From the Editor

First, apologies for the delay in publishing this issue, which many of you are aware, was caused by my falling last Sunday.

I am on themend and have managed to produce issue 371 which I hope everyone enjoys ?

Although late, the issue celebrates Remembrance Day with pictures in London and locally.

Issue 372 will appear later in the coming week.

In this issue

Poppy buses and Coaches decked to remember them

Midland Interlude from Kevin Briant

Lady Mayor's Show in London by Andrew Webb

Memories of 371 from Grahame Wareham

RML 2573 from Gavin Francis

Readers Write

Fleet News & Developments

London Operations

 

Memories from this year's Remembrance events

Charles Powell writes on the Sunday "Today, we join the rest of the UK - and other commonwealth countries - in celebrating Remembrance Day - A chance to pay tribute to military personnel who fought for us in conflict. We have a good number of ex-military amongst our colleagues at Pulhams and some of them will be wearing part of their military attire today, if they are working. ‘AI’ did well, with its depiction of a Pulhams coach next to a WW2 soldier."

 

Andrew Webb caught up with another Oxfordshire poppy bus in London

Also bringing the Poppy to the capital's streets was the Oxford Tube's coach supporting the campaign. 
It navigates the traffic at Hyde Park Corner on 3 November.

plus others

8 buses used on Tfl routes gained allover wraps for the annual Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.  Whilst most wraps tend to be applied to just a single type of bus, the Poppy campaign was applied to 5 different models. 

First London's BCE47041 passes Hounslow station on November.2nd.

 
The following day Transport UK's 3110 is seen at Clapham Junction. 

On 4 November Metroline's LT762 is seen at Archway, whilst Go Ahead's EBD118 rounds St George's Circus.

Stagecoach's 80422 illustrates the final variation in Poppy advert at Bromley South station on 8 November. 

This article should have been on November 12th. Ed.

Midland Interlude

A trip to Leicester this week. In my opinion, it's a city that doesn't get the enthusiast interest it deserves and as it's less than an hour away from where I live, here's a selection from a few visits over the last few months.  

 Leicester is approximately the 11th largest city in the UK. The primary operators are part of the Leicester Buses Partnership coordinated by Leicester City Council. This bring together services under a coordinated network and common brand. All electric vehicles carry a common lime green livery with different applications  for each operator. This has created a vastly improved local service and the website is well worth a look. It demonstrates what can be achieved with proactive local authority support. 

https://www.leicesterbuses.co.uk/

 

First Bus Leicester and Arriva Midlands are the primary operators and at least this is one of the very few areas that won't be turning First Bus purple! Over the last 2 years, the entire Leicester fleet has been replaced. 18 Wright StreetDeck Electroliners are operated, numbered 36614-31, illustrated here by 36629 (BN24 ZWT) and 36615 (BN24 ZWB). The latter is captured on an Amazon contract which takes these buses well out of area running from Rugby, along the M6 to Coventry.  

Single deck operations are provided by 68 Wright GB Kite Electroliners numbered 63501-68.
These are illustrated by 63519 (BK23 HDV). This is a less common type in the Midlands.  

   

Arriva Midlands have 48 Wright StreetDeck Electroliners numbered 8001-48 delivered since 2023 and used on services from Leicester into surrounding Leicestershire destinations. All carry Arriva's version of the bus partnership livery. 8021 (BK73AEP) and 8043 (BN25 DCE) illustrate the type. They last is seen at Snibston Colliery Park for the centenary celebration of Midland Red's Coalville depot.  

 

Several older types remain with Arriva Midlands in the area. 4428 (MX09 LXK) and 4400 (YY14 LHD) are examples of their Enviro400s with the former being the last of the type locally to carry Interurban livery.  

 
Older single deck types are 3300 (FJ62 FOT) one of just 3 examples of the Wright StreetLite Max DF based locally
and Enviro200 MMC 3140 (YX17 NGN). 

