From the Editor

Reflections on Christmas 2025 and New Year 2026 fills the pages in this issue.

I have included some interesting events and workings.from contributors.

During this next year issues may vary in publication days but I will hope to maintain regular publication.

In this issue

Winchester New Year's day event

Oxford Bus Museum's New Year celebrations

Times of old from Grahame Wareham and Thomas Knowles

Michael Wadman visited our area

Waddesdon at Christmas by Tony Bunday

Farewell to Tom Tappins in Oxford

Carousel work the 111 on Christmas Day

Overseas Interlude with Gavin Francis

Fleet News & Developments

London Operations

 

by Gavin Francis

On January 1^st Friends of King Alfred held their annual New Years Day Running Day. Based at Broadway 11 routes radiating to all parts of the city running from approximately 10.00 through to 17.15.

 

I went with may former Oxford Tube colleague Dave Allen and on arriving at Winchester we decided to park and the Southern Park and Ride as FoKAB were operating a free bus service from there to the city centre.

     
Waiting there was former Hants & Dorset 1971 Bristol RE 1644 and this took us into the city.

 

FoKAB were operating seven buses in service. Most of the pictures are taken at Broadway unless otherwise stated.

 

 
WCG 104 is a 1959 Leyland Tiger Cub with Metro-Cammell Weymann 45 seater body.

 

 

 
UOU417H is a 1970 Leyland Panther with Plaxton 52 seater body.

 

 

   
Our next ride was on POU 494 a 1956 Leyland Titan with East Lancs 56 seater body. It was operating Rte 19 and the pictures are taken at Tegfield.

 

 It was then time for a lunch break at a local coffee bar.

 

    
After lunch we decided to go for a ride on 1964 AEC Renown 595 LCG on Rte 15 to The Ship Inn, Owlsbury where the pictures are taken.

 

       
This bus has an Oxford connection in that after use by King Alfred it was sold to Burmah Castrol at Ellesmere Port

then in 1985 it was acquired for preservation and was kept at The Oxford Bus Museum and as the pictures show preservation work was carried out on it.
It was however deemed not to be of enough local interest to be kept at the museum and by 1989 it was seen at Broadway, Winchester.

 

 

      
Back in The City we found 1965 Bedford VAL 14 CCG 704 C with Plaxton 49 seater body.

 

     
HOR 811 is a 1950 Leyland Titan PD2/1 with Leyland 56 seat Highbridge body.

 

   
Sister bus to 595 LCG is 596 LCG this time presented in Hants and Dorset National Bus livery with fleet number 2212.

 

     
At this time of the year the sun sets early and by 14.15 we decided it was time to head for home.
The return trip to the Park and Ride was operated by ex-Brighton 23 a 1963 Leyland Titan with a 64 seat Weymann body.
The pictures are taken at the Park and Ride.

 

 
FoKAb had their support vehicle NKJ849P a Commer with Rootes body in attendance in the bus station.

 

 There were several visiting buses at the event:

 

 
Midland Red 780 GHA a 1959 C5 coach.

 

 
Bristol Omnibus AFB592V a 1980 Bristol LH with ECW 43 seater body.

 

 
Stagecoach G105AAD is a 1990 Leyland Olympian with Alexander 87 seat bodywork.

 

Southdown 273 is a 1963 Leyland Leopard with a Marshall 49 seater body.

 

 
Tanat YRC 194 is a 1962 Leyland Tiger Cub with Alexander 41 seat body.
I remember driving this was on a Trent X2 to Blackpool when I drove for Ribble Manchester depot in 1965. Ed.

 

 
Wilts and Dorset KRU848W fleet number 3448 is a 1980 Bristol VRT with ECW 74 seat body.

 

 
Southern Vectis 808 is a Bristol RESL with ECW body dating from 1967.

Many thanks to Nigel Eadon-Clarke for supplying the vehicle information and Grahame Wareham for supplying the preservation pictures in Oxford.

also from Dave Allen

New Year greetings. Hope you are well. Been to Winchester King Alfred running day with Gavin today. Guess he’ll provide photos.  I understand you can’t get out very much these days so thought you might like a short video of events. Hope it cheers you up. Take care and keep on trucking(bussing).

