Oxford, High Wycombe & surrounding areas
from THE OXFORD BUS PAGE

updated Sunday, 20th January 2002
the next update will be on Sunday 27th January 2002

  Issue nr. 182

Please note that any comments made in this news page are those of the Editors' and in no way constitute 
any official points of view from the bus companies mentioned,  or indeed any other official body. 
As a news page we reserve the right to make valid comments as seen from an editorial point of view.

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Welcome to bumper Issue 182, which includes your contributions from the past two weeks. I have had a sizeable post bag and have accumulated 15 pages of notes. I really am most impressed and do believe that your contributions help to make this a readable and topical publication. Thank you all.

Saturday last was a really nice sunny day and not so cold for a change.
Here we see Stagecoach Olympian 516 running down towards Oxford through Summertown.

The 'flu seem to hang on for days and it is only now that I am getting back to normal. The usual trip to Amsterdam did nothing to help but needs must when the devil drives. Don't forget if you wish to be included in my occasional mid week updates, let me have your e-mail address to include in my address list.

Saturday, when there was no home game of football provided me with the opportunity to catch up with goings on in Oxford and a pleasant day was spent in and around the city. The day was sunny but of course the sun is still low in the sky, making photography difficult. To add to the obstacles my new camera played up. It's an Olympus E20, the latest rings and bells digital and the motor drive on the Compact Flash packed up mid way through the morning. So my apologies for a few poor photos and tomorrow I must now visit Olympus, who have a repair centre near The Barbican in London.  Having had several Olympus models, this is the first time I had any problems and I am rather disappointed that it should be with such an expensive camera.

This past weeks have seen a lot happening including a fire which destroyed 8 coaches in the fleet of Jeffs of Helmdon. Two of these were nearly brand new vehicles and must have caused some pain to their owners. Coach & Bus week carries an article about Stagecoach Oxford Tube (their words) being fined by The Traffic Commissioners for not running services in and around Oxford. It did not appear from the article that the Oxford Tube was involved, a poor way of describing the misfortunes of that company. Talking about mis-reporting, I must comment on the latest issue of Buses from Ian Allan, which carries seemingly quite a lot of mistakes. Where I am familiar with the fact, they seem to have rather a lot of errors and in the article on Airlinks mention a service from Oxford to Heathrow. If this was true I could imagine the Management of the Oxford Bus Company having a few words to say! I really do think it is a pity that a magazine which will be used for reference in years to come cannot be more accurate in its work. After all we are paying for the publication and I do feel we are entitled to greater accuracy. Maybe some of you also have some thoughts on the matter?

We are now approaching the end of January and from February a number of services will have new operators, so keep your eyes peeled and let me have your reports.

Newman Morgan wrote to say "I have received my copy of today's (Saturday's) Oxford Mail, the paper carries an article entitled "Luxury bus plan to cut commuter car use".

The article reads as follows:- " A bold initiative to encourage commuters to swap their cars for buses to reach a busy railway station will be operating in Bicester by mid-Summer. Eight luxurious mini-bus style vehicles will link the Bure Park, Langford Village, Glory Farm and Greenwood housing estates in the town with Bicester North station in Buckingham Road.

There will also be four routes to cater for people living in neighbouring villages. The village served will be:-
Hethe, Fringford and Stratton Audley
Middleton Stoney and Chesterton
Ardley, Fewcott and Bucknell
and Arncott and Ambrosden

The rail-bus link is part of the Bicester Integrated traffic strategy that looks at ways of co-ordinating public transport services, as well as improving cycle and pedestrian routes in the town.

A spokesman for Chiltern Railways explained the buses would offer regular timetabled services to link in with the popular commuter trains from Bicester North to London Marylebone.

There will also be a 'taxi call-up' system in operation during the off-peak times.

The spokesman added: " We expect to announce a firm start date soon, but it will be sometime in the mid-summer."

Chiltern Railways already runs similar rail-bus operations in Banbury, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Haddenham and Thame, Chinnor and Princes Risborough.

To help buses reach Bicester North station, a new roundabout could be built on Buckingham Road to create a new approach.