   

Arriva Midlands have developed the limited stop X6 from Leicester to Coventry with an increased PVR from the end of August. This service uses the M69. 3 Temsa Safari coaches were allocated to Barwell (Hinckley) depot for the route and carry route branding featuring Coventry's Lady Godiva and the Leicestershire Fox, a county symbol. These were supplemented with standard buses when needed. The route branding is shown here by 2 views of 7102 (YJ69 AAV), the first leaving Fosse Park, the large retail park to the south of Leicester, with a friendly driver and the second in Hinckley which sees some journeys serve the town centre following a short diversion off the motorway. Following the PVR increase, the other 3 coaches of this batch were transferred from Milton Keynes. 2 still carry route branding for the X1 from Milton Keynes to Luton and 7101 (YJ69 AAU) is seen on layover in Coventry's Pool Meadow bus station.  

 

Leicester's 3 park and ride routes are operated by Roberts Travel Group from their base at Hugglescote, near Coalville. Better known for their holidays and day trips, the company is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this year. Roberts has operated the park and ride since its inception and had the contract re-awarded for a further 3 years from 24 August. 10 Yutong E12s are used and these older photos from nearer to the time the services were first introduced illustrate YD21 NFL and YD21 NFP. This was the first use of the now widespread green livery.  Roberts Travel Group also provide outstation facilities to Arriva Midlands.  

 

I've previously shown the electric Yutongs operated by Centrebus in Leicester. In contrast, a variety of standard liveried buses can be seen on Leicester route 22/22A. Illustrated here are 913 (SN13 CHZ) an Enviro400 acquired from Yellow Buses, Bournemouth and 925 (GX09 ZZT) a Volvo B9TL with Wright bodywork. The latter was new to Isle of Man National Transport as JNM 50R, passed to Yellow Buses and then to Xelabus of Eastleigh. It has since been transferred to Grantham.  

 

Let's end with a bit of nostalgia. Before its sale to First, Leicester City Bus Ltd, which is still the legal title of the current First Bus operation, was managed by the legendary Geoffrey Hilditch who purchased Dennis Dominators for the fleet for over a decade. A preserved example with East Lancs bodywork is 240 (FUT 240V) seen on a service to the Great Central Railway in post deregulation livery. Representing the same era is former Southdown Bristol VRT EAP 984V in the distinctive Midland Fox scheme. Although this bus was never actually a member of the Midland Fox fleet, it's good to see the livery again! This was also seen at the Snibston Midland Red event.  

I began by saying that I personally felt Leicester doesn't get the coverage its interest deserves and it is certainly under-represnted in transport literature. If I have whetted your appetite though, I can recommend 'Leicester's Trams and Buses - 20th Century Landmarks' written by Andrew Bartlett  and published by Pen and Sword in 2018 and still available. As the title suggests, it features snapshots over the last century, rather than being a comprehensive history, but it's lengthy chapter on the deregulation era is particularly interesting and enlightening. 

A most informative article which is much appreciated. Ed. 

 Lady Mayor's Show in London by Andrew Webb

The annual Lord Mayor's Show on 9 November was renamed the Lady Mayor's Show in recognition of the appointment of Dame Susan Carol Langley DBE as the first woman to hold the post. 

125 different floats paraded through the streets of the Square Mile and included 13 buses, 3 of which carried all over wraps applied for the organisations they represented. 

 

West Ham FC used this Ayats Bravo Volvo which started life as a City Sightseeing bus. 
Now owned by Pick Axe Ltd it carries video screens along both sides. 

Trident X10ROP operated by The Bus Business is a regular on promotional work and parades. 
It's latest wrap is for Gallagher Insurance. 

Another regular is this former Dublin Olympian owned by Orbit Coaches. 
For the Lady Mayor's Show it carried this wrap for the Cleveland Clinic. 

Other organisations prefer to add banners and balloons to traditional London vehicles, with the Routemaster being a popular choice.

RML2729 is a typical example. 

Other traditional London vehicles used included RF136 and RT3435 from the fleet of the London Bus Company. 

The London Bus Museum provided D142 to convey members of The Worshipful Company of Carmen around the route. 

To mark the 200th anniversary of railways the Bluebell Railway were invited to send a locomotive. 
Terrier 72 Fenchurch was the loco treated to a day out in the capital, with a little help from this low loader from Railway Support Services. 

