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Volvo B12M / Plaxton Paragon #WV 53 KTL
11 april 2000 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: The annual bus rally organised by the London Bus Museum always attracts a huge attendance. Here is just a very small percentage of the single deck buses and coaches attending the 2000 event - there were even more double deckers than this!.
Leyland Fleetline / ECW #MRJ 233 W
11 april 2000 - Surey, UK - Wisley: Southend-on-Sea is a large town on the east coast of England, with a famous pier over one mile long, served by a light railway running along it. Buses here were operated by a mixture of town council and the big Eastern National company. A Southend Corporation Daimler Fleetline is pictured here, which they bought as a dual-door bus in 1981 and later converted to a single door layout, as shown here, presumably to make it more suitable for single person operation.
Leyland Titan #T890
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: When London Transport wanted to replace all its Routemaster buses, they chose the Leyland Titan as their main double decker for the future. As hundreds would be constructed, they worked closely with Leyland to arrive at a specification suitable for London conditions and also persuaded Leyland to build a new factory in which to make it. Once several hundred were in service, major problems started to arise and LT looked elsewhere for a replacement, choosing the MCW Metrobus instead. Here are the two buses together with a Routemaster - the only one of the three types that was much good (many Routemasters even outlived them in service). Meanwhile, having lost the huge LT contract, Leyland went bust.
Comments: 1
Guy Vixen Special GS #GS17
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: One of the little Guy Special buses operated by London Transport in the 1950s. These vehicles are very popular with preservationists because of their handy size and ease of maintenance - it is said that there is a higher percentage of this model in preservation than any other type of bus.
Daimler Fleetline XF #XF3
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: One of six 1965 Daimler Fleetlines bought to compare with fifty Leyland Atlanteans to see which was most suitable (so given "X" fleet numbers). The famous Routemaster was the last bus specially built for London - to save money, all new buses would now be `off the peg`. Conductors were also becoming too expensive to employ, so London Transport looked for a bus suitable for one person operation. The workers` Union, however, was opposed to making bus drivers act as conductors on larger buses and would not allow their members to drive them, so a compromise was reached - the top deck would be closed with a locking gate except at peak times, making the bus a single decker for most of the day. This arrangement was fine until peak time ended, when the driver often had to leave the bus to go upstairs and ask passengers to come down so the gate could be closed! This nonsense continued for some years until a new agreement was reached with the Union to allow bigger buses. In actual fact, the Daimler beat the Atlantean in the comparative trials and many more were purchased for use in London.
Comments: 1
AEC Regent STL #STL2377
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: Just to prove my point, here is another London STL-class bus, not quite the same as the one shown in my last photo - just from the same family of buses grouped together under the STL class banner. This one is from 1937 and was one of only a few buses that LT sold for further operations, going to Mulley`s Motorways of Ixworth, Suffolk who used it from 1953 until 1961. Mulley`s yard became a last resting place for several very old and important buses in the 1960s and enthusiasts were able to rescue some for preservation, including this one, which went to the London Bus Preservation Trust in 1988. A National Lottery grant provided the money to restore it.
Comments: 1
AEC Regent STL #STL441
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Wisley: An important survivor is this STL-class London double deck bus from 1934. Ordered by the London General Omnibus Company, it wasn`t delivered until London Transport had taken over operations and originally had a petrol engine from a withdrawn LT-class bus, being re-engined with an AEC diesel in 1939. Withdrawn from LT service in 1952, it went to a museum in Holland but was outdoors for many years. When rescued in 1974, the wooden body was in a very bad state and a full restoration was necessary. It now lives in the London Bus Museum at Brooklands. The STL class included several quite different models of bus, all called "STL---".
Comments: 1
Albion Victor FT39KAN / Reading #YFO 127
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: A vehicle type entirely new to Phototrans is this Albion Victor bus with a Reading B35F body, new to the Guernsey Railway Company on the island of the same name in 1958. The Albion Automotive Company of Scotstoun, Glasgow, produced many buses between 1920 and 1950 before being taken over by Leyland, but has somehow escaped being recorded here - could someone with a higher access level than me please add details to the TWB database?