John Disley, Oxfordshire County Council's principal transport planner, said:" We are working closely with Chiltern Railways on the introduction of the service as part of the town's integrated transport policy."

It will be interesting to see which operator(s) win(s) the contract. As far as Arncott, Ambrosden, Langford Village and Glory Farm are concerned, there is already a limited link to the station on Stagecoach's 27, 27A and 29B services during the morning peak hours.

Talking of railways Whilst at Oxford Rail Station on Saturday morning I walked up to the level crossing which still exists as a potential diversion should the under bridge be blocked. (I expect there are numerous reasons why this could not happen) I was just in time to see the departure of a Virgin Voyager in the Reading direction and was impressed to see this latest rolling stock in use.

Set 220-011 leads on this Virgin Voyager departure from Oxford at 1025 on Saturday morning last.
These are presumably the sets which will work to Gatwick from the Spring of 2002?

One nice touch in the new Oxford Station is this old BR(W) enamel station sign.

I read in the Oxford Mail that the bus "gate" on the Botley Road was faulty last Saturday and tail back were caused as far away as Seacourt. Another article in the Bucks Free Press spoke of problems with the new water fountains in the centre of Wycombe which can only be turned off or on by a crane lifting a man hole cover. The remote control system has failed and the company who installed this wonder have since gone into liquidation. Heh ho! It seems that Wycombe is not having much luck with modern technology as the rising barriers for the buses in the town centre have also failed to work recently.

Matt Wheeler wrote to say "the attached photo is of something which may or may not be a real bus. Its owned/operated by Buckinghamshire Fire Brigade as a mobile Command Unit, and was parked up in Market Square, Aylesbury this morning, along with 4 fire engines in connection with a Fire in a nearby building. Hopefully the victims of the fire are OK, and I think it is fairly safe to assume so as there were no ambulances in the vicinity.

Anyway, the vehicle itself, judging by the badges, has a Mercedes chassis and a Writgt Urbanranger body. Given the age (P reg), and size, its possible the chassis is a Mercedes O.404, but I couldn't guarantee that.

Well, less of the chatting and on to the news in our area.

News of the local companies - 20th January 2002

Arriva serving The Shires & Essex

Arriva's 3166 waits time at Hemel Hempstead prior to its return working to Aylesbury on route 500.

Arriva's 5070 passes Carousel M737 in Wycombe Saturday a week ago. No buses are now left
overnight at Amersham and have to run dead from High Wycombe for service.

Matt Wheeler writes "Firstly.... news (taken from information on http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/passenger_transport/timetable_update_index.stm) .

Arriva, at Aylesbury, are planning some significant service cuts at the end of the month. Already, from Jan 7th, they dropped two school routes to Buckingham, thus saving a couple of drivers and buses, with more substantial alterations from Jan 27/28.

On Aylesbury Town Services, route 3 will lose the extra journeys at 16:40, 17:10 and 17:40 which were introduced as part of the temporary route changes for the Oxford Road bridge rebuilding.

Routes 4 and 5 (Fairford Leys - Town Centre - Coppice estate) are to be dropped. Apart from the obvious saving of 2 buses, it will no doubt save a few more drivers. The site doesn't, yet, list who is to take over route 9, will drop from every 10 minutes (using 4 buses) to every 15 minutes (using 3). Hopefully by cutting the services back they'll have enough drivers to ensure early morning services actually turn up...

The site also reports that the Princes Risborough town services (77, 78 and 79) are to have a new operator from the end of the month, and also a slightly modified timetable.

Finally, having withdrawn route 336, Routes 354 (Chesham - Berkhamstead) and 353 (Chesham - Slough) have been re-joined to run Berkhamstead - Slough (as they did until April 2001). Judging by the timetables, this move will have "saved" 3 buses, and the associated drivers.

These moves are all clearly to try and reduce the problems due to driver shortages which have become more apparent over the past few months. I  also mention the vehicle "savings" as the changes will almost certainly also mean buses from both Wycombe and Aylesbury depots will be withdrawn/reallocated.

