Outrageous

I've never had any problems photographing in London's Victoria Coach Station, moreover I've found it one of the most relaxed spots for coach photography. One such chap was not so lucky. Click here to read a very sorry tale as uploaded to the Mayor of London's blog.

Not the Norm!

I stood waiting for the new X1 service from home into Grimsby bus station this afternoon. It was due to have left Cleethorpes town centre at 1.10pm and my stop is only a couple of minutes after that. It was 1.30pm when it arrived - 20 mins late. The reason? Well there were three actually:

The vehicle was 25809 - a 1983 Leyland Tiger in RoadCar livery! Not the relatively newer Plaxton Paladin-bodied Volvo B10M bus that is now the norm on this route! The driver couldn't work the RoadCar red Almex ticket machine when a passenger asked for a seemingly normal Fiveways to Keelby single fare and there were 5 steps from the pavement onto the main aisle.

The interior was very comfortable but at the expense of leg room. Because the new X1 service is run using RoadCar ticket machines (there aren't enough Stagecoach standard ERG ones knocking about), should one of the normal vehicles be off-the-road only RoadCar vehicles with RoadCar ticket machines can be used as a spare. There are much better examples within the former RoadCar fleet in Grimsby that could have been used - Optare Deltas on a DAF chassis have only 3 steps into the saloon though travel a lot slower on the A15 dual carriageway to Hull.

The photo above is of sister vehicle 25811 (although a year younger), taken in Grantham bus station a few years ago.

War Bomber marks 50th Anniversary

One of the world's last surviving Lancaster bombers has taken to the skies to mark 50 years of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The aircraft, taking part in a flypast at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, is one of only two airworthy Lancasters. More than 7,000 Lancasters were built during the 1940s and played a major part during World War II.

Veterans from Bomber Command are at the rededication of the plane, which has been restored in Coventry. One of the pilots, Gp Capt Stuart Atha, said it was a privilege to fly the Lancaster.
"You can read about things, you can watch films but here you can smell, you can hear and you can see it. And we get the opportunity to feel it as well. "When we fly this aircraft, we very much remember what the guys who sat in the very same seats that we're sitting in went through." The only other flying Lancaster is in Canada.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is an historic collection of aircraft that commemorate the RAF's involvement in all the campaigns of WWII. It includes the Lancaster, a Dakota, five Spitfires, two Hurricanes and two Chipmunks.

North Weald Rally - 1 July 2007

Luckily my job allows me to know exactly what days I'll have off as far in the future as I dare plan - not bad for someone who works in the transport industry with weekends and nights away to contend with!

I'm catching a show with a friend from work on Saturday 30 June in London's West End. Living in Grimsby, it's a 3 hour train ride to the Capital. The following day is the North Weald Rally on the North Weald Airfield near Epping so I've managed to tie it all in very cleverly!

Travel from Grimsby to London Saturday 30 June, evening performance then overnight in a University College Hospital campus room (they're open to the public at this time of year) followed by the 200 bus rally in Epping the following day and then the train journey home.

Better still I'm travelling first class to London from Cleethorpes. It will be a weekend when I travel (south on Sat, north on Sun) and uncontrollable, screaming kids will be in abundance so first class will be a welcome relief - plus I'll take full advantage of the complimentary refreshments on board. The cost £28.95 each way! Unbelievable! http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ flagged these fares (a "GNER 1st Advance4") as being £32.50 each yet buying them from the GNER website direct meant a further reduction. Well done them!

The UCH campus is one block off Oxford Street in London and will cost an amazing £32.50 for a night's sleep plus breakfast the next morning. I've got my Oyster card and have been on the TfL website for a journey plan to the airfield from central London and all seems well.Can't wait to go!

EYMS Territory

I'd been planning to visit the area of operation that East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS) are to be found; unsurprisingly East Yorkshire is the place, oh and the City of Hull. EYMS are the largest independant operator in the LEYTR's remit - one of only three ex NBC companies to be run as a limited company with no shareholders or listed on the Stock Exchange. For the record, Ambassador Travel of Great Yarmouth and the Welglade Group based in Derbyshire (trent barton & Kinch Bus) are the other surviving companies.

