From the Editor

An issue with much to interest readers especially upcoming service changes 

Some nice pictures and visits to events.

The final ADL EV has arrived at SC Oxford..

In this issue

Wightrider event by David Gray

A view of Lincolnshire by Adrian Small

Midland Interlude from Keith Briant

Grahame Wareham's memories of COMS 368

Supporters specials at The Kassam on October 18th by Charles Powell

Readers Write

Buses in the Landscape

Fleet News & Developments

London wraps by Andrew Webb

Gordon Scott from north of border with Stagecoach

Wightrider 2025 Event Programme

by David Gray 

     
     
   
     

A nice display especially of native buses to the IoW, a small island with a lot of bus history. Ed.  

A view of Lincolnshire from Adrian Small

Boston 

Brylaine of Boston still operate the Optare Tempo: 

1 - YN58 FXH, previously with Norfolk Green 106 and Stagecoach East 25130 on route B5 to Lincoln.

2 - YJ10 MDE, previously with Bournemouth Yellow Buses 101. 

Brylaine also have some B9TL/Wright: 

3 - BX62 FOJ, previously with Borderbus, Ellough 218, Bournemouth Yellow Buses 127,
Rotala Preston 40604 and originally Wessex at Bristol 40604.

4 - BX62 FUO, previously with Borderbus, Ellough 219, Bournemouth Yellow Buses 128,
Rotala Preston 40602 and originally Wessex at Bristol 40602, still in Yellow buses livery. 

5 - SN08 BWO, previously Lothian 880 on route B7.

Stagecoach East are also represented: 

6 - 11741 (YX73 OXW) AD E40D/AD MMC on route 57 to Skegness.

 

Spalding 

7 - BX56 XBU - Volvo B7RLE/WT of Fowlers, Holbeach Drove, originally with West Midlands 1752.

8 - YJ62 FBF - Optare Tempo of Brylaine, Boston, originally Stagecoach Red & White 25117.

9 - X9 XBT (SN08 BWU) Volvo B9TL/WT of Brylaine, Boston, originally Lothian 882.

10 - OU10 BGO - Scania N230UD/AD of Stagecoach East 15616in Interconnect livery
on route 505 to Kings Lynn, Originally Thames Transit 15616. 

 

Bourne 

11 - AD75 DBL - Alexander Dennis E40D/AD E40City of Delaine, Bourne 179 

 

Stamford 

12 - AD72 DBL - Alexander Dennis E20D/AD of Delaine, Bourne 174 on route 201 to Peterborough.

13 - XX22 BLA (RF22 MZD) - Iveco Daily/Ilesbus of Blands, Essendine on a Stamford local route. 

 

Huntingdon

 

14 - Another operator using the Volvo B8L/MCV is Whippet, Swavesey. Seen here is BU25 ZFF on route T1 to Cambridge.

15 - BU69 XYB - Stagecoach East 13901 - Volvo B8L/AD on route B to Cambridge.

16 - BT66 MVE - Whippet, Swavesey WG105, Volvo B8RLE/WT on route 66 to St Neots.

17 - BX56 XCK - Dew, Somersham, Volvo B7RLE/WT on route 303 arriving from Chatteris 

18 - V200 DEW (YP59 OEN) - Dew, Somersham, Scania N230UD/SCA,
previously Vectare, Rettendon and originally London United SP154.

An interesting report of variety in this corner of England. Ed.  

Midland Interlude by Keith Briant

Lichfield is one of England's smaller cities with a population of under 35,000. However it's location between Birmingham, Walsall, Stafford, Burton upon Trent and Tamworth creates a wide variety of bus interest as it is the meeting point for a number of operators, some of which have grown following the retrenchment of Arriva Midlands North in recent years.  

 

Arriva Midlands North still serves Lichfield, but only from Tamworth. VDL SB200s 3715 (MX09 JHD), 3757 (MX59 FGF) and Mercedes-Benz Citaro 3920 (BK58 URN) are seen here, two of which are still in the now superceded Sapphire livery. In past decades the 765 ran through to Coventry, was then truncated at Nuneaton and now just reaches Tamworth, with the 65 then continuing into Warwickshire. The X65 was introduced following competition with Bus Link. 3920 is one of the former High Wycombe allocation.  

   

Chaserider is part of the Centrebus Group and was formed when Arriva sold their Cannock depot and services to D&G Bus in January 2021. 198 (FJ58 HYX), a Volvo B7RLE/Wright: 64 (SN64 CVM), a Wright StreetLite DF and 6501 (BU74 YRN), a Volvo B8RLE/MCV show some of the variety. 198 is one of the remaining buses purchased from Arriva with the depot and 64 is a rarer dual door example aquired from Tower Transit.  

 

Optare Solos are found throughout Centrebus operations. 148 (MX09 DGE) was transferred from Centrebus East to Cannock and is one of the narrower SL versions. A number of Enviro200s are also allocated to Chaserider and two are illustrated here in non-standard liveries. 542 (YX72 ONL) is an MMC version carrying Travel Telford livery for tendered services and is seen in Telford. Back in Lichfield, 581 (YX11 CNY) is shown. This was aquired from Whippet Coaches.  

 

Diamond Bus (East Midlands) is part of the Rotala group and operate into Lichfield from Buton upon Trent and also run a number of more local services. This is the former Midland Classic operation. 31429 (FL14 OBB) an Enviro 200  seen on a city service was aquired with the Midland Classic takeover. 40828 (MV21 AVD) is a Wright StreetDeck transferred from the North West fleet with the changes introduced with the Bee Network.  