Comments: 1
AEC Routemaster #2284
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: Not to be outdone, present-day enthusiasts have also converted a couple of damaged London Routemasters to mobile workshops - this one is ex-RM2284 and is a frequent visitor to rallies in the south east.
Comments: 1
Leyland Tiger TS7 / Burlingham #7
11 april 2010 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: An unusual conversion of a 1937 Leyland Tiger bus into a rather cosy mobile workshop. The bus was once owned by Blackpool Corporation, which is now (2018) one of the very few British bus operators still publicly owned.
Leyland Titan PD2 #786
7 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: all these green and cream painted buses are from the old Southdown Motor Services fleet, a historic company that ran buses and coaches all along the south coast of England and is fondly remembered by enthusiasts. The bus nearest the camera is a Leyland Titan PD2/12 of 1956 with a H59RD body by Beadle, one of over 100 supplied to Southdown but now the only survivor. Note the rear doors - all Southdown buses were very well kept and had good features that made them popular to passengers.
Bristol K #446
5 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: One of the fleet of Bristol buses operated by the Thames Valley Traction Company, which served a large area to the west of London. This is a Bristol K-type lowbridge double-deck bus with a body built at Eastern Coachworks (`ECW`), the main body builders for Bristol. At this time, Bristol were only allowed to supply buses to a smallish part of the UK bus operator market, with AEC, Leyland and other manufacturers rstricted to supplying the others. Depending on the ownership of the company, this dictated who could supply you with buses, a restriction that lasted for many years.
Comments: 3
Leyland Routemaster RML #RML3
5 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: Preserved Bus Heaven at Cobham.....
Comments: 1
Dennis Dart / Duple #TJ 836
5 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: An interior view of the 1930 Dennis Dart shown in my last photo, showing the lovely, comfortable moquette seats - very cosy! This is typical of the way people travelled in coaches during the 1930s onwards.
Dennis Dart / Duple #TJ 836
5 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: Attending a preserved bus rally in 2009 was this lovely Dennis Dart coach of 1930 with a Duple 20 seat body and 6-cylinder petrol engine. Dennis is still making buses today and even has a current Dart model, although it is a vary different vehicle to the one shown here! This coach was supplied new to an operator in Morecombe, Lancashire and later worked for several owners, until finally being re-purchased by the Dennis company who built it.
Comments: 1
AEC Regal T #T31
5 april 2009 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: The vehicle that started the whole bus preservation movement in the UK was this 1929 AEC Regal 1, built in the London General company`s works at Chiswick and operating in service or as a training bus until 1956, when it was the very last original LGOC vehicle owned by London Transport. Preserved by a small group of enthusiasts, it was stored for many years until the London Bus Preservation Trust placed it in their Brooklands museum in 1994. The bus has a petrol engine and 30 seats and would have operated in the London suburbs.
Guy Vixen Special GS #GS42
10 april 2011 - Surrey, UK - Cobham: One of 84 small, 26 seat buses specially made for London Transport in 1952-53 to work country routes with just a few passengers. As neither the normal LT vehicle suppliers at the time, AEC and Leyland, were making a very small bus, the company turned to Guy and Eastern Coachworks for this model, which they called the Guy Special, equipped with a Perkins engine. Although they were non-standard vehicles, the GS fleet had a very long life with LT, this bus being the last remaining in service in 1972. Although they carried conductors at first, they eventually became one person operated, for which their layout was ideal. When withdrawn, they were snapped up by other country bus operators, youth groups and anyone else needing reliable transport, so quite a few have survived.
AEC Regent III RT #RT113
21 april 2013 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands, London Bus Museum: Seen at the Museum during the 2013 annual rally is this nicely-restored pre-war London RT-type double decker. The pre-war RT was always regarded as something of a `holy grail` when I was a young bus spotter in the 1960s - many LT bus garages kept one as a training bus and, if you searched carefully, you would find it hiding right at the back somewhere.