The Chairman and Chief Executive of EYMS is a chap called Peter Shipp, who is something of an enthusiast; this is always pleasing to know, though the extent to which a Chief Exec's enthusiasm for the industry when balanced with the day-to-day running of his business and the profitability of his firm is, in my personal experience, often grossly exaggerated. That said Peter Shipp regularly provides fleet information to the LEYTR for his company, signing the letters personally - he even wrote in once with a letter we published for him.

In order to maintain a balance of news in the LEYTR we've decided to include a colour centre spread of the next magazine all showing EYMS vehicles. There has been much news coverage in the mag of late specifically regarding the former RoadCar company and their new owner Stagecoach (see the last blog entry). I do feel that EYMS does get left out somewhat: we report everything given to us but south of the Humber, in Lincolnshire, Stagecoach are making sweeping changes to the RoadCar business, many for the better, and changing the face of what was the proud Lincolnshire Road Car Company Limited forever with their corporate colours, state-of-the-art new low floor vehicles (Enviro 400s for example) and the vast majority of the LEYTR membership either lives in or has lived in Lincolnshire and so has a natural interest in this country rather than East Yorkshire.

A Wright Eclipse Gemini-bodied Volvo B7TL seen in Bridlington bus station.

I drove from home to Barton-on-Humber for 0730 where I met Richard, who'd driven from Sinfin near Derby at 5am! Commitment indeed, and I drove for the rest of the day. The plan was to snap as many shots of EYMS vehicles in unusual locations. What this effectively means is "not Hull" as pretty much all photos of EYMS vehicles you see on the Web are taken in/around Hull. Because we are the LEYTR and because EYMS are loyal members of our magazine and contribute on every single occasion, we owed it to the Company to make a really good job and not to just stand on a street corner in Hull for an hour as a cop-out.

The toll to cross the Humber Bridge is now £2.70. This, whilst sounding rather expensive, has risen very marginally over the years, you'll note the toll booths are on the Yorkshire side of the river! We drove to Beverley and took a plethora of photos stood opposite the bus station there from between 0800 - 0930. Quite a few school journeys were operated, plus we managed to get some shots of Lord's Coaches of Hull, Dunn-Line and Ellie Rose. The Beverley depot is effectively a lock-up just outside the town centre, surrounded by mesh wire.

The Grimsby Dock Tower, as seen from Spurn Point, East Yorkshire, where we visited at the end of our day.

From here we drove up the A164 to Driffield where another EYMS depot is to be found, this time on the main street in the small market town. It looked a proper depot but in miniature fashion, still displaying its NBC-style "East Yorkshire" font in huge letters above the main doors. The blue sky all day was magnificent but did mean that we had sunshine for 100% of the time, which also meant we had shadows 100% of the time! Rather than all shots being great, some were absolutely amazing, others not very good at all thanks to the contrasting light.

Now to Bridlington where we spent a good hour photographing in the bus station. EYMS were one of the first companies to operate the Enterprise Plasma/Plaxton Prima midi-bus. It looks truly awful, with the emergency exit in the centre of the vehicle and absolutely no rear overhang. 3 vehicles of the half-dozen batch operate in Brid, the other 3 in Hull, so obviously the Brid ones would have been photographed far fewer times. Only 2 were in operation today (498/499) and we managed to get some great shots with the blue sky.

We then drove down the Flamborough Coast, where the North Sea is eroding the soft boulder clay coastline (I have A Level Geology, sorry!) at around 12 meters a year in some areas, to Hornsea. The depot is also the bus station here, but an amazing 2 miles outside the town centre! A cracking crescent shape outside the garage doors! Again the ex-NBC "East Yorkshire" lettering was visible on the brickwork and the enquiry office - still open - seemed unaltered from the 1960s inside! The best 8 photos of the day (pooled from those I took and Richard) will be used in the next LEYTR, all the others will be uploaded to the LEYTR website by Peter. We therefore took loads and loads, all slightly different to ensure at least some would be very usable indeed.

Now to Withernsea where there is no bus station in the town, buses pick-up from the main roads. We did manage to find the depot though, 12-14 Bannister Street, which was just round the corner from the main streets, Richard first spotting it as vine leaves covering the very familiar repeated peaked depot roof shape could be seen between the houses in front. As with Driffield this depot was a perfectly maintained and well-used miniature of what you'd consider a normal depot elsewhere.

