Route 133 first appeared in 1929 running from Liverpool Street to South Croydon via London Bridge, Elephant, Kennington, Brixton, Streatham, Thornton Heath (via Melfort Road) and Croydon. It ran on Monday to Saturday - on Sunday it was covered by an extension of route 43 which ran from Friern Barnet to South Croydon. Sunday service on the route first appeared in 1940 and in 1958 it went the other way around when route 133 was diverted at Moorgate to run to Hendon Central, covering routes 43 and 143.

In 1964 route 133A was created running on weekdays from South Croydon to Kennington and extended to Embankment via Lambeth Bridge during the peaks. As a result route 133 was cut back to Thornton Heath Clock Tower apart from weekends. Route 133A lasted until 1968 and at that point the 133 was extended back to Croydon, Katherine Street. South Croydon was served only at weekends. Also in 1968, Sunday service was withdrawn between Archway and Hendon and by 1969 Liverpool Street reverted to the terminus seven days a week.

In 1971 the route was withdrawn between Streatham and Croydon replaced by changes to route 50. This lasted until 1985 when it got a southern extension in a different direction, replacing route 95 between Streatham and Tooting Broadway.

Route 133 was one of the routes that was split into two to improve services when the congestion charge was introduced in 2003. It was withdrawn between Streatham St Leonard's Church and Tooting and replaced by route 333 over that section. The two routes initially overlapped between Streatham and Elephant although route 333 has subsequently been diverted at Brixton to run via Stockwell. The final change to route 133 was in 2012, when it got a short diversion in Streatham to terminate at Streatham Station, a nice new standing area having been created there.

It has been worked from a few garages over the years, including a number of shared allocations, with Streatham (AK), Brixton (BN) and Thornton Heath (TH) historically taking the lions share of the route. However in 1990 it was transferred to Stockwell Garage from Brixton and operated using a batch of relatively unusual (certainly for a London Buses subsidiary) Northern Counties bodied Volvo B10M Citybuses. It got squeezed out of Stockwell by the tender win of route 24 in 2007 and moved to Mandela Way Garage, and then was won by Arriva London South in 2010. There was no room to run it from the obvious Brixton Garage location, so the route was put into Norwood Garage off line of route in the south. The route would certainly fit in Brixton now but would leave Norwood a bit bare (Arriva have not been too successful retaining routes recently.)

Arriva purchased a batch of ADL Tridents with Enviro 400 bodies for the tender win and fleet number T111 from that batch is seen here in Brixton.

Another shot of the last day of Stagecoach's participation on the 12 between Eastbourne and Brighton. A second of the Northern Counties bodied Volvo Citybuses was borrowed from Chichester, being 302 or 15202 (F302 MYJ) seen here at Seaford, which had been repainted in original livery to mark Southdown's 90th anniversary. The east West Sussex and west East Sussex area is one of the few locations that Stagecoach nationally hasn't managed to make work, although they did get back into Eastbourne by buying up the incumbent former municipal and its competitor.

The building behind the fence on the right is the former Southdown Seaford garage, which has since been demolished. It's on a lower level than the road pictured! It had been built in the 1950s and closed sometime in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, latterly being used as a removals depository, although buses were still stabled on the forecourt right through until Stagecoach sold the operation to Go-Ahead. Buses are now outstationed in nearby Newhaven.

Obviously this year (2015) is Southdown's centenary, and whilst it is due to be celebrated, technically all operations ceased last autumn with the wholesale transfer of everything onto the Stagecoach (South) licence. I did wonder whether they would end up renaming Stagecoach (South).... they still might, we shall see.

One of several Volvo Citybuses in the Centrebus fleet at the time, Northern Counties bodied G127 NGN - new to London Buses as VC27 - is seen in Grantham on 12th August, 2009.

G132 PGK

Volvo B10M CItybus/Northern Counties H47/33F

Rodger's Coaches, Weldon

Weldon, 25 August 2005

New to London General

Odd ones out in Rodgers' red double-deck fleet were three yellow Citybuses purchased from Pete's Travel of West Bromwich in 2003 and still in their previous owner's livery two years later. All were eventually repainted and are believed to still be with Rodgers.

Route 78 has a long history. It was about in 1934 serving quite a lot of the route it does today. Starting from Shoreditch it ran via Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Tower Bridge, Dunton Road, Old Kent Road, Peckham Park Road, Peckham, Peckham Rye, East Dulwich, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Penge, Elmers End and West Wickham. In addition, from 1936 it was extended to Croydon Airport via Shirley, East Croydon and South Croydon on Sundays only.