Memories of 371 from Grahame Wareham

L371 OFC371  1950 AEC Regent III 9612A with Park Royal L26/26R lowbridge body.  L371 was renumbered to L147 in the 1952 renumbering scheme . Allocated mainly to Cowley Road depot for most of its life L147 operated mainly west of the City along the Botley Road corridor and having spells at Faringdon, Wantage and Witney depots. L147 was withdrawn from Oxford service in March 1963 and was sold to Transport (Passenger Equipment) Ltd., Macclesfield (dlr) the same month. It was resold in October 1963 to Service Coaches of Blyth, Northumberland and lasted there being used on miners transport until May 1965 when it was sold to W. Norths (dealer) Sherburn in Elmet and then scrapped. 

     

371  FWL371E  1967 AEC Renown 3B3RA with Northern Counties (NCME) H38/27F low-height forward entrance body. 371 was the final vehicle of a batch of four NCME bodied Renown's, the last built on this chassis and the final AEC Renown built.. 371 was allocated to Cowley Road as a City route bus spending much of its early life on 1 road plying up and down Cowley Road. It was experimentally fitted with a Smiths optical infra-red beam operated passenger counting device on the staircase, which wasn't entirely successful and was removed after a year 371 had a brief spell allocated to Chipping Norton swapping with 370 and then returning to City routes in 1971 when it was repainted into poppy red corporate NBC scheme. 371 was overhaled in 1975 and was back at Chipping Norton for its final years before being withdrawn in December 1978. The importance of 371's existence meant that it was always regarded as a preservation candidate and indeed in January 1979 it was sold direct to the Oxford Bus Preservation Syndicate later becoming The Oxford Bus Museum Trust. It is now painted back in its as delivered livery. 

   
 

371   OX68MBA  2018 Wright Streetdeck HEVC Gemini 3 H49/33F low-height body. It was part of a batch of six ordered to supplement the existing Brookes liveried E400 MMC buses being used on the U contracts and the 400 service. This batch of buses were similar to previous Streetdecks but incorporated a Hybrid regeneration system to feed all the auxiliary electrical outputs required to operate the bus leaving the engine to power the gearbox.   In December 2023 a new fleet of Streetdeck EV's arrived releasing 371 and the other five diesel Streetdecks to be transferred to Pulham's for operation on the NHS Cheltenham and Gloucester hospitals contract. 371 was reregistered K99NHS and received new vinyl branding to advertise the service. In 2025 371 was renumbered 80371 along with the Go-Ahead national identification of the OBC Group fleet. 

   

RML 2573 from Gavin Francis

 

Whilst reading your latest OCBP I noticed a picture from Andy Millwood of RML 2573.

 

I first came across the bus on 23^rd  June 1984 in Barking on Rte 5.

 

It had started life in October 1966 at Willesden Garage and over the next 30 years it moved to Upton Park Garage until 1995 when after refurbishment moved to Brixton Garage and settled down on the 137 and 159 routes.

 

It was to be one of the RMLs used on the last day of Routemaster normal passenger service on 9^th December 2005. Along with many other bus enthusiasts I decided to go for a ride on that day and waited in Oxford Street for a ride to Brixton.  After a few minutes along came RML 2573.

 

 
The bus was very busy all the way to Brixton with I suspect many people having their last ride on a Routemaster.

 

  
 

Arriving at Brixton there were already large crowds in the street outside the garage.  The buses were now looking a bit weary with their dented panels and faded paintwork. RML 2573 was one of many which used its advertising boards to promote the heritage Routemaster routes which were to start shortly afterwards.

 
By late morning the buses were being taken out of service and RML 2573 enters the garage for the last time.

 

As with many of the last Routemasters they passed to Ensign Bus for onward sale.

 

 
RML 2573 was sold very quickly to Capital Radio and is seen here in Trafalgar Square on 16^th August 2007.

 

I was in Binders Yard on 15^th February 2019 by which time it had been repainted white.

 

 
The next sighting was when Nigel Eadon-Clarke found it at The Kent Showground on 15^th July 2024 promoting the NHS.

 

The bus is still alive and well as Andy Millwood found it promoting TOP SHOP at Birmingham Bullring recently

How wonderful to be able to record the history in detail. Ed.