A small collection of photos taken on a day trip to Dover and the St Margaret's Bay area

A round trip from Petersfield calling in at Midhurst, Hindhead, Loxwood, Wisborough Green, Petworth, Midhurst and South Harting. The original object of the trip was Southern Motorways GSs, but in this respect the day was a disappointment - the only one seen (GS43) spent the whole day displaying a "Private" blind, and sometimes running severely late for no apparent reason. However, Aldershot & District and Southdown delivered the goods (literally, in one case).

A collection of views from a week in June 1996, mainly in the Llandudno, Conwy, Llanrwst and Llanberis areas. The dominant operator was Crosville Cymru (Wales), with a green and white livery based, apparently, on the colours of the Welsh flag. Crosville was also still using the red and white Alpine Bus livery, which had had been retained following the buyout of competitive local services from Alpine Travel the previous year. The diet of minibuses was rather monotonous, though their low costs no doubt helped many services to survive. However, the glorious weather and scenery made even L608Ds worth photographing...

The 84 members of the GS class were bought by London Transport in 1953-4 largely to replace a fleet of Leyland Cubs on lightly trafficked or narrow Country Area routes. They were suitable for one person operation at a time when regulations dictated that larger vehicles had to carry a conductor. Later, when OPO of the larger RFs became possible, and sometimes when roads widths became less restrictive, there was less reason to use GSs and a large number were sold off or relegated to staff transport or training duties.
In a way the GSs were the forerunners of today's Mercedes Vario and other similarly sized buses, but were in a different class from today's van derivatives (to use a polite description) in terms of passenger environment. They are held in great affection, which perhaps explains why a remarkable number have survived in preservation.
The main part of this collection spans the period from 1966 to 1972, when the last of the class was withdrawn by London Country, plus a few later shots of vehicles in preservation. Many of the earlier pictures were taken on 127 film with my first camera, a Kodak Brownie 44A with fixed focus (a term nowadays euphemised as "focus free" to make it sound like a good thing), fixed shutter speed but a choice of two (!) apertures. The quality of some of these pictures is not wonderful, but they scrub up fairly well and are included for their atmosphere. A few more dating from 1968-9 are from my Kodak Autosnap 127, a better camera altogether - though unsophisticated by today's standards. The 127 size brings the further problem of image coverage with a 35mm film scanner, which accounts for the close cropping in some cases.
For an excellent history of the GSs and the routes they operated, Ian Smith's site is recommended (see links).

A collection of pictures of various operators in the Nottingham, Derby and Burton area.

A small collection of Midland Red pictures, mostly D9s, at Leicester, Coalville and Loughborough. Midland Red (the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited to give it its full name) was well known for building its own vehicles, a practice that continued until the final deliveries of S23 single deckers in 1970. The D9 was the last BMMO double decker, 345 being built between 1958 and 1966.

The histories of these long-established companies had come together at the end of 1971 when Midland General was absorbed by Trent. Despite fleet renumbering in a common series, the two kept their separate identities for a few years, and the Midland General fleetname could still be widely seen in 1974.

A selection of pictures of this venerable independent operator, part owned by Barton Transport between 1929 and 1991. An excellent history and other information can be found at http://www.southnottsbuses.co.uk/

A second collection of Barton vehicles from 1974, this time in monochrome, including the only one of my pictures featuring one of the new Bus Grant coaches as its main subject. On my photographic expeditions I largely ignored these as usurpers - and not very interesting ones at that - which is a pity as they themselves have now passed into history!

Barton Transport of Chilwell, Nottingham, was well known for its interesting fleet, which included a large number of chassis rebuilt by the operator from older vehicles and fitted with new bodies by Willowbrook, Northern Counties or Plaxton (at least). It operated an extensive network of urban, interurban and rural services in south Nottinghamshire and the neighbouring parts of Derbyshire and Leicestershire. In the early 1970s the company announced that it was going to standardise the fleet on coaches built to a specification making them eligible for the New Bus Grant, a government scheme to help operators convert to one-person operation. This heralded the rapid end of the individuality of the fleet, though the use of coaches on everything from busy urban services to deep rural routes could be considered eccentric in itself. Certainly in my experience the narrow gangways of the new vehicles were completely unsuited to busy routes with a high turnover of passengers, many of them carrying shopping, and the multi-stepped entrances must have been hell for less mobile people.
These photos were taken on four one-day trips from London between February and April 1974 and have been scanned from Agfa and Fujichrome slides.

A collection of photos of this unusual operator, taken on a single visit on 26 May 1972. At this time standardisation had already eliminated many of the eccentric elements in the fleet, but there was still much of interest to be seen. There are some far more comprehensive collections than this on the web - in particular the Provincial Society and Provincial Enthusiasts' Website, which also provide excellent historical background (see links) - but I offer this set as an additional source which I hope will be of interest.
The colour shots are from a Kodachrome film that has acquired a colour cast, but I have done my best to restore the colours. Photos of Provincial buses on the web seem to vary considerably in colour anyway!

Buses to me are all about routes and services, not simply vehicles, and my photos reflect this wherever possible. Here is a collection of pictures illustrating route numbering, displays, errors and oddities, from 1972 to 2008.