Smaller companies

The smaller companies represent a most interesting part of operations in our area and this page gives the opportunity to fully represent happenings in this sector of the market.

Julian Wells has been promising some better pictures of Grayline's ex Oxford tube double deck coach and here it is.

 
Once coach 57 with the tube it is now MJI1678 with Grayline and looks very smart indeed.

In addition Richard Sharman provided a picture of a recently acquired service bus.

Grayline with a newer bus to operate Bicester Town Service 21 MX61BCO last with Hanson Stourbridge
seen on March 25th by Richard Sharman. Of interest is the close proximity of the registration to the two Red Rose E200s mentioned below!

Kidlington Assisted Transport

Route B1 is being reintroduced between Banbury and Easington. This was dropped by Go Ride in January and appears to be the first venture into scheduled service for KAT.

Bob Morley of the Newbury & District Transport Group has provided some interesting pictures of Reading Buses somewhat away from their normal haunts.

Picture 1 shows: 

Reading Buses Claret “Spritzer” liveried Scania Omnidecker 808 making a very rare visit to Newbury on a Jet Black service route learning run on Wednesday, April 5.

Picture 2 

Another Jet Black route learning run to Newbury  but this time the bus is a Scania demonstrator 777 on loan to Reading Buses on Thursday, March 16.
By April this bus had moved to Borders Buses as seen in a picture under General observations

Picture 3

A day out for Reading Buses Emerald 768 on Jet Black route learning duties seen Reading bound in Kiln Road, Newbury on Tuesday, April 18.

Many thanks to Bob for those very interesting pictures. I must go over to Reading as there seems to be a lot going on!

V262BNV, a single decker on the 321 in Wycombe Bus Station on April 7th by Malcolm Crowe.
This bus is freshly out-shopped in Kahn Red.

Nick Cherry writes "One thing I will point out if you haven't already noticed is it's been re-painted into our new standard livery which is khan red (same as mine) and a brighter yellow!! It's hard to notice if you don't look for it.

OU07 FKH

OU07 FKJ

OU08 EHP

All the above have been re panelled and sprayed in that colour scheme so far but sadly all have been damaged one way or another since the resprays (only been done a month maximum)

KX09 ACU - now sports my livery the 25th anniversary and is on route 37 in MK!!

I will try and photograph these in due course and it should be easier now the evenings are lighter.

All pictures by Nick Cherry.

Red Rose have re-registered two 64 plate buses one of which is E3RRT and was MX61BAU

The other was MX61BAO and is now E2RRT.

Nick enjoyed a day with this elderly Dart Y359LCK seen here in Oxford on a 275 working on April 10th.
This is an East Lancs Spryte bodied Dart new to the company in 2001 with L358LCK. It has carried several versions of the Red Rose livery.

X513UAT seen on March 18. This was new to London United as their DP513 in November 2000.

X523UAT seen on March 25th. This was new to London United as their DP523 in November 2000.

Y158NLK in the yard on March 28th. This was new to Metroline in London as their DLD180

An ex Whippet ADL Trident, V190OOE new to London United as VA74. This bus was based at Hounslow and would have worked the 81 to Slough.
Although at the Red Rose depot , a sister V185OOE is to be seen in Wycombe regularly with Red Line. There appears some link between these Aylesbury companies.

Your Editor took a trip out on March 30th and a shot of Red Rose in operation at Chesham is seen hereunder.

50522 Y829TGH in Chesham Square on March 30th by Malcolm Crowe.

Quite a bit to follow on Red Rose in the next issue with a number of interesting developments.

A nicely framed picture of YP14HCF, a regular on the 853 service to Cheltenham and here in Oxford on April 21st by Gavin Francis.

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