Page 13 - MBF Supplement Demo

West London Passenger Transport Association:
(LT03WLY, LN04ANK, LT05WLH/L/X) Dennis Trident/ Plaxton President H67D; (LT51WLG) Dennis Trident/ East Lancs Lolyne H82D; (X676KYO, Y682WLC) Dennis Trident/ Duple Metsec H85D; and (LT56WLH/G) Volvo B7TL/ Wright Eclipse Gemini H63D.
As soon as their duties on the shuttles were complete, Crossways' Enviro 500 (GL66VFB), some of the vehicles on loan from Arden Forest and the sole vehicle on loan from KHCT travelled to Crossways' Gloucester depot, where they were prepared for immediate departure the next day to KHCT, where the Crossways and Arden Forest vehicles are on loan for UK city of Culture work. The Enviro 500 from Crossways is not due to return until 1st January 2018, whilst ALX400 MK02EGX is also due to go on loan to KHCT from 1st July to 30th September.
The Enviro 500 and Trident were also in use on the 11th March for the University of Gloucestershire open day, operating a park and ride service from Cheltenham racecourse to FCH and Hardwick campuses within Cheltenham. The timing of this event is particularly useful, since it allows the company to run through its event procedures with smaller crowds before the main event with the Cheltenham Races.
Along similar lines is the hire of two coaches to Southwest Bus later this month. These vehicles are (GL05BUS) Volvo B10M/ Van Hool T8 and (MX04AEU) Volvo B12M/ Plaxton Panther. They will be used on Glastonbury festival services on the 21st and again on the 25th of June.
At roughly the same time as you will read this (3rd June) the UEFA Champions league final is taking place at Cardiff's Principality stadium. To try and assist travel to this event, extras are being put on the company's X10 (Gloucester to Cardiff) service in a similar fashion as for Cheltenham, but this time with the service extended to Principality Stadium. Three extra vehicles were used from the Crossways fleet along with a single Neoplan Cityliner loaned from Allen Buses for the day.
Deeandar Motor Services, trading as D&R Coaches, was registered as a business in later 2016. The company plans to operate three divisions and will commence service with the D&R Charter division as soon as vehicles are appropriately lettered and depot land is acquired. If successful, later on it is hoped to introduce the D&R Express division to operate a number of long distance services and a D&R Buses division for various suburban services.
The livery will be all-over white, with a coloured stripe along the sides, rising to a flash at the rear. Exceptions to this will be the Heritage fleet used for special charters. These are all existing vehicles sourced from other operators and their colours comprise a variety of maroon & cream schemes.
A lot of background planning has already been done for the company's future. Maps have been created of the areas to be serviced and plans made for the types of services to be provided, along with timetables and the number of vehicles and drivers needed to run those operations.
By the next issue, the company hopes to have more photos showing the new depot(s) and vehicles in their completed livery.
D&R Coaches were approached late last year to see if they could assist Crossways Buses with their annual Cheltenham Races event. As the company had only just commenced operations, it was not able to confirm suitable vehicles would be available in time. However closer to the date, D&R were approached by a large group of keen locals who wanted to book D&R Coaches for a day trip to the races. Two hastily lettered vehicles were readied for this large group in the form of Scania K114EB4x2/ Irizar PB C53F (OF57DAR) and Scania K124EB6x2/ Irizar PB C59F (OA62DAR)
Once word spread about this trip many more race fans approached the company to go on the trip, so a high capacity double decker was added to the 'convoy' in the form of Alexander Dennis E500MMC Hybrid CH80D (OA64DAR).
In model terms, this operation is unusual in that:
1. It is not based specifically on any real operator past or present,
2. It is not based at any specific location (even a specific country). Once maps/timetables are published, the astute sci-fi movie fan may recognise the origins of some of the suburb/town names!
Charter buses posing before lettering is applied.
The two PBs and the E500 used for the trip to Cheltenham.
D & R Coaches Doug Coster
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