On Saturday I took a trip from Aylesbury to Watford (via Hemel Hempstead on the way out and then back via Hemel, Chesham and Wycombe).

Apart from the information listed below (the photos), I was unfortunate to not see the green RLH that Carousel put on route 336, but I did get a couple of photos, in Watford, of the M's operating the route.

Whilst in Watford I caught sight of a new Plaxton bodied Dart for Arriva, the only downside being no destination blinds, and the route number on a small piece of card in the windscreen, rather poor in comparison to the copious information on Carousel's blinds for route 336.

In Chesham, Red Rose were using one of their low floor East Lancs bodied Darts on the town services (route 373, bus was Y359LCK I think). Although, as I understand it, the two low floor Darts were actually purchased to operate Watford area services Red Rose had won, yet, when in Watford, I mainly saw their Optare Metroriders, and on other days I've seen one of the Low floor darts on route 16 (Aylesbury - Bicester).

One final note: I've not seen the Mix 96 liveried Olympian since last weekend, so have not been able to try for any better quality photos, but I'll keep on the look out for it.

Black Roe bodied Olympian 5071 (A151 FPG) which before Christmas was noted as moving to Wycombe (cressex) from Aylesbury was back in Aylesbury this week. On Wednesday I saw it at lunchtime in between duties with blinds set for route 261. And today, Saturday, it was parked in the Bus station showing "57".

Thanks to Matt for that interesting news and now from Nigel Peach "Arriva coach 4043 YIB 2397 was in the front row of the bus stn at approx 2:20pm today. I'm sure it wasn't there when I'd previously walked thru about 20 mins before.

Arriva's 4035 (H199AOD) ex Trathens and 4023(E323OMG) ex Green Line on Rail Replacement
at High Wycombe this lunchtime.

Nigel goes on to say "As a teenager my bus-spotter friend (who lived in Stokenchurch!) and I often used the 336 in order to help us to get round London Transport's "Country Area" network. A Green Rover cost six shillings (or three shillings if you were under 14) and this gave unlimited travel on the network for the day. The trips were not always as easy as the Red Rover trips (ie Central Area) as there were fewer buses for connections and we spent many a frustrating hour waiting at bus stops! Happy days!

Memories of "happy days" for Nigel Peach relived a week last Saturday in Amersham.
RLH48, new to Amersham garage is pulled up in front of the old Amersham & District Garage.

Nigel also says "The Carousel Metrobus we saw on the 336 was KYY 737X. By coincidence, some of the RLH class had KYY registrations. I've had to delve into the loft to find this out but RLH 1-20 were KYY 501-20 (& 21-76 were MXX 221-76.) Many of the KYYs were "Country Area" (ie green) so some may have been allocated to Amersham & run the 336. Incidently the original KYY 737 was RTL 767, one of the Leyland engined RTs & would have been "Central Area" (ie red) & therefore wouldn't have come anywhere near Amersham!

That admirable publication, The Thames Valley & Aldershot Bus Interest Circle notes the following about the WYCOMBE CHARITY RUNNING DAY 2002:

"Organiser Richard Bond advises that this popular event will be happening again this year - the PROVISIONAL date is Sunday 26th May. It is intended to operate routes to the south of the town - Bourne End, Maidenhead, Flackwell Heath, Marlow etc., are suggested.".

Thanks to Nigel for that and now from Steve Warwick

Monday 7th Jan - NBS Olympian 5827 worked the 0755 323 to Aylesbury & 1050 300 service to Uxbridge.

Tuesday 8th Jan - Only thing of note today is that the 0600 dep to Aylesbury was worked by Olympian 5829.

Leyland Tiger No4043 (YIB 2397) made an appearance in the bus station last week on a private hire I think.

Pete Brown of Showbus writes "I was talking to an old friend today who now drives for Arriva Wycombe and he told me the following. I'm not sure if anyone else knows anything n the matters or if they are pure rumours!

1. Wycombe are shortly to get four Volvo B6BLE's that Arriva have in store somewhere. These were supposedly destined for Crawley until it shut last year.

