London Bus Museum 41st Spring Gathering

On the 13th of April 2014, London Bus Museum hosted the annual Spring Gathering, which was host to a variety of vehicles. The highlight for me was the display of one of the brand new Metrobus Fastway buses, which have since entered service. These are built to a high specification, including free wifi, leather headrests and audio and visual announcements. Another highlight for me was the display of London General E282, a brand new 10.9 metre Enviro 400, for the Commercial route 773 from Kingston to Brighton. They will also be used for Private Hire and event shuttles. Also present was YN03WRL, now with Southern Transit of Sussex. This was formerly with Metrobus, with the fleet number 539 and was used for Crawley FaStway and the X26. However loss of the X26 contract in 2012 to Quality Line resulted in this and other Omnicites were redeployed to the then recently acquired Anglian Bus. This was renumbered to 450 and allocated to several routes from the Beccles depot. There was also several others old and new buses present, and all in all, a nice mix of buses. Thanks for reading this post!

A day out Etc, 09/04/2014

Last Wednesday, I decided to meet up with a friend and go and have a ride on Buses Etc's route 479, from Guildford to Epsom. We met at Epsom, did some bus spotting there whilst we waited for the 293 to Epsom to pick up the 479. So we arrived in Epsom, and waited for the bus to arrive, which turned out to be S25 (formerly London General PVL175). Around 90 minutes later, we arrived in Guildford, and after having refuelled with a Sandwich and a cup of Tea in Pret, we boarded the 15:30 479 back to Epsom, which was S26 (formerly London Central PVL178). All was well until Bookham Station, where the bus was held due to a water leak. We had to wait 1 hour for another 479 to Epsom. In the meantime, J80 turned up and I throught this would be the replacement bus, however this was held here, as it had started overheating. Finally, at 17:00, S23 (formerly London General PVL195) turned up, and we boarded this to Epsom. At Epsom, we boarded a Scania Omnicity to Morden, where I went home. Overall a good day. Thanks for reading!

The New Bus for London

Back in October 2013 a new bus type in London entered service. This was the Volvo B5TL chassis with Wright Gemini 3 bodywork. This is a successor to the successful B9TL/Gemini 2. This went to London Central at Camberwell depot on route 12. More of these are being manufactured, going to Arriva at WN, Metroline at HT and Lothian Buses. The buses are similar to Scania Omnicity's, with similar seating and ride quality. I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

Route 390 Observations (NB4L)

Route 390 is another one of the Central London routes to get New Bus For London. This route which runs between the 'arty farty' Notting Hill via Oxford Street and King's Cross to the multicultural Archway. The route was converted 11 days ago (at the time of writing this, at 18:22, 18th of December) on the 7th of December, postponed from the 30th of November. Route 390 is a relatively new route in London, replacing the withdrawn section of Route 10 between King's Cross and Archway. The original buses used were spare RML's, though in 2004, the route got some of the noisy Volvo B7TL's bodied with Plaxton President bodywork. The vehicles, coded VPL, will transfer to Route 4 which has just been cleared for these robust 10.6m long vehicles. That's all from me, I hope you enjoy reading this post.

Route 11 Observations (NB4L)

On the 21st of September, Route 11 was converted to New Bus For London operation. I, after covering Metrobus 30 with mate Jeevan decided to cover this. I was planning to get a NB4L back to Victoria, however I ended up talking to some mates for ages and had to go home. I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

!EXCLUSIVE! 722 on the 405

On the 7th of October, I witnessed 722, a MAN 12.240 bodied MCV Evolution on the 405. Seeing as I have only ever got a Omnicity SD (single decker wise) on the route, I decided to get a picture. I hope you enjoyed reading this post.