News from Oxford
High Wycombe & the surrounding areas

updated - Sunday 23rd January 2000

Please note that any comments made in this news page are those of the Editors' and in no way constitute 
any official points of view from the bus companies mentioned,  or indeed any other official body. 
As a news page we reserve the right to make valid comments as seen from an editorial point of view.

Problems with the pictures ! - sometimes it seems that the pictures do not load.
I have found a solution which does work normally - 
RIGHT CLICK ON THE PICTURE AND THEN CLICK ON "SHOW PICTURE"
Good luck !

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I have to apologise that this week's news is rather short due to personal commitments (my big Birthday !! - no not 21 - sadly) and so this week I only include a few reports from my readers. I would like to share with you however a picture of my birthday cake. I was quite amazed at what can be achieved from a photograph, which was in fact used on this page some months ago ! Its number 9 - R9OXF.

Fleet News week ending 23/1/00

City of Oxford Motor Services.

The February issue of Buses magazine includes an excellent article on the Oxford Park&Ride service written by Stephen Morris with photographs by Philip Lamb. Whilst the 300 road is known as the old man's route, Stephen found things not that easy and was also able to see for himself - and thus the readers - that Oxford's buses are very well patronised. Somewhat at odds with the BBC Top Gear programme which seemingly showed lots of empty buses !! I can certainly concur with Stephen as I have also had very high loadings on the City services, especially on the 300 road ! 

From tomorrow the 24th, 12 road sees some adjustments to running times to improve time keeping during rush hours also the limited time offer on an annual season ticket to London, due to last only two weeks has been extended until the end of January. 

Neil Gow reports that on the 22nd there were two strangers on the 52 although probably not at the same time. Volvo 611 was running on there around lunchtime and ex London VN Volvo 652 put in an appearance in the evening. The 52 road is of course the haunt of the newest low floor Volvos competing with the other companies low floor M A N s. 

Any interesting news is always welcome, especially of unusual workings and as such noteworthy, plus any photos of Metroriders which can be sent by email (I do appreciate not everyone has a digital camera or access to a scanner) would be useful as we will shortly be running an article on this page about these buses with photos of them in service for other companies. Please send this to me at malcolmhc@aol.com .

Stagecoach Oxford.  

Its a case of all quiet on the Western Front from my side this week. The Tubes continue to make their presence felt on the road to London and a neighbour in the village where I live (Stokenchurch), commented that on New Year's morning around 7 am the only vehicles on the M40 seemed to fully loaded Tubes returning from London !  Volvo B10 907 is back in service but B6 839 will take a little longer to repair after the two had an altercation the week before last.

Wycombe Bus Company.

Nothing special items of note this week from my side. Nigel Peach notes that Oxford Olympians 202 and 224 are still at Wycombe.

Arriva serving The Shires.

Nigel Peach reports that he saw an H reg Arriva Lynx on the 300 to Oxford. Neither he nor I have seen any Arriva Lynxes in Wycombe before. He then saw 3069 
(H409 ERO) in the Newlands Bus Station the following day - again on 300. Maybe there is more than one now at Wycombe ? This bus has come from Watford , where it would have been rostered to the 321 service, now host to LPG fuelled DAF SB220GG low floor buses, newly purchased for that service  I seem to remember that several Lynx's were spruced up for the 321, pending delivery of new buses.

I will be pleased to receive your reports for this section, which I have revamped and hope meets with everyone's' approval. 
Please send your reports to MalcolmHC@aol.com. 

Photo Corner week ending 23/1/00
If anyone else has a digital camera and wishes to submit photos for this page please send them to the above email.

This week I have received pictures from Rob Latchford, taken by Derek Latchford which I am pleased to share with our readers. Thanks to Derek and Rob.

703 was taken at a Southsea rally in the 1970's.

16 - open top AEC / Brush, Hillingdon Showbus Rally 1977.
(Although I missed this one, I remember hearing how good the rally was ! Ed.)

Oxford ex-LT Titan trio - Duxford Showbus Rally 27.9.98.
The far one is 975, now at the Museum and the other two were en route to Kimes.

With many thanks to Derek and Rob Latchford for providing the above photos.

It's always interesting on the M40 and Saturday morning was no exception with three
brand new London Tridents on delivery from Scotland. Here we see V314KGW following
V316KGW and I had just passed V318KGW moments earlier. I am not sure which
operating company these are for, not being an aficionado of London buses !

My apologies for the lack of current local pictures !

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 If anyone has any further news please email below.

Malcolmhc@aol.com 

It adds to the interest of the page which I'm sure everyone appreciates.

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You can still view 
the Tube launch report  
and 
the Oxford Bus P&R Trident launch - Dateline Tuesday June 1st 1999  
Click above

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THE OXFORD BUS MUSEUM