2. Apparently Olympians 5822-5829 are almost useless these days and do not perform very well on the hills around Wycombe. He told me that there might be some Volvo B10M Citybuses coming from London to replace them. I thought a better solution would be to re-engine the Alexander bodied Olympians and to refurbish them along with the rest of the Olympians which the Shires are currently doing.

Thanks to Pete for that, can anyone confirm or deny those rumours?

Paul Coley now rites "As a regular reader of your pages, I must congratulate you on their informative content.

On the subject of blinds, and being a resident of Aylesbury for some 11 years now, this situation has never been worse. It all seemed to go pear-shaped when Aylesbury took over some workings of the 323/324 from Wycombe. Some Greenways seemed to be transferred in that move, and received 'Aylesbury' depot blinds. This seems particularly pointless, when most of these still seem to be used on the 323/324 anyway!!

Very few of the 'Aylesbury' original Greenways have shown their destinations, just numbers, for some considerable time - the influx of Wycombe Greenways just made the matter worse. And now the Alexander Olympians seem to be suffering in much the same way, even the repainted ones.

Have we got to the stage where drivers are so pushed for time, that unless the vehicle is modern and fitted with a motorised blind, they simply have no time to manually change them. Do we have a phantom blind wrecker at the Aylesbury depot? The blinds are there OK, just not set to anything other than yellow!!

Correspondent Paul Coley comments this week on the lack of the use of destination blinds
at Aylesbury, which has become very noticeable in recent weeks.
2108 on the 260 at Oxford last Saturday proves the point.

Aylesbury seem to be proud of the condition of their vehicles - they always appear very smart - and this matter just seems to let the whole image down.

I know you have mentioned that the matter was in hand locally (High Wycombe) but it really is past a joke when the majority of buses travelling around Aylesbury seem to have little idea as to where they are going!!

Any other opinions on the subject would be appreciated, I am sure.

Just one last thing, for those devoid of VR's locally, Arriva at Luton were still operating at least 2 on schools services in Dunstable last week, the VR in question was SNV 938W - one which I believe was previously at Aylesbury.

Andrew Balaam writes "I've noticed that Newlands Bus Station's 3821 is back on the road again after its bump a while ago. The front looks a lot smarter than when I saw it in the bus station a while ago. It also now has a bright new number plate in the new typeface used on the new registrations.

Seen in Newlands Bus Station this morning with an offside broken window.
The little local loves have been at it again or so its seems!

On a not so bright note, driving home yesterday along London Road in Loudwater I passed Arriva's 3062 with police in attendance after a small green car had become a little too intimate with the back of the bus. I guess it will now require a little attention from the workshop.

Carousel M1432 works a Saturday morning 336 service to Amersham from Watford.

Yet another addition to the Carousel fleet is M703 which arrived last week.
It still carries Arriva Lonon livery.

Paul Coley writes "Reports in last weeks 'Bucks Examiner' would suggest that passengers, both current and intending, were unaware of the route changing operators and were also unware that the section between Amersham and Chesham was being cut outside peak hours. Instances of stranded passengers were told. It wasn't helped by the fact that no notices were posted at stops, nor timetables changed at stops - something BCC admitted they had 'overlooked'. Indeed, a visit to Chesham last week revealed an hourly service to Watford being operated by Arriva being shown on bus stop timetable cases!

The Bucks Examiner also said that Carousel were only operating a 'temporary contract', using 2 buses rather than 3, which apparently saved BCC some £250 per day, hence the route operating to Amersham only, not Chesham."

Oxford's Trident 120 has returned from rectification work at Alexanders, repainted green.
It seems that this bus has accrued high mileages on the X3 and has been substituted
by others of the batch. It can easily be distinguished from the rest by its black surround to the desintation.

Geoff Cunliffe sent this picture of 929 when on loan to Blackpool Buses in 2000

Geoff says "I thought you may be interested in the attached photograph. It shows 929 before it came to Oxford. In fact, it visited the Fylde Coast as a demonstrator a couple of years ago. According to the latest edition of "Buses", I see Blackpool Transport's new Tridents are now due in May - presumably they will be Alexander bodied. Anyway, 929 was captured by St.Annes Square, where the Majestic Hotel has been replaced by many flats, on route 22A as it turned to return to Blackpool.

