YTM Open Day

Today it was the Yeldham Transport Museum open day - all 4 of my vehicles were in attendance, with P337ROO operating in passenger service.

On the whole it was an enjoyable day with glorious sunshine all day long.

As stated above, 337 was made available for passenger service and thus operated two trips; one to Halstead and the other to Braintree rail station. She performed faultlessly throughout despite the high temperatures - I finally have a reliable double decker!

Mind you, the original and constantly unreliable double decker, sister 335, has been involved in an incident at its storage location and will now be off the road long term as a result - more on that in my next update.

Back to the subject at hand........below is a picture of 337 at Braintree station - the "blind" does work and was showing "Braintree rail station X1" but of course a combination of bright sunlight and LED's flickering mean the camera didn't pick that up:

Harlow & 302 repaint

Well its all happening at the moment!

Today was the Harlow running day; an event I was particularly looking forward to given Dart J317XVX's association with Harlow based County Bus & Coach Co.

Unfourtunately visitor attendance, and thus passenger numbers, were low but 317 appeared to be well received. We did a feeder service from Great Yeldham (route 320) via, Finchingfield, Great Bardfield, Great Dunmow, Takeley, Hatfield Heath, and Sheering...........we picked up errrrr nobody!

After a short break we did a round trip on route 809 to Churchgate Street via Old Harlow. This turned out to be our busiest trip with 10 passengers plus another two that we picked up in Old Harlow on the way back to the bus station. The 809 has some very tight turns and so I was glad I took the narrow Dart.

After another short break we did route 380 to Mark Hall North - again the narrow Dart came into its own what with the prolific car parking and the unwillingness of oncoming cars to give way. I expect that some roads don't have a Sunday bus service usually and so car drivers probably didn't expect us to be operating along their roads today. Passenger numbers on this trip were 5.

Following straight on from the 380 was a 389 trip to Potter Street. Compared to the other routes the 389 is relatively fast with no speed bumps or dodgy car parking to worry about. This was my favorite of the three routes! On the return journey we passed through the bus station and then onto Harlow Town station before returning back to the bus station. We took 4 passengers to Potter Street, lost one there to another service but gained an unsuspecting member of the public; we lost all 4 on passing through the bus station and thus carried fresh air to and from the town station.

We then did another trip on route 380 to Mark Hall North, initially departing the bus station with 5 passengers but lost one on the outward journey. Car parking and cars in the opposite direction forcing their way through were particularly bad on the return journey.

Finally we had the return feeder service, route 320, back to Yeldham. Now having brought nobody in, I expected nobody going back. Wrong!! A couple asked if I'd drop off on line of route........well yes, obviously thinks I.......so I ask where they're going to thinking they'd say somewhere like First Avenue or Old Harlow..........Dunmow came the reply! I don't know how they got to Harlow in the first place, but I duly obliged and they were our only two passengers.

Despite the low passenger numbers, I enjoyed the day and I look forward to it hopefully happening again next year. Below is an image at Mark Hall North on our second trip:

In other news, as per the title of this post, Volvo D302PEV has finally got its repaint completed. I'll let these two images do the talking:

"Cobham" and 337's MOT

It was the London Bus Museum's event yesterday, more famously known as "Cobham" and is held at the world famous Brooklands site in Surrey.

The entrance to the site was poorly signed and as such I got told off for the second year running for appearing at the wrong entrance...........please please please if the organisers see this can they take note that clearly signing the route in for visiting buses would be useful and appreciated by those of us not familiar with the Brooklands site!

The rally itself wasn't as good as previous years - the number of visiting buses were notably less that recent years - it is a shame but even I am considering giving it a miss next year.

In other news 337 was put in for her MOT today and I'm pleased to say she sailed through with no advisories. Thankfully the whole thing was completely uneventful and we didn't suffer any of the shenanigans that occurred at 335's MOT last year. Talking of 335, it's likely the MOT will be allowed to lapse as I'm considering replacing it with something else that'll hopefully compliment my current fleet and prove to be more reliable.........more news when I have it!!.......

South East Bus Festival

Today was the first event of the 2014 season, the South East Bus Festival; a bus rally added on to the Heritage Transport show.

The event is held at The Kent Showground in Detling, near Maidstone and this year attracted around 125 buses and coaches - up from 95 last year.

I had originally planned to take the newest acquisition, 337, but due to issues with the DVLA I wasn't able to tax it in time so I took 302 instead.

Having offered to run in service, I was asked to operate two trips on the offsite shuttle bus linking with Arriva services towards Maidstone - the Kent Showground is on the A249 dual carriageway and so the shuttle service provides a safer option than crossing the road on foot.

On both runs we had around 9 passengers each way on each trip - here's an image of 302 waiting in the layby on the A249 for the Arriva bus to show up:

P337ROO

The day has finally arrived and P337ROO was collected from TM Travel in Sheffield and driven back to her new home in Essex.

Having stopped periodically on the journey to make sure everything was ok, we were having a good run down the M1 motorway........then it was onto the A14 and at the first roundabout I saw a massive amount of white smoke or steam at the back as I stopped..........

Turned out to be coolant but the header tank was still full and so I can only assume it was a combination of being overfilled at the start of the journey and the long run at constant top speed. From this point on I never went above 50mph (top speed being 56mph) and this seemed to resolve the issue.

That is until we hit the A505 and stopped for a routine check..........I discovered a split water hose and a fairly steady stream of coolant running out onto the road. It took about 10 litres of water to refill the system. As the leak was minor, I elected to carry on (we were only about 20 minutes from "home").....

Several stops and refills later we successfully made it with the leak being only marginally worse than when originally discovered. Thankfully the guilty hose should be a relatively easy fix.

So there we are, my fourth bus is now safely tucked up in her new home in North Essex.

302's MOT

Volvo D302PEV was put in for her MOT today and I'm pleased to say she sailed through with no advisories issued.

I did wonder if I'd ever get her back together in time (ie, the MOT was due to be completed by 28th February) but of course it all came good in the end.

Next up for 302 is a repaint back into Harris Bus's original Cream and Blue scheme though I'm not too sure when that will happen as I'm currently still saving money to meet the full asking price for 337 and I'm mindful about taking a vehicle off the road during the rally season as I caught myself out last year by starting on 302's bodywork during the middle of last season.

With 335 off the road and the old faithful 317 having no issues, the current priority now is the purchase of 337.

Into 2014....

Two things to update on.....

302

The offside bodywork is now complete and all windows are now refitted (I managed source one from PSV Glass to replace the broken one).

Excuse the tight angle; things are often parked tight when I want to take an image!

337

Yes, that's a new number..............and yes that means I have a new vehicle!!!!!!



337 refers to P337ROO - sister to my P335ROO. 337 is in much better shape mechanically and so providing she successfully drives back from Sheffield ok (won't be collecting her till late March), I will be using 337 as acquired during the 2014 rally season.

As is evident throughout this blog, I've had no end of mechanical grief with 335 and it still has issues today with air trapped in the water system, a leaking radiator and a gearbox with a mind of its own that refuses to even think about changing gear whilst cold. 335 is currently sorned and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future.

Here is an image of 337 taken a couple of days ago when I went to view her and agree her purchase: