The page for enthusiasts in the Oxford Chilterns Area - News from you and news for you - pictures too  ~~~~   The page for enthusiasts in the Oxford Chilterns Area - News from you and news for you - pictures too  ~~~~   The page for enthusiasts in the Oxford Chilterns Area - News from you and news for you - pictures too  

Issue 201
(OBP-415)
Sunday 5th November 2006
next update week ending 18th November 2006

Visit the "OXFORD & CHILTERN BUS PAGE " Archives from October 2002

Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002

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.

If you wish to be included on a mailing list where I will advise of any mid-week news please let me know
malcolmhc@aol.com

To see the pictures full size just click on the small one

Remember, remember the 5th of November - gunpowder , treason and plot or so the saying goes. Let us hope that this year can "go off" without the usual tragedies which seem to happen each year these days.

I must thank all those who wrote sending congratulations on last week's page, nr 200. Your thought were much appreciated and from the number of messages received it really does make it all worthwhile.

Osler Road bus link to J R Hospital opens

This last week saw the opening of the "bus road" from Osler Road, Headington to the John Racliffe Hospital, reducing journey times on route 10 by quite a significant amount. As one can see from the Stagecoach map reproduced below the new route avoids Headley Way which due to the often high levels of traffic on this and Headington Road, can cause quite some delays to the service as it was before the new route.

Gavin Francis was out and about with his camera and sent some interesting pictures of the new routing.

On the new road with 33651 2nd November 2006. Gavin Francis.

Dart 33654 is seen heading along Osler Road with the autumnal trees making a nice backdrop. Gavin Francis 2nd November

Simon Mathieson sent this picture of a bus leaving the JR heading towards Osler Road.

The detail of where the new bus road emerges at the JR. Simon Matheson.

I understand that Oxford Bus have gained a nice award at this year's Bus & Coach Awards, gaining the Award for Social Responsibility with their star rating system for clean air buses. Full details will be given next week but we must congratulate the company on this achievement.

A recently refurbished Volvo B10B showing the star rating system used on the Oxford Bus fleet.

Cycling in Queen Street, Oxford

Following last week's article on cycling in Queen Street one or two readers expressed their concern that this page should tackle this subject as they did not feel it was relevant to the main aims of the page,

I take those points on board and will try to minimise comments on cycling and apologise if anyone else felt slighted by my comments. I have to agree that many types of road users are guilty of ignoring the rules and cyclists should not be singled out for criticism.

I do however feel that the page should reflect problems of such a nature as to affect traffic on our roads when buses and coaches may be involved.

I suggest we let the matter rest there.

Milton Keynes and some comments by Matt Cooper & Robin Clare

Following the recent items on Milton Keynes, Matt Cooper wrote saying "Congratulations on reaching another landmark edition of the web page, no mean feat and what is a significant archive of bus & coach events from the area.

I have now left MK Metro's Northampton sub-depot and as of 1st September 2006 joined Stagecoach East as Northampton's assistant operations manager, a role which so far has been a great challenge.  I have been placed on certain 'modules' of the graduate training scheme and next week am down in Exeter on an 'outward bound' team building exercise!

To answer some of the MK queries, the 'Northampton Depot' allocation of vehicles (which includes branded Solo 24) return to MK for routine repairs and servicing, and depending on vehicle availability can be put out to service in MK, usually being swapped back during the day.  Thus the same applies in Northampton where MK vehicles can be seen operating.  MB Vario 610 (T692 LNV) was part of the Community Transport fleet and now operates as a spare vehicle, having been re-seated to B28F and although the wheelchair doors are still fitted they are for use as an emergency exit and all ramps have been removed.  This Monday sees the end of Z & S operation on service 33 (MK-Hanslope-Northampton) as this passes to MK Metro.

I'll be in touch again soon, with some recent photos hopefully!  I also try to update my Fotopic site as and when I get the chance, http://www.matt-cooper@fotopic.net

Keep up the good work, all the best"

Robin Clare writes "Thanks to one of our senior engineers, I am able to give you details of the planned repaint programme for the rest of the year. 

Firstly, it can be said that that there is currently no plan to repaint any M K Metro vehicles into Arriva livery. I cannot at this stage confirm whether Arriva style numbers will be applied - apparently there are official lists in circulation giving new numbers, but none have been applied yet. 

The Green Travel subsidiary is to cease as an operational unit from November 5th, all work being transferred to M K Metro. The first repaint out of GT livery, Vario 124, has already been outshopped. The others ( 107/8/30/1,426) will follow in due course. It is not known whether the OL will be surrendered. 