Regent #63
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: A few more shots from the 2014 annual bus and coach gathering at the London Bus Museum. Here is a very nice 1939 AEC Regent I with a Weymann highbridge body, originally supplied to the Brighton, Hove and District undertaking, next to another Regent from the Ipswich fleet. BH&D were an interesting outfit - Brighton had its own buses, painted in an identical colour scheme, sharing some routes with BH&D and working others alone. There were also trams (later trolleybuses) run almost entirely by Brighton Corporation and the large Southdown bus company was also a major player. So, one town and three bus operators! This particular bus was exported to California, USA between 1965 and 198, but brought back to the UK for preservation.
AEC Regal IV RF #RF600
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: An example of the large RF class of single deck buses introduced in London in the early 1950s to replace just about all the odds and ends from the 1930s which were non-standard and life expired. The RF came in three main types - the Central London (red) version (which to begin with had no door but just a rather scary open front entrance)and two green variants, normal Country bus and longer distance Green Line coach, with better seats and higher speed gears.
Comments: 1
AEC Regent III RLH #RLH48
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands. RLH48 is a privately-preserved example of the lowbridge version of the London RT bus, of which there were several in both red (Central) and green (Country) colours. Inside, they were a bit tight when crowded with passengers, particularly upstairs, where you had to shuffle along on the wide four-place bench seats to get on and off, with people sitting to the right of you having to get up first in order to make room.
Bruce #42
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: A final selection from the 2014 London Bus Museum rally, held at their Brooklands premises. This is an AEC Regent bought by Eastbourne Buses (the first place in the UK to have permission to run their own buses) and was bodied by a company called Bruce Coachworks in Wales - the last remaining double-deck bus made by them. It now belongs to the Portsmouth bus preservation group, just along the south coast.
Leyland Titan PD2 RTW #RTW185
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: This RTW-type bus was a sub-type of the standard RT, being built to a width of 8 feet instead of the standard 7ft 6ins width - difficult to spot in practice except inside, where the extra width is more noticeable along the aisles between the seats. These buses were introduced after a long battle with the London police and traffic managers, who feared danger to the public and congestion on the roads if they were allowed to go anywhere - so they were restricted in the first instance to wider, straighter roads. In actual fact, Armageddon never happened and today we allow much larger vehicles to drive almost anywhere.
AEC Regent III RT #RT1702
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: The Finishing Straight (the place where old racing cars used to slow down at the end of races) is the scene here of an impressive collection of London RT-type buses, lined up at one of the annual rallies held at the London Buse Museum, which shares the same site. The nearest RT, #RT1702, was sent on a tour of eight European cities in 1950 to publicise the 1951 Festival of Britain and carries a `GB` plate on the rear as a memorial. It is one of the few RT type buses to keep the same chassis, body and identity throughout its various overhauls - normally, the bus was separated into parts on arriving at the works, then these parts were put back into a different bus as work was finished, not necessarily at the same time.
Leyland Routemaster RML #RM3
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: On display at the London Bus Museum is the prototype Leyland (and not AEC) Routemaster of 1957. Note the different front end treatment and non-opening front windows upstairs. This bus entered service in January 1958 but was withdrawn after an accident in November 1959 - apart from short periods as a driver training bus, this was the extent of its operational life. It was obtained by the bus museum in 1974, being the very first Routemaster to be preserved.
Leyland Tiger Cub / Harrington Wayfarer II #10
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: I showed this lovely Leyland Royal Tiger coach once before. It came from the Silver Star company of Porton, near Salisbury, which had built its business by transporting soldiers from the numerous training camps on Salisbury Plain to their homes in the north of England on weekend leave, in the days of universal conscription. The distinctive bodywork finish like this was applied to all their coaches.
AEC Regent III RT #D67
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: Despite the RT-type double-deck bus becoming a firm favourite in London in the 1950s, it wasn`t a success elsewhere. This was because it was specifically designed for conditions in central London and was regarded by other operators as over-engineered and too expensive for provincial towns and cities. Although quite a few concerns bought RTs second-hand when they were released by London (recognising their very high maintenance standards)only a handful bought any new. One such was St Helens Corporation in Lancashire and one of their RTs has survived in preservation, as shown here.
