Choice of Excels
Back around 2003 our local bus enthusiast club went for a ride around South Staffs aboard an ex Ipswich AEC Regent V, visiting a few garages and stopping off for lunch ... the latter always being of paramount importance.
The largest of the firms visited that day was Choice Travel, a business founded in the early 1990s. The fleet contained quite a variety of vehicles at the time and included Dennis Falcons, Leyland Leopards and Tigers, various minubuses and these quite youthful Optare Excels.
I have had limited experience of the Excel and I suppose in that, I've been spared the traumas which various operators of the type appear to have experienced. If nothing else, they were visually a stylish bus and certainly would have created a favourable impression with intending passengers as they pulled up at a stop.
Without researching its history on the net, I'm going to guess that R741 BUJ, by its Shropshire reg. and livery, was formerly something to do with the Williamson's of Shrewsbury business? I believe the Choice business , after being re-named Midland Choice, was absorbed into the Arriva empire circa 2012 but I could be wrong.
Choice of Excels
Back around 2003 our local bus enthusiast club went for a ride around South Staffs aboard an ex Ipswich AEC Regent V, visiting a few garages and stopping off for lunch ... the latter always being of paramount importance.
The largest of the firms visited that day was Choice Travel, a business founded in the early 1990s. The fleet contained quite a variety of vehicles at the time and included Dennis Falcons, Leyland Leopards and Tigers, various minubuses and these quite youthful Optare Excels.
I have had limited experience of the Excel and I suppose in that, I've been spared the traumas which various operators of the type appear to have experienced. If nothing else, they were visually a stylish bus and certainly would have created a favourable impression with intending passengers as they pulled up at a stop.
Without researching its history on the net, I'm going to guess that R741 BUJ, by its Shropshire reg. and livery, was formerly something to do with the Williamson's of Shrewsbury business? I believe the Choice business , after being re-named Midland Choice, was absorbed into the Arriva empire circa 2012 but I could be wrong.