Newark 29/5/2010 - Marshalls, Premiere, Travel Wright, Stratford Blue (Stagecoach)

Former TrentBarton Optare Excel.

This Routemaster belongs to Stagecoach company Midland Red (South) and was used on several local services to mark the closure of the bus station. I was issued with a zero value Setright ticket for my OAP pass. The last time I saw a Setright machine in use was in Ireland on the Lough Swilly service from Derry to  Letterkenny.

Newark 29/5/2010 - CentreBus, KJB, Stagecoach, Travel Wright

Newark Bus Station

Newark bus station is closing today and the site is to redeveloped by Asda icluding a new bus station.

de Courcey - a disappointment

I had been hoping for a ride on one of de Courcey's new double deckers or failing that as single deck coach as advertised.

Instead they sent a totally unsuitable service bus. Even I at five feet seven inches could only just get my knees between the seats. It arrived in Leicester 10 mins early but needed to cool down prior to the rigors of the M69.

Rugby 22/5/2010 - Stagecoach, Geoff Amos

Leicester 22/5/2010 - Arriva, First, CentreBus and Kinch

Thanks for your comment Martin. It will be interesting to see where former London bendy buses end up. I think that P+R and student services will be ideal. Don't forget the Craven bodied RTs and DMSes that ran happily in other towns after London had kicked them out.

Crich 20/5/2010 - YourBus

I saw this bus at side of the road yesterday morning at 10:20. At first I thought it must have run off the road into the wall. I was in a hurry and couldn't stop to find out more.

Beware of Buses

Kath thought that this was a statue of a Bus Inspector warning people to 'Beware of Buses'.

This is the first bus that I have seen advertising Free WiFi. I will have to take my toy computer for a ride from Leicester to Coventry one day. I suspect that the last time I did that was on a D9!

Ashbourne 13/5/2010 - TM Travel, Bowers, Glovers & Arriva

Today I travelled on the scenic village bus service 111 from Matlock to Ashbourne with TM. This bus in unusual in having a manual gearbox.

Bowers, a Centrebus subsidiary, operate between Ashbourne and Buxton.

Glovers service 443 to Alstonefield runs on Thursdays only.

Finally Arriva operate service 409 to Uttoxeter.

All of these rural services are subsidised by Derbyshire or Staffordshire County Councils.

Mansfield 12/5/2010 - Stagecoach, Veolia and TrentBarton

Examples of a newish Stagecoach decker (top) and an oldish one (bottom).

Does anyone know why Veolia buses have three legal owners?
Rainbow 3 must have TrentBarton's largest allocation of Optare Excels.

France

Ownership of Transdev Yellow Buses is to be transferred to RATP the operator of Paris buses.

Derby bus station 5/5/2010

Precision timing - one Red Arrow leaves for Nottingham just as the next arrives.
This Chesterfield bound Red Arrow was not so lucky as a Mickleover bus was blocking its stand so it pulled into the coach park.
The offending Mickleover bus swopping stands.

I think all the customers realised what was happening.
In answer to Peter's query, I don't know what happened to the pictures so have added additional copies.
With regard to NET and NCT, I don't think that they will be affected in the short term. Transdev and Veolia will merge and the new company will have a stake in NCT and NET. However Veolia as a UK bus operator is a complete mystery and 'basket case' to me so we have to hope that Transdev managers are allowed to continue their successful business and are not trashed by Veolia environmental's garbage trucks.