ɹnoɯɹɐdsıɹɔ's photostream  

Not sure whether they spelt this wrong on the blind or whether the driver used the wrong destination because it was the first version he came to on the blind [I suspect not] but this bus is bound for Comins Coch with one m. The one with two ms is between Machynlleth and Newtown.

Prompted by comments by my esteemed contacts I went off on one about the joys of the telephoto lens in the comments under this photo here. Well, here's another example of the fun you can have with a telephoto lens on an SLR film camera. Nowadays with a digital camera it's quite easy to go telephoto yet do you see lots of bus photos like this taking advantage of the extra scope of the digital age?

Those pointy buildings seemingly up in the air are the Old College of the university of Aberystwyth. And they are actually on the seafront, it's the bus that's up in the air as it passes the Penglais Campus entrance halfway up Penglais Hill. It's SNL410, one of the large batch of Nationals that was having its 510 clatterboxes ripped out with gusto by Crosville and replaced with Gardner 6LXBs. By 1985 there weren't many left to do and the SNL prefix tells us this one was still in the queue.

This photo would have preceded the previous in the stream by about ten minutes, this being the 1150 ex-Aberystwyth departure and the Ynyslas service departing on the hour. The 1150 could usually be counted upon to provide one of the elderly deckers allocated to the region, working out of Machynlleth depot, and anyone taking a ride would be treated to an extension beyond Machynlleth through Corris to Aberllefenni which in those days did not enjoy the narrow gauge railway service which has since been restored.

The vehicle is an ex East Midland VR. Despite its advanced age in 1985 it saw a lot of use in mid Wales thanks to the application of the NBC MAP findings in the region.

A pleasant walk from my student residence, the village of Comins Coch was the main route out of Aberystwyth for services heading North to Dolgellau, Machynlleth, Borth and Ynyslas. Here my efforts bore poor reward with the appearance of a Leyland-engined National on the Ynyslas service. This was 1985 and the Gardner conversion programme was in full swing. By the end of the year this vehicle would have been converted to Gardner power and renumbered SNG344.

I'm getting flashbacks of this vehicle being new at Warrington depot. Perhaps this was sacrificed in the transfer of B-series Nationals from the South Cambrian division to Warrington in the early 1980s to replace the Dunham Massey REs after their sad demise.

It's the 28th of June 1986 and I'm spending a leisurely weekend in Aberystwyth before embarking on a trek across the south of the country on the great nationalised buses of our country, buses on which I enjoyed free travel through my employment as a driver since the previous December. I was on my first week's paid holiday and making the most of it.

Here I was having discovered one of the 1975 batch of VRs allocated to the Merseyside division of Crosville which had escaped to the South Cambrian. The first to make it to Wales, I think, though one or two had made it out to Cheshire by then. The impending privatisation of the company is hinted at by the repaint in NBC livery without NBC emblem, which was starting to happen about that time in the interim before the new pre-privatisation liveries came out just before deregulation.

I was very fond of this batch which were mark 2 VRs vith five speed gearboxes and power steering with green rexine seats which had been the standard Crosville trim on ECW bodywork going back to about 1960 or more. They were the last, if you count the P-registered mark 3 models which finished off the batch in the same lot, to be so trimmed, since the LHs and VRs which followed came with the tan coloured vinyl and vigour moquette like the Leyland Nationals.

The driver had very obligingly allowed me to photograph him on his return from the double run to Heol Aberwennol at the top of the hill and jump back on to continue the ride to Aberystwyth.

This is another reworked image previously uploaded to my fotopic site in 2006.

By 1986 the appearance of flat ECW glass would stir up a little excitement. To see two examples side-by-side was rare indeed, so when the X96 service on which I was travelling south from Bristol to Exeter during my Aberystwyth to Teignmouth trip on my 1986 NBC staff pass backpacking holiday pulled into Bridgwater for a crew change I took advantage of the opportunity to record the scene. I don't think I photographed the Supreme-bodied Badgerline Leopard on which I was riding.

I'm fairly certain that this location will have been redeveloped now. Looking at the map there are Sainsburys and McDonalds and Argos splashed all over the place and I expect this land will have been given over to retail parks. Please correct me if I am wrong and give me a map reference.

West Country perennial Launa Windows were advertising on the VR. I note that they are still advertising on the Web today and despite the current recession they appear to be in good shape.