AEC Regent III RT #RT1
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: Arguably the most importand bus in the UK, this is RT1, the prototype for over 4600 similar buses that became the standard throughout London and the Home Counties. After a long and sometimes difficult career, this bus is now safely housed in the London Bus Museum after a national appeal to raise the money required to save it for posterity.
AEC Regent III RT #RT1431
13 april 2014 - Cobham, UK - Brooklands: The London Bus Museum holds a big annual rally where over 100 historic buses come together in the grounds of the museum. Among the thirty or more London RT-types gathered at the 2014 event was this Cravens bodied example. To achieve a total of over 4600 new buses of this identical design quickly, London Transport asked several vehicle builders to contribute. The Cravens company decided to use a non-standard approach and their buses could be identified by five (not four) windows downstairs and other differences. LT were`t amused and got rid of these buses at the first opportunity, so they lasted in London service for less than ten years.
Renault TN4 #3276
21 april 2013 - Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum. At the annual bus rally in the grounds of Brooklands museum is one of the three ex-Paris buses owned by celebrated transport writer Robert Jowitt. Robert has owned these buses for a number of years and they now live in the Isle of Wight, although this one often appears at events in mainland England. With their open rear platforms (a Paris speciality until the 1960s) these are great fun to travel on.
AEC Reliance/Willowbrook #RW3
28 april 2013 - Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum, Brooklands. London Transport bought just three of these experimental AEC Reliance buses in 1960 to test the two-door, one-man layout for single-deck vehicles. After just three years in service they were all sold to Chesterfield Corporation in Derbyshire and this is the sole survivor. It was stored for over 20 years before being restored recently.
Comments: 1
Daimler Fleetline DMS #DMS1515
28 april 2013 - Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum, Brooklands. The rear of the Supercar, showing the two train sections. Does this belong in TWB Bus or TWB Rail, I wonder.......?
Comments: 4
Daimler Fleetline DMS #DMS1515
28 april 2013 - Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum, Brooklands. Where shall we start? A bus or a train? In fact, this crazy thing (called the Supercar) was built to advertise London go-anywhere Travelcards, using the front of a Daimler Fleetline bus, the middle section from a 1973 Underground Tube train and a cab section from a Networker overground train. Believe it or not, it actually runs and has seats inside. It’s now owned by a group who are restoring an old LT Underground line.
Comments: 3
AEC Reliance/Burlingham #200APB
28 april 2013 - Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum, Brooklands. A very pretty AEC Reliance saloon of 1956, first owned by Safeguard Coaches of Guildford, Surrey, a very long-standing independent bus company still operating in the area. Safeguard sold the bus after only four years, but it was bought back by the present owners of the company in 2003 and fully restored.
CR Type #CR16
28 april 2013 - Weybridge, Surrey (UK) – London Bus Museum, Brooklands. This 1939 Leyland Cub was intended for transfer work between Central London railway stations, but war intervened and it did not see much service until sold and exported to Cyprus in 1949. It was found in a scrap yard there and brought back to England, where it was fully restored and now lives in the London Bus Museum. These buses are noteworthy as they were among the first to have their engine at the rear, although the half-cab layout and sliding door meant that one-person operation would be many years away.
Regent 1/Weymann #971J
21 april 2013 - Brooklands, Surrey (GB) – London Bus Museum. An AEC Regent 1 of 1936, this bus was used in London Transport’s country area (green buses) as STL1470 until 1953, when it was replaced by one of the many RT types then coming into service. It then spent another ten years in LT service as a ‘tree lopper’, moving around the network to deal with overhanging trees where double deck routes operated. The unusual door arrangement (or lack of a door, actually) is exactly how it was when the bus was in passenger service.
Comments: 4
Enviro 200 prototype #S12
21 april 2013 - Brooklands, Surrey (GB) – London Bus Museum. A very interesting bus – one of two Enviro 200 prototypes, this bus has been sold more than once and is now used on Excetera’s stage services in West Surrey. Note the front and rear doors – I don’t know if Excetera use the rear door, or just bought this bus cheaply to use in conventional single door mode. It has been suggested that this bus was built as a prototype for the new ‘Borismaster’ buses in London.
