Malta - Mdina - Buses 03 - panoramic
Contrary to what most guidebooks would have you believe, not all buses on Malta are fifty years old. Increasingly the oldest ones are being replaced with 2nd hand Stagecoach buses from England. I hope for them they don't also import the same Fare pricing policy.
From Wikipedia : "Very early types of bus can still be found, with a front engine mounted in an extended bonneted nose, in the style of some conventional trucks. The majority of classic Malta buses have elaborate grilles and headlight arrangements, curved windscreens and sloping roofs. Later makes of bus are usually of conventional bus and coach designs that are or were in use elsewhere in the world, such as the Duple Dominant.
Between 1981 and 1987 the fleet was drastically modernised with the import of over 260 second hand buses from the UK. Many of the oldest buses in the fleet were further replaced with the influx of 150 new low-floor buses from China and Turkey, financed with government grant aid, leaving just three normal control vehicles. Second hand imports from the UK had continued up to 2008, with some of the last examples being Alexander Dash bodied Volvo B6s deemed surplus after Stagecoach's takeover of Yorkshire Traction. Even with these fleet modernisations, as of 2009, the nearly 500 strong bus fleet still contained some examples dating from the 1950s."
Malta - Mdina - Buses 03 - panoramic
Contrary to what most guidebooks would have you believe, not all buses on Malta are fifty years old. Increasingly the oldest ones are being replaced with 2nd hand Stagecoach buses from England. I hope for them they don't also import the same Fare pricing policy.
From Wikipedia : "Very early types of bus can still be found, with a front engine mounted in an extended bonneted nose, in the style of some conventional trucks. The majority of classic Malta buses have elaborate grilles and headlight arrangements, curved windscreens and sloping roofs. Later makes of bus are usually of conventional bus and coach designs that are or were in use elsewhere in the world, such as the Duple Dominant.
Between 1981 and 1987 the fleet was drastically modernised with the import of over 260 second hand buses from the UK. Many of the oldest buses in the fleet were further replaced with the influx of 150 new low-floor buses from China and Turkey, financed with government grant aid, leaving just three normal control vehicles. Second hand imports from the UK had continued up to 2008, with some of the last examples being Alexander Dash bodied Volvo B6s deemed surplus after Stagecoach's takeover of Yorkshire Traction. Even with these fleet modernisations, as of 2009, the nearly 500 strong bus fleet still contained some examples dating from the 1950s."