     

More pictures of this event will be in the next issue of OCBP Weekly Briefing. Ed

by Philip Bayliss

Hope your reader's enjoy the pictures of the Oxford Bus Museums first running day of the year. Reading 701 on the Witney run, Great to see the people's faces in Witney when we turned up in 701. Also 703 and Bristol TWT123 From TV Heartbeat on the Woodstock run. Big thank you to everyone that brought their vehicles  and public that supported the museum on a chilled day.                          Happy New Year 2026 to you all. 

    
       

Grahame Wareham for O&CBP for issue 375

L375  OFC375  1950  AEC Regent III  9612A with Park Royal L26/26R low-bridge body. L375 was renumbered L151 in 1952 and lasted in the fleet until March 1963 when it was withdrawn and sold to Transport Passenger Equipment, Macclesfield (dealer) in November 1963 being resold to Armstrong, Westerhope in January 1964 along with sister bus OFC374 being also withdrawn in January 1968. 

 

375  KFC375G  1968  Daimler Fleetline CRG6LX with Northern Counties (NCME) H41/31F low-height body. 375 was part of a batch of ten rear engined double deckers, the first of what was going to become the standard mechanical arrangement for the next four  years which included 59 new vehicles built on Daimler chassis and a further 21 secondhand examples from Midland Red and North Western acquired between 1972 and 1977. 375 was the first of the batch to be delivered and was also exibited on the Northern Counties stand at the 1968 Commercial Motor Show at Earls Court, sporting a Daimler badge on the front panel and an aluminium finisher within the rear grp bumper, the only one of the batch that received this embelishment. Upon delivery 375 and its sisters were put to work as conventional conductor assisted buses on City routes but mainly on the 2 road corridor between Kidlington and Barton/Risinghurst/Sandhills estate until the dual-doored following batch arrived from 1969-70 which then saw 372-381 allocated to Country area garages and used as OMO vehicles. They were also brought back into the City Centre and used as OMO vehicles with, Almex, Solomatic and Electric Setright ticket machine trials to establish modernization of the issuing of tickets. In 1981 upon arrival of VRT's 511-515, 375 along with the remaining vehicles in the batch 376-380 were donated by NBC to various charitable organizations under the Phab banner who were promoting bus travel for disabled and under-privileged children and young adults. After this they were converted into play-buses in the main.  

     

     
     

375   OX68ENG  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 374 and the other five diesel Streetdecks to be transferred to Pulham's for operation on the NHS Cheltenham and Gloucester hospitals contract. 375 was returned back to OBC Cowley House during October 2024 and is running as a diesel bus back up vehicle on some of the longer OBC Country routes. It was renumbered 80375 in the GAG bus operating subsidiary portfolio in April 2025.

   

Interesting as always. Ed. 

Thomas W W Knowles with more memories

Attached are photographs I have taken of buses with a connection to Oxford with PMT which may be of interest. You may have seen some of them previously. 

There were half a dozen AEC Regents acquired by PMT from COMS in 1954 then the following year three AEC Reliances that had been ordered and registered by COMS were transferred to North Staffordshire, initially to Wells Motor Services, a PMT subsidiary, becoming PMT vehicles when Wells were wound up. What has always interested me was that although the Oxford registrations were retained there was still time for  the front of the bodywork to be altered by Willowbrook, The one piece destination box was shallower than the PMT norm reflecting the depth of the front dome which was unaltered.

   
     

from Michael Wadman

Some Stagecoach Oxford photos taken recently. Dates and Locations are in the file names.

   
Oxford on November 27th and earlier on August 7th 2025

.  
Witney on November 27th. 

from Tony Bungay

Thought I would send you this photo of one of the Optare Versa vehicles at work on the Bus shuttle on the evening of 29/12. 

I know you have already had photos of this, but felt a night time shot may be worth using.