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!