Matching Pointer & President
Right, let me explain what the deal is with these two. Both are painted in slightly different versions of the curvy, circa-2000 livery of Newall Citybus, and both are ‘playing pretend’ in different ways.
First off, *where* Citybus?? Newall is a fictitious city roughly located somewhere between Milton Keynes and Daventry, which I invented for other bus-based madness, and Newall Citybus is the ultimate iteration of the city’s municipal operator. There’s a whole history of Newall Corporation and their neighbouring independents going back to, like, the 1910s, which all exists ‘on paper’ (or more accurately ‘on computer’). So, unlike Robertson Buses, I don’t have to buy and paint a model for every single bus that features.
But that immediately begs the question why there’s a Robertson Buses fleet member here. Well, the simple answer is 106 needed repainting anyway, and I figured why not have a 2-in-1 where it’s in Newall base livery but with RB fleet names and the 10 years branding. Also, the lime paint I usually use for RB went back to having its curing issues again, and because I needed this repaint to be completed in record time choosing a livery with no lime on it was ideal. So the Dart is actually from one fictitious fleet (Robertson Buses) but masquerading as being part of ANOTHER fictitious fleet (Newall Citybus).
Then we come to the President, which is in the slightly more intricate double deck livery and – just like RoadCar buses in the late 00s – has Stagecoach logos and numbers pasted over its original colours. Unlike the Dart, however, this isn’t part of RB and is straight up just meant to be a model of Newall Citybus 1220. But I branded it up in its later guise as Stagecoach 18550 so that it can theoretically be from anywhere; maybe as a RoadCar-esque open top spare at Skegness, or on loan to Chesterfield for the Peak Sightseer.
A brief history of Newall Citybus 1220 is as follows... it was new in 1999 as part of a batch of twelve, delivered to a high specification for routes linking the city with Milton Keynes, aka the “Keynes Connect” corridor. In 2002 its upper deck was damaged in a depot fire, which also destroyed the existing open topper among other things, so 1220 was rebuilt as the replacement open top bus. In 2006 the fleet became part of Stagecoach, so 1220 was renumbered 18550 in a block continuing SC’s 18XXX Trident numbering scheme. Since its work as an open topper was comparatively light, just like 16943 in Lincoln it outlasted the rest of its batch in Stagecoach service, and still sees occasional use.
I’ve got some more models lined up to represent Newall and its neighbours, so watch this space for when (if) they come along. In the meantime, painting and conversions need to occur!
Matching Pointer & President
Right, let me explain what the deal is with these two. Both are painted in slightly different versions of the curvy, circa-2000 livery of Newall Citybus, and both are ‘playing pretend’ in different ways.
First off, *where* Citybus?? Newall is a fictitious city roughly located somewhere between Milton Keynes and Daventry, which I invented for other bus-based madness, and Newall Citybus is the ultimate iteration of the city’s municipal operator. There’s a whole history of Newall Corporation and their neighbouring independents going back to, like, the 1910s, which all exists ‘on paper’ (or more accurately ‘on computer’). So, unlike Robertson Buses, I don’t have to buy and paint a model for every single bus that features.
But that immediately begs the question why there’s a Robertson Buses fleet member here. Well, the simple answer is 106 needed repainting anyway, and I figured why not have a 2-in-1 where it’s in Newall base livery but with RB fleet names and the 10 years branding. Also, the lime paint I usually use for RB went back to having its curing issues again, and because I needed this repaint to be completed in record time choosing a livery with no lime on it was ideal. So the Dart is actually from one fictitious fleet (Robertson Buses) but masquerading as being part of ANOTHER fictitious fleet (Newall Citybus).
Then we come to the President, which is in the slightly more intricate double deck livery and – just like RoadCar buses in the late 00s – has Stagecoach logos and numbers pasted over its original colours. Unlike the Dart, however, this isn’t part of RB and is straight up just meant to be a model of Newall Citybus 1220. But I branded it up in its later guise as Stagecoach 18550 so that it can theoretically be from anywhere; maybe as a RoadCar-esque open top spare at Skegness, or on loan to Chesterfield for the Peak Sightseer.
A brief history of Newall Citybus 1220 is as follows... it was new in 1999 as part of a batch of twelve, delivered to a high specification for routes linking the city with Milton Keynes, aka the “Keynes Connect” corridor. In 2002 its upper deck was damaged in a depot fire, which also destroyed the existing open topper among other things, so 1220 was rebuilt as the replacement open top bus. In 2006 the fleet became part of Stagecoach, so 1220 was renumbered 18550 in a block continuing SC’s 18XXX Trident numbering scheme. Since its work as an open topper was comparatively light, just like 16943 in Lincoln it outlasted the rest of its batch in Stagecoach service, and still sees occasional use.
I’ve got some more models lined up to represent Newall and its neighbours, so watch this space for when (if) they come along. In the meantime, painting and conversions need to occur!