Comments: 1
AEC Regent III/Weymann #RLH23
21 april 2013 - Brooklands, Surrey (GB) – London Bus Museum. The annual rally of London buses this year took place at the new Museum site. Amongst those buses attending was this immaculate RLH23, an AEC Regent of 1952 with a Willowbrook lowbridge body. London Transport operated 76 of these vehicles on routes where standard height double deck buses could not run. The ‘lowbridge’ layout involves a sunken gangway on the offside upstairs with long seats for four people – if you were unlucky enough to be sitting on the nearside, you maybe had to ask three people to move before you could get off! The offside downstairs was also very low, because of the upstairs gangway, so you had to take care not to crack your head when you got up to leave. Despite these drawbacks, these buses ran until the early 1970s.
Comments: 3
AEC Routemaster/Park Royal #RML2323
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally. And for my 1500th picture a row of all sorts of Routemasters. Thanks ever so much to Dave for the lift, the lunch, and his company. All the best!
Comments: 9
Leyland Atlantean / MCW #42
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally. One more picture from Cobham 2010 showing these two beauties. They belonged to a company called Silver Star, which painted their buses in a rather military scheme to reflect the fact, that it served a number of British Army bases around Salisbury. On the left we have a double-decker Atlantean for more local duties, on the right a Leyland Tiger Cub which used to ply the intercity route between Salisbury and London.
Comments: 6
Leyland Atlantean / MCW #LYF307D
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally. BOAC stands for British Overseas Airways Corporation - the airline which merged in 1974 with British European Airways to form British Airways. Before the construction of the Piccadilly Line extension to Heathrow in 1973, airlines took it upon themselves to ferry passengers to the airport terminal. As you can see in the photo, the bus has comfortable, high-back seats. With the engine in the rear, it was possible to lower the floor, whereas the rear of the downstairs compartment was converted to luggage space. With time, as flying became less elitist, airlines stopped providing their own dedicated services. Passengers had to make their way to Heathrow by coaches, the tube or the Airbus, two London Transport operated express routes, which connected the airport with the railway termini in the centre. The Airbus was scrapped only after the construction of the rail line to Heathrow.
Comments: 4
Dennis 4-tone / Dodson #D142
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally. In 1922 the bus operations in London were deregulated, thanks to which over 200 companies were created. Some grew in size quite handsomely, some had only one bus. This four-tonne double decker with a wooden body was built for one of the bigger operators, which then competed with the municipally owned tramways. Due to the crisis of the 1930s, the London Passenger Transport Board was created in 1933 and created some order in the market - sadly they also later caused the demise of the classic tramway in London. This bus never got to see this moment - the last mention of it is from 1932. It was discovered in some garden in 1971 and restored. The museum acquired it in 1984.
Comments: 2
AEC Swift SMS #SMS369
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally. The local museum which organises this event each year, usually puts out most of its collection on display. One bus from their collection is this here AEC Swift. It has a characteristical divided front door. The front half is used by those, who wish to buy a ticket from the driver or hand over a part of their carnet. The rear half is used by those, who already have a season.
Comments: 3
AEC Routemaster #RCL2233
11 april 2010 - Wisley Airfield, Cobham Bus Rally 2011. David took one photo of this beauty in 2009, but I'll throw in another. The country version of the Routemaster, with the double headlights, is IMHO the prettiest one. The Wright Gemini bodywork of the 1st generation seems to take inspiration from this a little.
Bristol H #137
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). A 1933 Bristol H Type long-distance coach with a body by Brush (who also built many trams, railway engines etc.) The cheapest seats were up the ladder, on the roof.
Comments: 1
AEC Merlin MB #MB90
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – One of the AEC Merlin buses that, with the very similar-looking AEC Swift model began to replace double deck buses in London service. Unfortunately, they were a bit of a disaster and were withdrawn and sold just a few years later. The AEC company, which had been London Transport’s preferred supplier for many years, eventually went bust and no more buses were designed specifically for London.
Comments: 3
Horse Omnibus
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – This horse bus dates from c1890 and is part of the London Bus Preservation Trust collection. It originally ran in south London for the Star Omnibus Company.