57 (Dart) and 59,60,61 (VDL/Wright) are to be repainted from blue/orange to yellow/blue. 80 (Scania) is to be repainted from yellow to orange/blue. 58 has had on o/a applied to sides and rear. 

216 (Volvo Citybus) is to have centre doors removed. 

New schedules effective 5th November reflect considerable tender gains in Beds, Bucks and Northants. MKM are taking on the 33 (MK - Northampton), part 32, currently Jeffs Coaches. Z & S will work MK - Buckingham, MKM will work Buckingham Town Service and local workings on 32 (Tingewick, Chetwode, Finmere). Frequency increase on 1B, MK - Northampton, and 1's to Lavendon extended to Bedford to replace 29. 

Persistent rumours that town services 4 & 23 (PVR 13) are to be double decked - all six existing D/D's are committed to school contracts.

Latest acquisitions are J31 SFA & J34 SFA, Leyland Swifts previously owned by Stevensons (Arriva Midlands North) Nos.1931/4. They are currently B39F, and still in Arriva colours. 

Vario 124 and Cadet 59 are both now in yellow / blue, but neither has fleet names applied (Arriva serving Milton Keynes ?). Citybus 216 is at Garston for removal of centre doors, and 60 for repaint into yellow. 

Still no Arriva fleet numbers have been applied, not even to fuel filler area."

Progress at Redbridge

I mentioned some weeks ago about the impending completion of the new Park & ride terminal facilities at Redbridge. The pictures below were taken on Saturday and show the current state of play.

Those Routemasters which live on Cowley Road

Following some notes that one or more of the Routemasters, which are kept at the Regal Bongo Hall car park on the Cowley Road, were for sale I had a note from Ray Lunney to say "I thought you may be interested to know that RM 191 has a new home with Nippy Bus ltd in Yeovil Somerset, it is about to get some work done to bring it up to this companies standards and will receive a paint job interior refurb and some other cosmetic work it is planned for this bus to be available for hires etc in march 2007, the vehicle is about to be moved to the new Nippy Bus depot which is currently being built in Martock, Somerset. I hope this is of interest to you and any further info I can provide please email me."

Thank you to all those who been with me since day 1 and to those who have contributed each week to help make this page so special.

Malcolm Crowe - Sunday 5th November 2006

Steve Warwick has sent a current fleet list which is much appreciated.

Steve says that "Volvo B6 L409 GPY it is on loan at Wycombe from Bicester to replace the 33 seater MAN (L26 CAY) as a small bus is needed for our Cadmore End - Marlow school run. (i.e. narrow lanes)."

Chris Lowe writes "Just a quick note to say keep up the good work with the O&CBP, although I haven't contributed anything of relevance for a while it is still very interesting reading for myself. 

One thing however, in this latest page (edition 200) there is an error. Heyfordian's latest acquisition is actually a rareish Plaxton Pointer bodied Volvo B6 and isn't a Dennis Dart as stated. We have a number of vehicles similar to this including some from the same batch involved in the bus war in Manchester between Stagecoach Manchester and GM Buses (aka UK North). I have attached a picture of L412 GPY another from the same batch as mentioned and shown here on the 192 service in Manchester.

One way of spotting this difference in the chassis is the rear window line on each side, whereby the last two windows on each side are not to the same depth of the others. This shows it as a Volvo B6 where a Dennis Dart has equal depth windows all the way along the side, but has the lower part of the window masked out rather than being part of the surrounding panels."

Many thanks to Chris for that correction. I should have known better.

Two recent repaints returned to service are Volvo B10BLE 810, also fully refurbished and Dart 402 now in the latest livery. I understand the Darts are being repainted at Oxford.

Just back from refurbishment, 810 looks immaculate when seen here loading in Queen Street last week.
Picture by Gavin Francis.

Ben Morroll sent a number of pictures of buses recently sold to Diamond Bus in Birmingham.

   
On the first occasion that Ben saw ex 412 its destination equipment was working. The picture was taken in Redditch.
Later Ben caught the same bus on route 40 but lacking any working destination equipment.
Shades of Arriva with the paper sticker in the window.

This picture of ex 603 was taken in Shrewsbury Bus Station on service 436 which goes to Bridgnorth.
Ben says this is one of the further "flung" routes on the Diamond Bus network.
Also I have memories of Bridgnorth doing my RAF service and square bashing at RAF Bridgnorth.
Those were the days when Whittles ran Leyland Tiger Cubs with Burlingham bodies on the weekend leave services.

A few more from my camera and sadly no one has yet managed a picture of Dart 402 in its new livery and I expect 403 is being done as we speak!

405 is seen in the late autumn sunshine coming up Park End Street in the 13. This bus is expected to join the Diamond Bus fleet shortly.

