News from Oxford
High Wycombe & the surrounding areas

update Sunday, July 18th 1999 by Malcolm Crowe

First apolgies if you were unable to read the news page last week, 11th July.  You will find this in the Archive index. Sincere apologies for the error.

Final deliveries of the new buses and coaches for Oxford are now arriving and only a few Tube coaches now remain. All the Oxford current deliveries are now here and in service. The traffic situation in Oxford is now settling down but it seems difficult for a proper control to be exercised on the cars with some private drivers blatantly ignoring the "no go" areas. I have been led to understand that the police will stop direct control of the traffic in the City centre at the end of August or even sooner. This will mean that no one will be on hand to stop an abuse of the new scheme. On Saturday night some cars were even using Cornmarket, despite the fact that pedestrians were milling all over the road.  Another current problem is the traffic lights which are not all phased in favour of the buses and delays of up to 2 minutes can occur in certain areas, especially the new bus only area near the station. Again private cars are using this cobbled roadway, making a mockery of the new system !

On the Oxford Bus front, the fifteen Volvo B10BLEs are now all in service. Again during the evenings these are straying onto routes other than 52 road.Saturday saw examples on 2, 4, 15 and 35 roads. The foreign students are adding to the traffic flows and heavy loads are being recorded on all services. It seems a pity that double deck Olympian Q busters cannot be used more widely at these times, when the Volvos are often very heavily loaded. The X3 on Saturday night saw full standing loads on the last two departures from town. Details are appended below of the disposal of the Park & Ride Olympian fleet but some Cityline examples were operating on Saturday on both 300 and 400 roads. All the tridents have now entered service and the final deliveries were in evidence on Saturday with 119 on 400 road and 120 on 300 road.

Don't forget the current issue of Buses Focus, now on sale covering The Go Ahead Group including an excellent article on Oxford Bus plus archive photos of the fleet years ago.

Stagecoach Oxford has now placed further double deck M A N coaches in service with 43 and 56 entering service during this last week. both are without full livery at the time of writing but it is noted that all but 4 of the other coaches in service now have contravision vinyls in place of the solid versions first applied. It seems that a number of country services may now be withdrawn and full details are awaited as is the latest fleet list. 516 was on the X50 on Saturday along with a  "blue top" (918-931) M A N bus. The X33 was maintained by 427, an ex Midland Red Mercedes, on Saturday night.  One of the Volvo B10Ms (904-912) was on the Blackbird Flyer on Saturday night which will not have gone down well with the large number of ladies who take push chairs on the normal low floors.

Wycombe Bus should start to receive the ex Park&Ride Olympians shortly and only 227 remains in service at Oxford. We understand that 229 is to be finished in Thames Valley livery to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of that company. It is hoped that it will be on hand on the 1st August at the running day in High Wycombe. 202, 778 and 780 remain on loan at Wycombe.

Oxford Bus Fleet News.

Park & Ride Olympians have been disposed of as below:

203 and  212             Whippet Coaches, Fenstanton, Cambs.  (stored at The Oxford Bus museum on 17/7/99)

209,210,211              Jeffs Coaches, Helmdon, Brackley .  22/6,  29/6 and 30/6 respectively.

213 and 218             Hedingham Omnibuses, Sible Hedingham. 6/7 and 19/7

215 and 219             Straffords Coaches, Minera, Wrexham.   26/6

216                             Worths of Enstone     24/6

217                             Charlton Services,  Charlton on Otmoor, Oxford   28/6

Other fleet news

966 and 970             Kimes Coaches, Folkingham, Lincs    27/6

777                             Roy Brown Coaches, Builth Wells        due 30/7

779                             Emsworth & District, Hants                     due 30/7

601,   602, 603, 604, 605,  606,  607,  609, 610  and  614 all repainted and retaining Cityline livery with paint dates
22/4, 26/4, 7/5, 11/5, 28/5, 17/6, 22/6, 10/6 18/5 and 26/5.

781 has been repainted into blue and yellow livery and renumbered T3 for driver training purposes. It has also had a number of seats removed and is now an 8 seater !

Please click here to see P&R Trident launch - Dateline Tuesday June 1st 1999

You can still view the Tube launch report here.

120, new into service on 300 road last Saturday (17th).

Trident 111 on 300 road awaits departure from Redbridge Park & Ride.
The intensity of the interior lighting can be appreciated in this shot.

The lower deck interior at night shows off the pale green trim.
You either like it or hate it !

The upper deck looking towards the rear gives a nice impression with the specially
woven seat covering, repeating the company logo of dreaming spires.

Saturday saw the unexpected use of Q buster 207 on the 300 road.

203 and 212 await despatch to Whippet Coaches and are seen at the
Museum last Saturday. They look very clean indeed and are a credit
to Oxford Bus after 18 years in service.

As mentioned on this page 781 has received a new livery
for training duties.

809 picks up in Queen Street last Saturday on 52 road.

Stagecoach Oxford still retain the two Iveco Electric buses, which have so far
not found a route to work on. The previous Electric Metroriders have now
turned up in Jersey and 3 are due to enter service shortly. i hope to have
some pictures to include in these pages soon.

Awaiting disposal are these 4 Mercedes/Carlyle midis and to the left
we can just see 136, one of two remaining Transits left at Oxford.

All the remaining Darts due from London have now been received and
714 is seen here on the Abingdon road operating the X33.

Don't ask !!!!!  Oxford 41 on the M40 about to show an M A N a clean pair of heels.

Looking resplendent in full livery for the very first time !
228 nearly ready for service in High Wycombe, having been
converted to single door. This bus has since new only worked
the Park&Ride services in Oxford.
The excellent bodyshop and paint facilities at Oxford, where
HAND PAINTING is still the order of the day are reflected in the
picture above.

Classic Coaches of high Wycombe operate some elderly Bristol VRs
and this one FDV818V started life in Devon and was seen operating
a Wedding Hire in Stokenchurch last Saturday.