 |
Cobham
continue to excel in the restoration of rare
buses to full working order. It is safe to say
that Guy Arab G 351 (HGC 130) never looked
so good when it first entered service in 1946!
During the war, the construction of new buses
took a distant second place behind production of
war materiel, but shortages and casualties
permitted the building of a restricted number of
new vehicles to an angular, but not unattractive,
utility specification with wooden seats. The G
class of 435 vehicles was bodied by a variety of
coachbuilders, and Park Royal bodied G 351 and
forty-three sisters. By that time, paint
shortages had eased sufficiently to paint the
batch in full London Transport livery, albeit
with brown roof. As RTs swept in over the end of
the 1940s, all previous generations were retired
and the Gs only ended up serving seven years. G
351 was sold to North's for fourteen more years
of service before passing into preservation. It
is seen proudly displayed outside the museum
before a run to Wisley Airfield, the event's
second site. |
 |
Thirty-two
years after G 351's debut came a new, and final,
generation of London Transport buses in the form
of the MCW Metrobuses and Leyland Titans. It was
hoped that they would be more successful than the
previous DMS-class Fleetlines, and they were,
with both thousand-strong classes putting in over
two decades in service - not least because the
upheaval caused by the gradual running down of
London Transport's role prolonged their service
while the bus industry, brought to its knees by
deregulation, was recovering. M 6 (WYW 6T) was the first member of
the 1979 order for 200 Ms, and entered service at
Fulwell where I came to know it well (and even
more when it was loaned to Norbiton one weekend
and turned out on my local 85). Although the
white relief above the upper deck windows was
only carried on the first 54 Ms and deleted on
repaint, M 6 was declared a showbus and retained
its white relief. It later served at Norbiton
(formally) and then Streatham, Croydon, Norwood
and Thornton Heath before becoming a trainer in
an all-over white scheme for Arriva. It looks
great - all that's left need to do is refit the
lozenge-shaped foglights (the offside wing still
has the cutout for them)! |
 |
Combining the
brand new angle and the frequent route 477
service that linked Cobham Bus Museum and Wisley
Airfield throughout the day is this wild open-top
design operated by Ensignbus's City Sightseeing
tourist service. 382 (EU04 CUW) is an Ayats-bodied
Volvo B7L with in-line engine as opposed to the
transverse-engined examples preferred by UK
operators because of the B7L's very long rear
overhang, as seen here. Spanish coachbuilder
Ayats build the integral Bravo double-deck coach,
from which this design is adapted. Up until
recently it has been almost unheard of for new
open-top buses to be built for sightseeing
operations, but increasingly tight emissions
regulations have tended to ease older examples
off service. |
 |
There was one
bus that made Cobham 2005 utterly unforgettable
for me, and that was RML 2613 (NML 613E) - because I
got to drive it! I'd already had huge fun driving
M 147 at Crowthorne this time five years ago, but
I'd never driven a Routemaster before. Some
reviews have said it's heavy in the steering, as
you might expect from a 38-year-old (in this
case) bus, but I was delighted to find that's not
true at all; power steering came to London buses
long before anywhere else, and it really does the
trick! The semi-automatic gearbox is so easy to
operate even for a confirmed automatic car driver
like myself. You can put it in fully-automatic,
but I'd seen drivers operate the gears so often
from my favourite front nearside seat that I was
determined to master it, and that didn't take
long at all! Thus, with a stately and dignified
top speed of 35 mph, I never felt like it was
going to get out of control - not even when I
misjudged the bus's width and barked its wheel
against one of Wisley's gate bollards (I was
mortified! But I did the same thing with the
Metrobus; the width is the real issue you have to
get used to when driving a bus!).
The owners (who are thanked profusely!!) really
got themselves a good bus when they drew its
number out of Peter Newman's hat at Ensignbus
last December, as this bus was an all-over ad for
Cadbury's and was then repainted again after this
job was done. It's going for a repaint on 10th
April. To its left, former Camberwell stablemate
RML 2440 has already resumed its original
identity as a green Country Area bus. |
|