I did not take the photograph but found it on a local market stall. The attribution on the back says Monday 31st. January 2000; B.S. Ridgway."

Pete Thomas writes "I'm Pete Thomas, formerly of Chester City Transport, now with First at Chester (Crosville!). You may remember that I contacted you a while back with details of the surviving ex OBC Metroriders at Chester. I included a picture of an unidentified one, sold by Chester to an operator in New Zealand, which you included in your news page.

Please find attached some pictures taken today Monday 7th Jan at the Chester City Transport depot, Station Road, Chester.

As you will see I have included (255) F505 CBO, in its capacity as engineering runabout.

Also one picture of (269) G769 WFC which still sees daily use in service along with (271) G771 WFC.

I'm afraid that I'm not up to speed with the fate of the others, I believe that only 255,269&271 remain in stock but I cannot be certain.

I will include more Metrorider pictures in a future news page.

Newman Morgan writes on another quirk on the Trident fleet "For the purists, I have another Trident anomaly, hot on the heels of 102's window saga. This time it is Trident 118.

If one goes upstairs on a Trident and then goes to the rear portion of the upper deck, after the staircase there are three yellow grab rails (stanchions or whatever they are called). First one is on the right walking to rear, next one on left and third one on right, this final one being affixed to the offside gangway seat. No. 118 has these in a different configuration. The middle left hand side one is actually placed at the rear of the deck directly opposite the 'normal' final right hand side one.

I am wondering whether 118, and 102, were Friday afternoon productions from Alexanders in Falkirk!

Grayline of Bicester (plus some Bicester news etc)

Newman Morgan writes "I haven't been out much lately due to the dreaded flu bug but I had a business meeting today at Cherwell Valley Services, J10 of M40.

On the way there (via the B4100 as it is 5 miles shorter than using the motorway!) I came across a third Optare Solo operating for Grayline. Totally devoid of any fleet names or branding, the vehicle was registered Y341 BWP. It was in all over white so could actually be a stock vehicle on loan to Grayline, although of course white is also Grayline's livery. The vehicle was working into Bicester on Route 37 from Brackley and, although it had a paper route no. in the route no. box, it was displaying a full and correct destination blind.

The other two Optare Solo vehicles, OV51 OOA and OV51 OOB, are B31F. I did understand that a third, to become OV51 OOC, was said to be on order.

A Mercedes / Reeve Burgess Beaver reg no, MJI 1678 works the 21 Bicester Bure Place to Greenwood Estate on a half hourly basis. Its sister, which may be MJI 1679, works the Banbury local B1/B2 recently won from Stagecoach. 1678 at least came from Glyn Williams Travel in Blackwood, South Wales. Glyn Williams runs services into Newport from the Gwent Valleys in conjunction with Stagecoach Red & White (there is a trunk route Tredegar-Newport) plus various locals around the Blackwood area.

I understand that Grayline extensively overhauled these two Mercs including fitting of complete new back ends before putting them into service.

The two Solos OV51 OOA/B work the 22 and 23. These local services were introduced at the end of October to replace former town services 22, 23, 24. At the same time the 26 was renumbered to 21.

The 22 works Bicester Bure Place - Fields Farm - Langford Village - Bure Place - Southwold - Caversfield - Bure Park Village - Bure Place, whilst the 23 works in the reverse route. Fields Farm is a new development located off the London Road (old A41) and the route from Bure Place is Manorsfield Way, Market Square, London Road, Mallards Way (through Fields Farm), Gavray Drive, Wretchwick Way (which is a small portion of the soon to be new Bicester Bypass) Peregrine Way (through Langford Village), Neunkirchen Way or Seelscheid Way depending on direction of travel (same road as Wretchwick Way). From A41 roundabout 22 uses London Road, Market Square, Manorsfield Road into Bure Place. 23 goes the other way round. The route of 22/23 from Bure Place to Southwold and Bure Park has changed and I am not exactly sure of the new routeing. This week I may have opportunity to follow a bus (I couldn't afford the fare to ride!!!) The 22/23 both run hourly and a Saturday afternoon service has been added; this was deleted from the old 23/24 timetable about a year ago.

