mostly in Dudley, Solihull, Walsall, West Bromwich & Wolverhampton.

Gavin Francis reply

I got my information from The Routemaster Association website who organise the event. 

It has finally been confirmed, The Routemaster Association will stage the much-anticipated RM70 event in Chiswick on the site of the former London Transport Chiswick Works. The event was originally planned to be held in Finsbury Park (just like the previous RM60, RM50 and RM40 events) however after ongoing negotiations with the parks management it became clear that another event at this venue could not go ahead. 

John Ridge

I am just currently doing some updating for Derby Bus Depot of which I written some code way back when, which never really went much further. However, this has come more to the fore because of the number of changes, some which have been leaked which are coming to the fore in Derby. Particularly surrounding Arriva with withdrawal of Onmicity buses by end of 2024.  

The reason for me contacting was in regards Volvo B9 4210/4211/4212/4217 which were ex new to Derby in February 2009. I have particular interest as these started on my local route of which I am about 20 seconds from the bus stop and can hear the remainer of that fleet passing here on daily basis still. I also photographed some of these when these were at Milton Keynes for there short time, so have had interest for some time.  

I was just wondering if any rumors had been going about where these 4 buses may end up whether these may return to Leicester or intend to Derby as I would love for that to happen with the need for deckers being pressing at this time. 4217 is also of interest as this still has its extra gear from when it briefly worked on X38 Derby to Burton route along 4219 which also still has extra gear and is still a regular on my local route.  

I am wondering if you get any word if there likely to come back this way if you could let one of me or Matt (Who runs Derby Bus Depot) know so we can add that or I can include on the updated fleet list I am presently writing up in preparation for the VDL invasion to come. 

Neil Gow

Ashwood Levantes

There are four which have come from (or via) Llew Jones, Llanwrst as a dealer.

AT07 AWT was FJ11 RDY

AT10 AWT was FN62 CFG

AT61 AWT was FN62 CVY

And the one you saw on the road would have been AT60 AWT formerly FN62CGE. 

Really pleased you mentioned these as the first two were only reported to be here from sources in Wales and required confirmation. 

      Coach visitors to Oxfordshire     

Gavin Francis

Seen in Windsor a ex Oxford Aírline coach - Angies Tours P31PJO on July 29th.

Sanjay Baker

Angies P31PJO ex OBC 78 OX15LON seen in Oxford on July 27th.

Here from the website is a picture of this coach when acquired.

Angies Tours Lowestoft

https://angiestours.co.uk/fleet/Volvo+Elite/1025

     Fleet News and developments   

James Freeman

.... some pictures from Wheatley 

 
5461 in Wheatley with a n X7 on July 27th.

5463 crosses the  M40 near Wheatley services on July 27th.

5466 crosses the services roundabout at Wheatley.

Two choices now, Oxford Bus or Redline !

Paul Coley

3731 working an X9 on July 27th.  

Gavin Francis

Gavin has photos of recent Carousel operations away from Wycombe.

 
402 seen in Stokenchurch now and in 2016.

   
82001 at The Lambert Arms on July 30th and 82003 in Chinnor the following day.

Lewis Anthony

Henley sees a blue Carousel 228 working the 850 on July 31st.

Malcolm Crowe

225 seemingly just arrived from Didcot on July 27th at the depot.

Sanjay Baker

   
82001 in Oxford on July 30th working the 275.

80476 with the 275 on August 1st.

Only two  Electroliners now awaited. 785 and 787.

842 and 844 back at Oxford working 11 road today. They had been at Didcot for TruckFest.

Luke Marion

Oxford Bus

We will be introducing a new timetable for the X1 from 1^st September. This has taken a while to get sorted with OCC, and was only formally agreed yesterday, hence my lack of response. It will address the gaps when the bus is taken to do the 43 which Bob refers to. 

We will be getting this registered and publicised ASAP but please assure Bob that we won't be making any harsh decisions on the X1 service, we're generally pleased with how patronage on the service is progressing, however the Abingdon Road issues are very challenging to deal with.

Allan Hollis

791 left Grayson's on July 29th.

Citaro 0295s 884, 885 and 888 are presently with Carousel.

Charles Powell 

Two ex Oxford stable mates now enjoying their life in the Cotswolds on July 27th.