 

Some of the more unusual buses in the area are to be found with Diamond Bus. The 12 and X12 from Burton upon Trent see Custom Denning Element 2 buses. Diamond has ten of these split between their West Midlands, East Midlands and Heathrow operations. Here 39007 (BX25 GNY) and 39005 (BX25 GNU) are seen. Custom Denning are a merger of two long established Australian manufacturers purchased by Scott Dunn, who moved to Australia in 2013. The Dunn family own the Rotala group so there is a direct connection.  So far these are the only examples in the UK, but the company aim is to see Rotala as an entry point to the UK market.  

 

Bus Link may appear to look very similar to the former Midland Classic and in fact have the same owner. Unique in the fleet and possibly the only one remaining in service in the UK is Optare Solo 31 (YJ12 GVV) n M960 version with B26D bodywork. This was one of eight supplied to HCT Group and transferred to Stagecoach when HCT went into liquidation. This bus became 47993 in the Stagecoach London fleet. This was the only batch of dual door examples built for the UK and only a small number of others were built for overseas use. A more standard Bus Link vehicle is 75 (YN52 FWG) a Scania K230/Wright which came from Diamond Bus and was a former Midland Classic vehicle. The X66 operates to Tamworth in competition with Arriva.  

Select Bus Services (B P Brown Travel Ltd) are Penkridge based and have a smaller well presented fleet that includes Optare Versa 37 (YJ08 PKX). Select run one service into Lichfield, the 33 from nearby Fradley. In addition to Ben Brown, the other company director is Julian Peddle the well known director of Centrebus. Select Bus Services is a completely unconnected company to Centrebus Group however.  

Finally, Lichfield is one of the furthest outposts of National Express West Midlands and is reached by the services from Birmingham, Streetly and Walsall. 2123 (BF12 DFZ) Parminder, a Volvo B7RLE/Wright and the inevitable BYD/Enviro400 E190 (LF24 ZFX) are seen.  

Next week we'll look at some of the smaller operators in the Nuneaton and Hinckley areas. 

A further excell/ent report from Keith Briant. Ed. 

Grahame Wareham regarding 368

L368  NWL716 1949 AEC Regent III with NCB L30/26R lowbridge body. L368 was renumbered L142 in the new divided series in 1952.  L142 spent its life at most of the country depots to the west of the City and was withdrawn in January 1963. It was subsequently sold to Transport (Passenger Equipment) Ltd.,Macclesfield  (dealer) in March 1963. It was sold on in October 1964 to C.Hoyle Wombwell Diesels (dealer) Wombwell, Barnsley where it was scrapped.

   

 

368  FWL368E 1966 AEC Renown 3B3RA with Northern Counties H38/27F forward entrance low-height body. 368 was the first Northern Counties bodied vehicle operated by COMS and was also one of the final batch of four chassis built by AEC. 368 spent its early life as a Oxford Cowley Road based bus used on City 2 route. 368 and its three siblings could not successfully be converted to OMO so its final days were seen out on the 511 route which by that time was the only conventionally operated COMS route requiring a conductor until the end of 1978. It was sold to Ensign Bus (dealer) in January 1979 and immediately sold to P.Blatchley (Contractus), Stevenage being used on schools and film contract work in the area. It was withdrawn by January 1982 and used as a spares donor for 369 & 370 which were also with the same operator

     

 

368  WJN368J  1971 Daimler Fleetline CRL-33 with Northern Counties H49/31D low height body acquired from Southend Transport in November 1984 in an exchange deal with Bristol RELL 679 JEH179K, which had been acquired from Potteries Motor Traction two years previously. (Image to follow)  of Southend 303 JEH179K. It was subsequently sold on to Cynon Valley Transport, Aberdare.

At the time the Company had a requirement for high capacity double-deckers and part of that requirement was that they could pass under Botley Road Station bridge, which of course the DMS's couldn't. Very few dual-doored low-height Daimler Fleetines had been built so when Southend was disposing of its recently refurbished Fleetlines it was decided to grab one. Southend had improved the specification on their Fleetlines which were fitted with CAV Automatic gear operation and power steering and the bonus was that they were 80 seaters. 368 spend most of its Oxford encounter on Park&Ride routes, making use of its low-height under the station bridge and was a popular bus with the drivers. In September 1988 368 was sold to F.Spence (dealer) with the eventual idea of it being preserved at Canvey Bus Museum. For a period it was loaned out to Linkfast (Heaps & Planner) and Smith & May of Benfleet from May 1989 but in the end it was exported to Auckland, New Zealand in May1994.

 

   

Southend 303 (ex. COMS 679 JEH179K) which was exchanged for 368 WJN368J.

368 N1OXF  2013 Volvo B5LH with Wright Eclipse Gemini 2 low-height H45/27F body. It featured  Volvo parallel hybrid technology using battery power when available to move the bus up until the first gear change into second gear where the engine automatically starts and the bus proceeds as a normal diesel bus. 367 was originally delivered in red City livery and operated mostly on service 2. In  2018 it received a colourbus livery to advertise awareness Oxford Prostate Cancer Group, recognising increasing diversity which OBC and many of its staff supports. In 2022 the route 2 buses were rebranded as route 3's and 368 plied most other city routes until February 2024 when it was despatched to Stagecoach Manchester to run the franchised services on behalf of Transport for Greater Manchester becoming 13192 in that fleet, It was reregistered OE62ZSF prior to departure on 24th March 2024 and was very quickly repainted in the TFGM canary yellow.

     

      

With many thanks to Grahame for his seemingly inexhaustible supply of information on C O M S. Ed.  

 

Supporters specials at The Kassam on October 18th by Charles Powell

 
     
Quite some variety.