Well its all happening this month!
We've had two rallies - North Weald and the Bus & Coach Preservation magazine show - both of which were quite dire with only around 30 buses at each. 337's repaint has started and 317 has been in a photo shoot for an article in Bus & Coach Preservation magazine.
So yeah, sadly North Weald continues to suffer a poor reputation, and wasn't helped by certain persons at TfL taking advantage of the fact to stage a rival event in central London. Whilst I appreciate the apathy towards this event, I would plead with fellow preservationists to give North Weald a go in 2015; things are changing for the better. Or perhaps look at it this way: if less vehicles attend rallies, there'll be less and less rallies.........before you know it there won't be any point preserving a bus as there'll be nowhere to take it.
I did the Bus & Coach Preservation magazine show last year at Newbury, and you may remember from this blog that I was less than impressed and vowed not to bother again. What was that I said about supporting events?!! Well they moved it near to St Albans this year and so myself and a few fellow preservationists thought the move was a sensible one - close to an area full of preserved buses, it'll be a surefire winner right?
Nah. As I mentioned above, the event saw about 30 buses; what a shame given that it was organised by the national magazine that covers bus preservation. As I've said twice already, bus preservationists have got to support these events otherwise they will disappear off the rally calender and there'll nothing left to take buses to.
On a more positive note, Bus & Coach Preservation magazine approached our group and invited us to do some articles with them - for my part they were interested in Volvo D302PEV which I'd taken along.
Well they came to our storage facility a couple of days ago, and clocking the Dart they expressed an interest in doing an article on that too. Having spent a bit more time discussing my vehicles, and with the news that DAF 337 is about to be repainted, it was decided to drop the Volvo for now and just do the Dart instead. Volvo 302 and DAF 337 will be done together at a later date as part of a large article about Harris Bus. What with DAF 335 appearing in a Buses magazine article last year, I have to admit I quite proud to see all my buses getting their 15 minutes of fame!
We posed the Dart in several locations around a village in North Essex and so I'm now looking to seeing the finished article whenever it appears in the magazine.
Finally I've mentioned that DAF 337 is about to be repainted.......well it is currently fully sanded down and is just awaiting some of my free time to get the paint on. I'm intending to have the paint completed by the end of the month and the stickers done by mid August.........
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Clacton Rally
Today was the Clacton bus rally, held as ever in the car park at the Factory Outlet shopping centre.
The plan was to take DAF P337ROO but upon preparing her to go I noticed that the air wasn't unloading as it should when it reaches maximum pressure - and after dumping some air via the footbrake it was also failing to build air. Now I've been here before with sister 335, and I'm 99% certain the air dryer pack is at fault - I await professional advice but it did mean 337's attendance at the rally was canceled.
302 it was then!
Volvo D302PEV is booked to attend the next 4 events (North weald, Bus Coach Preservation magazine show, Alton and Showbus), mainly cos its just been repainted and I want to show it off at the bigger events, so I certainly wasn't planning to take her to Clacton as well, but hey ho.
The day itself went well with good weather and plenty of socialising with other preservationists. I went with other owners from Yeldham Transport Museum and so we arrived and departed in convoy - something that always generates a few funny looks from other road users and people on foot, but is none the less quite fun to be a part of. Not only that but it does provide instant help if there should be any mechanical issues.......as you'll see in a minute.......
As always, 302 was put forward for service and did one return trip to the town centre (via the railway station). We came close to wishing 337 had made it but got everyone on with two seats to spare! I had Heart playing on the radio just as Harris Bus used to do when they operated it in service; I don't think the music on offer was to everyone's taste but I'm quite certain it was the only vehicle in service to offer such entertainment!
Being as I was part of a group, we shared the service work by driving each others vehicles, so I didn't actually drive on 302's trip (I drove part trips on D261FUL and KPJ264W) - doing this gave each of us the opportunity to be passengers on our own vehicles, which is something we rarely get do as only PCV licenced drivers can drive buses in passenger service with more than 8 passengers on board.