Easington was the last place we were going to visit today. Only 4 vehicles are based here, the company losing some school runs to Veolia (Dunn-Line) based in Hull, recently. Back Street was the address and after much searching we found a fairly large yard with a small shed in the corner, capable of housing half a dozen buses. There was no evidence it was owned by EYMS but from driving round the back we found a Bristol VR (fleet number 519) with quite a few windows missing and two Transit vans, both damaged beyond repair. There was also a for sale board on the brickwork. Quite obviously with only 4 vehicles based here now, Easington was more an outstation than an individual depot now, and now the company was planning to sell the land and, presumably re-house the 4 vehicles in a much smaller place, or perhaps move them all to nearby Withernsea depot?

I also drove Richard to Spurn Point - coming from the midlands he doesn't get to see the sea very much, and despite the £3 fee to drive to the disused lighthouse at the end of the spit of land, allowed some cracking shots across the Humber to the South Bank and the Dock Tower in Grimsby. (GL)

Enviro 400 Launch, Lincoln

Rather ominous is today's date: Friday the thirteenth of April. Yet it was chosen as the official launch date of Stagecoach in Lincolnshire's 7 ADL Tridents with ADL Enviro 400 bodies. Fleet & registration numbers are as follows: 19121-7 (FX07 CLV/Y/Z & FX07 CME/F/K/O), all are H47/29F.


Paul and I cought Stagecoach in Lincolnshire's Connect 3 from Grimsby bus station at 0857. This is a Lincoln depot working and was Volvo B7TL/East Lancs Myllennium, 16909 (FX53 TXC). Upon arrival in Lincoln we let the first Enviro we saw go in order for me to photograph it while exiting the bus station. This was 19122. We planned to catch the next departure at 1105 to Grantham.



The Lincoln - Grantham route was initially a double-decker operated service, numbered 601 and latterly titled the "KestevenLink". In 2002 the service was altered to Connect 1 under the umbrella of Lincolnshire County Council's flagship InterConnect Network and saw its frequency double to every half-hour. A new batch of buses were purchased specifically for the route, MAN/East Lancs Myllennium single deckers - 821-6 (FY52 PLX/Z & FY52 PMO/U/V/X), all have dual purpose seating and through 2005/6 were steadily removed from the route due to reliability problems. Now numbered 39601-6 respectively, as part of the Stagecoach fleet, they are confined to Lincoln city and suburban services.

The Connect 1 boasts an increase in ridership of over 70% since the frequency was doubled, and over 11,000 people use the service each week. Impressive figures, so impressive the route warranted an increase in vehicle size.

19121 was our first vehicle, fresh from the depot, forming the 1105 departure. We're pretty sure it replaced 16919 (B7/Myllennium) that had been operating on there hitherto. We travelled all the way to Grantham and got off at 1225. Next was 19127 on the 1305 departure; this vehicle is classed as the spare and consequently has no branding for the route. We alighted in the small village of Caythorpe at 1336, or rather theoretically we should have! This journey was 15 mins late so we missed the shot needed of a southbound vehicle (19124) with the impressive village church in the background. This meant hanging around here for 30 mins. The wait was well worth it as the next southbound vehicle, 19122, was snapped looking resplendent with the church behind it; a cracking shot!


Next was 19125 on the 1436 service to Lincoln; we alighted at the even smaller village of Welbourn, specifically for me to recreate a shot our LEYTR Treasurer, Richard Belton, had captured 4 years earlier, of one of the then new MANs rejoining the main road (A607) from the village. Walking from the bus stop at 1446 to the main road took no time at all and I ended up photographing 19121 here (the first bus we'd caught). Back to the bus stop for the next service north, formed by 19124 at 1516. This vehicle had been present at the recent bus rally at the Road Transport Museum in Lincoln the Sunday before so I'd photographed it numerous times.
We got off in the large(ish) village of Navenby at 1524, though were running a few minutes late, meaning that no sooner had I got off and photographed it, the southbound service at 1533 arrived in the form of 19123 - hitherto photographed as it had taken part in the official launch a few hours earlier. 16920 had been operating the Connect 1 up to the 1505 departure from Lincoln, meaning now a full set of 6 Enviros were operating the route.

After a quick photo opportunity at Hodsons Coaches in the village, we caught the 1554 Connect 1 into Lincoln for 1625, working was 19122, the first vehicle I'd photographed this morning. This meant I'd photographed all by 19126 today (apparently it had suffered a mechanical problem the day before) and ridden on all except 19123 & 19126. They're on my 'outstanding' list!
We caught the 1650 Connect 3 back to Grimsby. Worked by a Grimsby depot driver, we ran late throughout. The vehicle was 16908 (FX53 TXB), another Volvo B7TL/East Lancs Myllennium decker. The 1921 arrival was a shade optomistic, as we arrived in Grimsby at 1930.

LVVS Easter Rally

Went to a Bus Rally today in Lincoln. Based at the Lincolnshire Road Transport Museum in Whisby, the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society offer two running days a year - Easter Sunday and the first Sunday in November. Normally I managed to go to one rally a year depending on my Sundays off work, but this Easter Sunday rally seemed very under-patronised indeed. Apparently there was another event happening somewhere in the country hence the low turn out. Parking is limited at the Museum so arrangements are made to park at the Moorland Centre on Tritton Road in the city and a free shuttle bus service to/from the Museum operates every 15 minutes throughout the day using vintage buses.

I caught the 12noon bus to the Museum and had to laugh at the ignorance of two elderly Yorkshire couples on board the bus, They thought they were travelling on a Bristol VR - and then went on to say what VR stands for - when they were in fact travelling on a Bristol Lodekka - whose engine was at the total opposite end of the bus and was about 20yrs older!

The LEYTR Treasurer Richard Belton, my co-editor Peter and member Richard Woodhead were all present and I hoped to meet a guy I'd been communicating with for 3 years, called Paul Macnamara. He's now one of the Commercial Managers for Stagecoach East Midlands. Rich pointed him out to me eventually and we had a chat about things. It was nice putting a face to the name.

As it's a Road Transport Museum there are vintage cars and vans there so it made a nice change to photograph them too. Quite a few visiting vehicles were present too - they'd brought people from away to visit and were parked up in an adjoining area. I met a guy who drives for Stagecoach called Steve, and was quite chatty and approachable. He brought a brand new bus that hadn't entered service yet - it forms a fleet of 7 new vehicles for route 1 (Lincoln - Grantham) that enter service on Friday 13th no less!! I had a look around it while it was parked up and it seemed nice and spacious inside, though the comfort of the seats over the rear axle and beyond was poor.

The dashboard looked not dissimilar to that of a 1973 Daimler Fleetline I've driven in that it was suspended from the front window ledge.

Best part of the day was the additions I made to my tie collection - 21 ties in total! Yes, the biggest ever recent haul I've made. Some amazingly rare examples of local operators I'd never, ever seen before. I went to hand over £38 for the first 19 only to find I had a grand total of £30 in my wallet so luckily Peter subbed me £20. I'll blog the additions in another post. Quite amazed I really was. The collection belonged to a guy called Sam who is the main painter of buses belonging to Stagecoach, and who was selling his tie collection in order to raise funds to help him restore a bus he'd recently bought that was new to Lincoln City Transport.

Later on, just before I was ready to catch the last bus away from the Museum, I noticed yet another one of his collection I'd not got so snapped that up - £40 in total! Rich gave me a tie for trent barton his mate had given him so this made my 21 tie acquisition. Humorously I got one of the very rare ties out of my bag and showed it to LEYTR Chairman Paul Hill, (also the former MD of RoadCar) and he didn't know it had ever existed! He was quite shocked to see such a garment and said he would be having words with his former Engineering Director about it!

The final plan was for us all to catch the last tour (5pm from the Museum) into the city and back to the Museum, where Steve would kindly drop Pete and I off at the Moorland Centre on the new Stagecoach Enviro bus on his way back to the depot - our own personal demonstration! Paul accompanied us and at the Moorland Centre only my car and Paul's were parked there. Paul took some official publicity photos of the vehicle to send to the Grantham Journal for an article they're running to help launch the route on Friday; Peter and I took exactly the same photos and plan to upload them to the Transport Review's website before they're printed in the Grantham Journal.

I offered to give Peter a lift to where he lives - Skegness - and after calling at the Turnor Arms in Wragby for a quick pint, we stopped at a place called The Fleece in Burgh le Marsh for some food. Surn 'n' Turf we both had - £8.95 each but steak and scampi are never the cheapest things on the menu. A really nice meal. I drove Peter home and then made the long journey home myself. (GL)

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