I have been going through some old style photos over the last few days and transferring them to the computer. One of the ones I found was this which I took in, I think, about 1999 on Brixham Bank Lane. It is a Volvo B6 which carried 50 passengers, 20 of them standing. They were moved to Exeter by the previous Managing Director who had come under some pressure to provide bigger buses on one of the routes there. They were still there last time I went to Exeter but that was over a year ago now. We, the drivers were not best pleased when they went as we got some old bangers to replace them, double deckers though, which could carry 90 passengers.The present Managing Director, Mr Chris Hilditch who arrived in late 2002 didn't hold out much hope that we would get new buses any time before the next millenium. He did manage to persuade head office in Perth that we, the drivers not to mention the passengers could do with some new low floor buses on the 12 route, and the Tridents we are presently using arrived in March 2004. Still not sure if these Tridents are going to be replaced yet, after all they have only done 150 000 miles so far. We will just have to wait and see.
One little foot note, on the bus shelter there are some white screens to provide some shelter from the wind and rain. They were removed some time ago, (not by me!). I had forgotten about them.
7 comments:
150,000 miles! That's nothing. When I was with Arriva we had some old double decks from London transferred to us. They had 500,000 to 700,000 miles on them. Right old bangers they were!
I passed two coaches of protesters in London on Saturday, they had big "No to Trident" banners in the windows. Never knew the people of Torquay took their buses that seriously.
We do. We do. We love our buses.
That bus can't be a Volvo.
Where's the knitted cushion covers?
I thought those were Alexander / MAN. Cant tell the difference... unless the Volvo engined ones are shorter?
Dave, I posted a couple of weeks ago on here, your Tridents are being transferred to Exeter, and Torquay are having new 'Enviro 400' deckers for the 12's, it is a joint venture between Stagecoach and Torbay Council, and it is currently going through the approval and order stage, should be on the road in a few months of all goes to plan, do a search on the internet for Enviro 400, and you will see them, they look quite wacky, your MX55 registered Tridents that came from Manchester were replaced by Enviros, enjoy! :-)
Just so long as the securiety screens aren't fixed.
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