Comments: 4
Volvo B7RLE / Wright Eclipse Urban #148
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – Delaine is a very famous independent bus company with a history stretching back well over 100 years. I hope to see more of their operations when I go to their home town on holiday this summer.
Comments: 5
B10M #39
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – A TWB debut for this interesting Bristol operator of schools contracts in the outskirts of Bristol. In the past twenty years or so, they have owned various buses made by Bedford, Ford, Bristol, Volvo, Leyland, Bora, DAF, TAZ and Dennis, so their engineers and drivers must be very versatile (or gone mad?). They even ran an Ikarus for a short while! Nowadays, they seem to have standardised on Volvo and Dennis vehicles, but they also keep several older buses in ‘semi-preserved’ condition, able to run in service when needed. This ex-Badgerline bus is one of them.
Scania N230UD/Alexander Enviro 400 #15601
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – The Southdown operation is very different today – just a small part of the Stagecoach operation and the lovely green and cream paint scheme has gone. Very sad. I suppose this is progress, but I much prefer the old style.
Bristol VRT/SL2 #510
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – A later Southdown bus of 1971. The Bristol VR was a popular bus with many operators and a small number are still running in service today.
Leyland Titan PD3/4/Northern Counties #972
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK) – The ‘real’ Southdown bus company (pre-Stagecoach) ran their services throughout the counties of Sussex and beyond. Their buses were always interesting types and kept in perfect condition. This is one of the full-fronted Leylands that were typical of 1960s Southdown.
Van Hool T917 Acron #4375
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). The Green Line name has been revived by Arriva, who uses it on express coach services to London’s airports. This huge Van Hool has room for 63 passengers (more than twice as many as the old RF coaches could carry).
Comments: 4
AEC Regal IV/MCCW #RF269
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). Green Line was the London Transport express coach operation and consisted of about 25 routes into and across London from the surrounding towns. In the 1960s and 1960s, all buses were these RF type, fitted with platform doors and high speed gears. Huge numbers of people travelled by Green Line in those days, of course, because very few had their own cars, but the network closed down because of falling passenger numbers in the 1980s.
AEC Regal IV/MCCW #RF366
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). London Transport bought a large number of these underfloor engine, single deck buses in the early 1950s and they had very long lives, many remaining in ‘front line’ service for over 20 years. This is a typical Central Area bus – note that it has no doors, which were only fitted some years later, when they were adapted for one-man operation.
Bristol Lodekka FLF #AVX 975G
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). Another ten years later and this Bristol Lodekka was built to run express service into London from the Essex coast. Eastern National was a state-owned company, so was only allowed to buy Bristol buses with standard ECW bodies, but this one was specially fitted with coach seats and a baggage room at the rear. By the time it was built, car ownership had increased dramatically and the golden age of English express coach services was nearly over.
BMMO C5 #780 GHA
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). We move forward ten years to 1958 and the opening of the first British motorway. The huge Midland Red company (as it says on the box) operated red buses throughout central England and had its own bus construction works, turning out many vehicles of very advanced design. This C5 coach was specially built for the motorway service from Birmingham to London and was easily capable of over 120km/hour.
Leyland Tiger PS1/Park Royal #CFN 104
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). Three pictures to illustrate the development of UK express coaches serving London in the 1950s and 1960s. This 1948 Leyland Tiger PS1 was typical of the early 1950s, when demand for services was very high, as few people had their own car. The East Kent routes to the coast were particularly busy on summer weekends, when any bus that could move was pressed into service as an ‘extra’. This particular coach ran daily, though, to the famous Victoria Coach Station (which is still in operation).
Scania N230UD4 / Optare Olympus #801
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). I showed a coach photo from this operator before - now they have branched out into stage carriage bus services. This Optare Olympus is their latest purchase.
Scania N230UD/Alexander Enviro 400 #15617
11 april 2010 - Cobham, Surrey (UK). UK bus travel gets sexier all the time - this is one of the new Enviros for a high quality service in the Oxford area. It even has on-board WiFi, so TWB users can upload their pictures of the bus as they actually travel on it - how cool is that?
Comments: 4