I believe Grayline are keeping 3 Optare MetroRiders for the 37 Bicester - Brackley, the Kidlington local which I think is Route No. 3 (it used to be a COMS route) and presumably a spare bus.

I managed to follow a 23 Solo round its route to Bure Park. It circumnavigates the old US Air Force housing in Caversfield where there is at least one bus stop bearing an NBC South Midland bus stop flag - in Elderfield Road. The 22/23 also serve DLO Caversfield, the admin and ordering centre for military uniforms for all Services, as in Boots, one pair, two of, etc.

Yesterday's Oxford Mail carried a letter from Oxon C C Transport bigwig stating that the Solos were bought by Grayline with a sizeable grant from the C C. Letter was primarily concerned with complaints that Solos aren't used on the 21 service due to road humps. C C bigwig reckoned they were never intended for the 21 and if they had been then C C would spend money lowering humps. Mind you, with fancy road designs in Fields Farm and Bure Park designed to aesthetically deter speeding at more than 10 mph, I reckon the Solos have to mount the kerb in a few places, unless of course they constrict like a snake!

The 3rd Solo, seen again today on the Bicester-Brackley 37 road, Y341 BWP is B29F. That includes three tip up seats behind the driver. This vehicle is on loan to Grayline and its legal owner is H R Richmond, Blenheim Road, Epsom, Surrey. It is all over white livery but along the roof line above the nearside rear windows you can just make out ripped off lettering reading 'Sponsored by .....' (I can't read the critical bit!). I was informed that Grayline had to clean off the graffiti on the rear of the vehicle before they put it into service.

Solo OOA has a nasty little dent on the upper near side of its rear engine bonnet. Apparently it was reversed into the rabbit style wing mirror of one of Grayline's coaches. I am also informed OOB's offside has sustained some panel damage and then later I saw Grayline's hired Solo, Y341 being towed off this afternoon. It was being towed away from the depot by a wrecker company with a Milton Keynes phone number.

No more Tridents in Bicester these days, perhaps they will re-appear at Easter if they are still in Oxford. 228 and 242 seen on the 27 road today together with a number of the usual 9xx Volvos/NC Paladins.

Heyfordian

Newman also mentions this company.

Popped round to Heyfordian's depot in Murdock Road, Bicester. Leaving at around 2.15pm today to take up schools duties were Heyfordian bus liveried Olympians B245 NVN and C266 XEF. These vehicles return at around 4.45pm so it seems they cover a reasonable distance on their school runs. Parked up in Heyfordian bus livery was JTY 373X. No other Olympians seen but one or more could have been either in the sheds or out of sight behind all the parked up coaches.

Roland Cox wrote to say "eSaw another Olympian today, it is the all Arriva blue livery registered AEF 227Y , another ex Arriva making seven now..

Stagecoach in Warwick

I have received a lot of information this last few weeks. Rob Williams wrote to say "Thanks to surveys at Nuneaton over the last two Saturdays I can now confirm Nuneaton's Merc allocation.

342 / 343 / 346 - 352 / 365 - 372 a total of 17 vehicles.

All other Mercs have gone. Hope to have Rugby on Friday

Two vehicles failed to appear on both surveys Dart 110 and B10M 208. A hunch that 208 has gone for respray ?

I noted the first of the ex-London Olympians, P527 HMP at work in Leamington today (Tuesday). The bus was working the X12 from the University of Warwick at about 3.15pm.

The bus is in the new livery, single doored but also devoid of all logos, fleetnames, legal details and fleet numbers! I walked all around - nothing!

Also interesting,  was the destination equipment. The side numeral display is panelled over, there is nothing on the rear, and the front is very odd. The traditional London via screen was being used to show only the destination (no route number), and the destination screen was set to yellow blank. The route number was shown on a hand written piece of paper in the window!

Regular correspondent Keith Woodl writes "Just got back from Rugby - lots to tell

Olympian P534 HMP was in the depot this morning. It's in new livery, single door, but with on other markings.