A Citaro, 837 was on the 400 on Saturday as was a red Trident 103, seen above following 111.

Gavin Francis caught Volvo 71 working an X90 service last Thursday lunchtime.

Russell Young sent this picture of an ex Oxford Dart now working as a training bus with Metrobus.

The School Bus Company

We don't get very many pictures of buses from this company but this week we have two.

Seen at Green road last week, this Tiger complete with name ands type badges looks rather nice.

Gavin Francis sent this picture of a Volvo which was with Chiltern Queens and still retains their livery.

.....and from Ed Maun "Mention of Houses Buses, Surmans Coaches and Wingroves Coaches in issue 200 brought the memories flooding back.   

I remember Surmans well as I had relations in Chinnor and Henton.    Every other Saturday in the 1940’s and early 1950’s I, along with my mother and brother caught the COMS 80 service from Stokenchurch to Chinnor and then walked the two miles to Henton to visit my great grandmother and uncle on one of the Henton farms.   Surmans had two garages in Chinnor, one in Station Road which was diagonally opposite the current roadway into the Wellington House medical practice and is still discernable today as a motor repair business.    The other was a larger site in Oakley Road which has been totally redeveloped and today is the home of Claremont Automatics (suppliers of pub gaming machines).  The livery was a dark maroon/red with cream relief and black mudguards.     They had a liking for half cab Maudsley Marathons with Burlingham bodies but also had the inevitable Bedford OBs and I believe early SBs.    I have fond memories of these machines on summer outings to the seaside.    There was another coach operator in Chinnor which parked at the side of the Crown pub on the opposite crossroads corner to the old Chinnor schools.   I remember two normal control coaches (either Austins or Bedfords) – the operator’s name may have been Gomme.   

Wingroves were based (I think) in Hazlemere with cream or white livery relieved by black.    At some stage they merged with Surmans and I think the Wingroves base was redeveloped for housing.    Houses base in Watlington was in Couching Street and was adjacent to the COMS garage.    The COMS garage was accessed to the side of the petrol station that still exists today.  Both these sites have long since been redeveloped for housing.    The main livery was orange and maroon but poor light could make the maroon look very dark!    I am sure I have seen some vehicles with an amount of black relief.    Houses had a number of Bedford OBs with both bus and coach bodies.    They also had Commer Avengers; the regular driver of one of these was Brian Bird who lived in Stokenchurch and had previously driven for COMS.    Again, I have fond memories of these machines on summer outings to the seaside.    Houses tried to sell the business many years back (I remember it being advertised in Commercial Motor at the time), but there were no takers, so they closed the business down and sold off the vehicles – although I believe the House family held onto one vehicle.    This may have been a pre-war Bedford WTB – I wonder if this still exists?  

Another local coach operator at this time was Pilot Coaches of High Wycombe whose base was in the West Wycombe Road about half way between Desborough Avenue and Plomer Hill and is still in existence as a car show room, although the parking area to the side of the garage has been redeveloped as factory units.   I well remember Pilot taking delivery in about 1951 of one of the first underfloor-engined coaches in the area in the shape of a Leyland Royal Tiger which became their flagship vehicle.   

Another operator in High Wycombe was Jeffways Coaches which parked a couple of vehicles at the rear of The Van pub in Oxford Road – this would have been about where Blockbusters is today.  

In later years Jeffways and Pilot merged and moved to a base on the Cressex estate.

As Editor, I never cease to be amazed at the amount of information which is out there just waiting for someone to pull the memory strings. Thank you both very much.

Now all we need are some pictures???

I received a nice e-mail from Edward Neal, a part-time driver for Redline, who remembers buses around Whaddon. Edward says "I have been driving this very old established route over the last few weeks for Redline and it is about to be cut back to Whaddon.

I rode it in the late 40s as a boy when you could go from Bletchley to Buckingham on a Tuesday (United Counties) but could not return until the following Tuesday !? - it was the village bus to Bletchley.

Does anyone know when it first ran ?   I believe Stony Stratford depot provided the Bus and it probably did a village to Buckingham Schools journey before doing this route.  I am pretty sure that there have been no gaps when the bus did not run so it is the end of an era for this Country Bus Route.   

The Route was:- Buckingham - Thornborough - Nash - Whaddon - Shenley Brook End - Old Bletchley Trees Square - Bletchley Town Centre - Fenny Stratford George Street - I seem to remember ??

I hope someone has some answers for Edward???

Visit the "OXFORD BUS PAGE" Archive 1998 - 2002

Mike Penn's photo page with much from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire as well as Buckinghamshire

Chris Lowe's Photo page - mainly North West UK

The Oxford Bus Museum