It's safe to say we've learned a lesson today and we'll all now make sure we're carrying spares and tools - and if we're traveling as a group in convoy we should be well enough equipped to deal with pretty much anything that's thrown at us!!
The plan was to take DAF P337ROO but upon preparing her to go I noticed that the air wasn't unloading as it should when it reaches maximum pressure - and after dumping some air via the footbrake it was also failing to build air. Now I've been here before with sister 335, and I'm 99% certain the air dryer pack is at fault - I await professional advice but it did mean 337's attendance at the rally was canceled.
302 it was then!
Volvo D302PEV is booked to attend the next 4 events (North weald, Bus Coach Preservation magazine show, Alton and Showbus), mainly cos its just been repainted and I want to show it off at the bigger events, so I certainly wasn't planning to take her to Clacton as well, but hey ho.
The day itself went well with good weather and plenty of socialising with other preservationists. I went with other owners from Yeldham Transport Museum and so we arrived and departed in convoy - something that always generates a few funny looks from other road users and people on foot, but is none the less quite fun to be a part of. Not only that but it does provide instant help if there should be any mechanical issues.......as you'll see in a minute.......
As always, 302 was put forward for service and did one return trip to the town centre (via the railway station). We came close to wishing 337 had made it but got everyone on with two seats to spare! I had Heart playing on the radio just as Harris Bus used to do when they operated it in service; I don't think the music on offer was to everyone's taste but I'm quite certain it was the only vehicle in service to offer such entertainment!
Being as I was part of a group, we shared the service work by driving each others vehicles, so I didn't actually drive on 302's trip (I drove part trips on D261FUL and KPJ264W) - doing this gave each of us the opportunity to be passengers on our own vehicles, which is something we rarely get do as only PCV licenced drivers can drive buses in passenger service with more than 8 passengers on board.
Here's 302 in Clacton town centre:
Now I mentioned mechanical issues earlier; thankfully it wasn't me but another owner in our group.....
We were positioning our vehicles to take a group photo when I noticed a rather large split in the side wall of a front tyre - the consensus was that cords were showing and it was therefore too dangerous to drive on. None of us were carrying spare wheels but thankfully a member of the rally organising group (our near neighbours at Colne Estuary Preservation Group) were able to lend us a spare wheel (a gesture which was very much appreciated). All we then had to do was jack the bus up..........but none of us had a jack......
Having exhausted all options at the nearby depots of Headingham and First (both have no engineers on Sundays!!) the owner with the dodgy tyre had to make use of the breakdown cover to get a specialist in to actually swap the wheels over. Whilst most of us preserved bus owners do have full breakdown cover, it is usage limited in much the same way as the AA or RAC is with your cars, so we'll always try to fix something first if we can and only make use of the breakdown cover as a last resort.
It's safe to say we've learned a lesson today and we'll all now make sure we're carrying spares and tools - and if we're traveling as a group in convoy we should be well enough equipped to deal with pretty much anything that's thrown at us!!
Monday, 26 May 2014
335 Accident
As mentioned in my last post, 335 was damaged in a slow speed collision at the place where she's stored - the incident occurred on Sunday 11th May and affected the nearside front corner & windscreen.
It was already off the road for 2014 pending a decision on its future - radiator still leaks plus the gearbox has a mind of its own and the diff whines. Having already sunk the best part of £4,000 into it trying to rectify one mechanical defect after another, I'd been pondering whether to carry on or use it for spares for 337 and then scrap it.
No decision had been made when the accident occurred - not my fault by the way.......335 was parked in her space at the time - so the person who did it has agreed to pay for it to be repaired.
There's some images of the damage on the website HERE.
Sunday, 18 May 2014
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:
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:
Sunday, 4 May 2014
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:
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:
Monday, 14 April 2014
"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!!.......
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!!.......
Saturday, 5 April 2014
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:
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:
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