Also in the depot were coaches 498 FYB and WSU 293 (ex N41 MJO). Both in white with no markings.

Also visiting (presumably for mechanical work) were Merc 346 and B10M 246.

Talking of Mercs the Rugby allocation is now 353-360. 364 wasn't there so must have gone as reported - strange choice - must be something to do with it's dual purpose seats.

Leyland National war horses 706 (on the X40) 722 (on the 4 in place of  B6LE 456 !) 710 and 772 were all out and in service today. What a fine sight and noise they make !

I am grateful to Basil who writes "herewith some pictures of NOE606R in Clifton Road, Rugby this morning after working the No.88 service 0902 West Haddon-Rugby.

PS - Have you seen (and photographed) ex Rugby National XOV753T which is now used, I beleive, by Stagecoach Oxford as a driver trainer? Be nice to see a  picture of it in it's new role if you can get one. (Happy to obligebut apologies for the quality - camera probs see above. Ed.)

Stagecoach in Oxford

Olympian 524 has been converted to single door and is seen at Oxford's Rail Station.
It is now based at Chipping Norton, replaced at Witney by 514.
They have made a very excellent job of the conversion.

Neil Gow sent this picture of L159LBW, see his letter below.

s the setting for M A N 915 one of the early repaints into the new livery.
933 is just back and 934 has just gone to Bedford for repaint.

Neil Gow wrote "Here's one you might like. It's former Oxford Tube L159 LBW, reunited with its original registration following displacement from the Oxford - Cambridge service. The location is Kettering on 29th December, where it was running on a local service to Northampton despite still being branded for the X5. You can just make out the card with the route number in the bottom right windscreen.

I'd been to Corby gricing Titans and timed my arrival back in Kettering to perfection after seeing it heading for Northampton on my journey out."

Several items of unconfirmed news have been received this week from various correspondents. One writes "Dave Stewart of LOTS on the Stagecoach Olympians. - VN340 has left London for single door conversion, removal of all scratched windows (London buses are treated very badly by school children) and repaint. All the disposals are being done at several places but there is a backlog. VN339 is at present unlicensed waited for the above VN338 is still in use at Catford.  All are planned for Oxford.  They are short Olympians - sufficient capacity for Brookes? They are however Highbridge - and cannot be used under the railway bridge, unless they want more open toppers for Lake District.

From Scotland comes "One of the two MANs which were surplus was still at Glenrothes last week and it seems may be destined for Oxford  I presume it was 279 still awaiting collection by Oxford"

Vehicles loaned to Stagecoach South for Rail replacement services during the SWT strike.

Andrew Dyer wrote "Five of we Stagecoach South East managers spent most of the weekend planning 35 vehicles' worth of extra rail replacement work across the SWT area - all operated with Stagecoach vehicles from around the UK. This was in addition to 45 coaches from various operators used for London Commuter runs.

The Oxford Tube vehicles were based at our Portsmouth depot and were operating (with others) an hourly frequency on the route between the following stations:-

Portsmouth Harbour-Portsmouth & Southsea-Havant-Petersfield-Liss-Liphook-Haslemere, where the buses connected with an onward train service to London.

South East has also taken a large batch of the ex-Warwickshire 709 Mercs. Most are at our Winchester depot for repaint before entering service at Aldershot and Andover. They replace a batch of 'K' reg'd narrow bodied 709s (K8xx ODY) which will be sold outside the group.

First out of the paintshop in new livery was L320YDU which was immediately pressed into rail replacement service for two days (driven by me on Monday morning!) on the hourly Lymington Pier-Lymington Town-Brockenhurst route.

Andy Gilmour wrote "Attached are 2 photo's taken on Sunday 6/1/02.

The first shows ex Midland Red (South) Mercedes 320, now Stagecoach (South) 810 at Winchester depot freshly repainted in new corporate livery. On 7 and 8/1/02 it is intended to use it on Brockenhurst to Lymington South West Trains strike service, then it should go to Aldershot for service.

The second shows Stagecoach East London PD95 at Hiltingbury on the 1200 service 66 from Winchester to Romsey. The bus had been in store at Basingstoke until 3/1/02 when it was collected and moved to Winchester as a temporary replacement for accident damaged 540. It entered service at Winchester on Sunday 6/1/02, when I had it for my entire shift. The ex Thames Transit grey livery with purple relief is visible where the London red paint is peeling. At least some makeshift destination blinds have been fitted - the number blind is the Barking depot blind 'botched' so that most Winchester depot numbers can be displayed (note the LT typeface)

Tappins and other news from Steve Annells inc Thames Travel.

Several bits - some of which you may already know of:

Tappins have agreed to sell their Station Road, Didcot garage - this was holding up the Didcot town centre redevelopment.

Thames Travel were recently reported in the Herald newspaper as having increased passenger traffic around Wallingford by 400 per cent.

A posting by Alex Hall on the British Buses Abroad in North America discussion group

( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/British-Buses-Abroad-in-North-America/message/2695 ) reports AUD463R (ex Oxford South Midland 463 etc) as being prepared for scrapping by Grayline in Newark New Jersey.

Lastly, I was recently passed a consultation document for my comments that Oxfordshire County Council have sent to Abingdon Town Council re subsidised bus services. Several services come up for review in July (Whites 6, 30, St Ox 33/44, Weavaway 49, plus 114 and 115), also listed were school contracts into Abingdon and area, which are as follows:

1101 Berinsfield-Larkmead - requires a 53 seater, currently Heyfordian
1102 Berinsfield-Lm - 53, Pearces
1103 Berinsfield-Lm/John Mason - 53, Pearces
1104 Drayton St Leonard-Lm/Fitzharrys - 53, Pearces
1105 Drayton St Leonard-JM - 53, School Bus Co
1106 Drayton-JM - 53, Tappins
1107 Milton-JM - 53, Tappins
1108 Sutton Courtenay-Lm/Abingdon College/Fh - 72, Heyfordian
1109 Pipaway Engineering (on the Drayton-Milton Road!)-JM - 53, Tappins
1111 Milton Hill-Lm/JM - 53, Heyfordian
1112 Marcham-Lm - 53, School Bus Co
1113 Frilford Heath-Lm/JM/Fh - 53, School Bus Co
1114 Radley-Jm/Fh/Abingdon School - 53, Worths, pm journey sublet to Heyfordian
1115 Henwood/Dry Sandford-Lm/JM/Fh - 53, Jeffs
1116 Kennington-Fh/JM/Lm - 25, Luxicars
1150 Dorchester/Drayton-St Edmunds - 4, Toots Taxis
1152 Garford/Frilford-Marcham - 8, Abingdon Minicoaches
1153 South Hinksey-St Ed 25, Luxicars
1155 Wootton/Dalton Barracks- St Ed 16, Abingdon Minicoaches
1156 Kingston Bagpuize-St Ed - 12, Abingdon Minicoaches

I've left out most of the intermediate points; St Edmunds is the Roman Catholic Primary School.
Drayton = Drayton near Abingdon unless I've noted it as Drayton St Leonard. Thus the Toots Taxis run is Dorchester-Drayton near Abingdon.
The Tappins depot in question is the Station Road one - where the open toppers are stabled.
Although the main depot is at Southmead Park, there's no under cover storage for open toppers, so one wonders what they'll do with them. Station Road is also used as a booking office and interchange for tours and excursions, so they'll have to change things round a bit.

Thanks to Steve for an interesting insight into various items.

PHOTO CORNER
If you have a digital camera and wish to submit photos for this page please send them to the me at 
malcolmhc@aol.com

you will remember this picture from a few weeks ago.
Little did I realise what an interesting coach this was.

Nathan Gordon of Crowthorne in Berks wrote to say "the picture is of the ONLY UTIC-AEC that was imported to Britain and it was new as GHP994L to Westbourne Tours in 1973."

Thanks Nathan, only 14 years old but an excellent source of information on this matter. I used to work for TAP Air Portugal and had many trips in Portugal on UTIC-AECs. Happy days!!

I welcome your photos for inclusion on this page.
malcolmhc@aol.com

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