The weekday service shrunk rather quickly, and three weeks after that Sunday extension in 1936, the Monday to Saturday service was cut back to Lower Sydenham. Nineteen months later it retrenched further to East Dulwich and the Sunday extension was dropped in 1939. The seven day service then ran from Shoreditch Church to Dulwich Plough pretty stably until 1988.

In 1988 it was extended back to Forest Hill partly to replace a withdrawn section of route 12, however in 1994 it cut back even further, operating Shoreditch to Peckham Rye. The current route pattern, from Shoreditch to Nunhead Station, was created in May 2000 with a short extension.

The route has had some relatively unusual types – in 1980 and 1981 it used MD class Scania Metropolitans that concentrated into South East London. It was won on tender in 1990 by London and Country, bringing a mix of Atlanteans, Fleetlines and Volvo Citybuses , and it passed through British Bus and the Cowie Group to Londonlinks, Kentish Bus and Grey Green. All those companies are now part of Arriva and that’s the company that now run the route. It based at Ash Grove and has recently been re-equipped with a batch of quite rare ADL Enviro 40H cities. I have a feeling with a new mayor and a higher price tag, these buses may remain quite rare.

In this photo, fleet number HA15 is seen in Shoreditch.

The first of SBL's large batch of Volvo Citybuses is seen here new in 1989. It is still running on its original 275/70 low-profile tyres, which were soon changed for normal size 295/80 tyres when they found things underneath starting grounding the road, increasing their height to a lofty 14' 7". I believe the SBL specified certain items in certain places, hence this problem which was not, as far as I'm aware, a problem on other Citybuses elsewhere which ran on their low profiles. The big tyres also increased the step height, this was long before people worried about lowfloors etc. I drove them a few years later than this pic was taken - they were spectacularly good buses, all the drivers loved them, and they had an excellent seating capacity of 84, all facing forward, but the high step and three step entrance did slow down stop times, whilst Aggie and Senga struggled up and down the steps with their messages.

Note the Royal Concert Hall taking shape in the background, to be opened a year later in 1990 when Glasgow was voted European City of Culture. Pure dead brilliant.

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Seen outside Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine working a tour bus service is 352, 673MVA75, one of a number of these East Lancs bodied Volvo Citybuses.

At the time still in service 7007BN H707 GVM heads a line up Volvo Citybuses and late model Leyland Olympians, including 3280 F280 DRJ painted in Salford City Transport livery... Much happier days back then...

The upper deck of the RDC - the lowheight Alexander coach bodied Olypians - seems to have been trimmed idetically to the Fife RVC Citybuses. I didn't realise the front upper deck seat was a triple unit. The forward section of the upper deck is still largely original, although the rear half is now converted to bunks.

One of the 6 Bristol VRTs with East Lancs bodies (ABD 71-76X) that Northampton Transport bought in 1981/2...these were the last Bristols in the fleet as thereafter it would be Volvo Olympians and Citybuses,

A scene not to be seen anymore at RoadCar's Lincoln Depot. Metrobuses and Citybuses mixed together to make RoadCar the interesting bus company it was to the avid busologist out there. Interesting to me is 764 which had operated on route 10 the day before. Personally, the only time I've seen a Metrobus on the 10 was on the 1715 from Lincoln which made the 1823 return from Louth. I assumed all other journeys were operated by Louth depot (which as far as I was aware didn't have any Metrobuses), but of course Lincoln may have also had a regular daytime diagram on there. So, for interest the fleet numbers are from left to right 762/773/789/708/787/709/764/703.

A varied line of double deckers at Imperial Coaches' Colnbrook yard on 21st July, 2014. Both of the East Lancs bodied Volvo CItybuses have been given makeovers. A5 VXH was the former London & Country G616 BPH whilst A2 VXH was former North Western G641 CHF. Also present are an ex Lothian Volvo Olympian and an ex Metroline Dennis Trident.

These bulky Leyland Worldmaster buses seemed unsuitable for the hot Australian climate. Hart St, Semaphore South © Henk Graalman 1979

Out of the East Lancs batch 401-410, this was only one which had it's lower deck windows converted to bonded glazing identical to the X regs 456-465. The rest of 401-410 were meant to be done but the programme never made it past this one.

It's a shame they didn't retrofit opening hoppers upstairs like the later Citybuses, that could have extended their lives in Nottingham, the forced air systems in the roof weren't particularly great....

406 is pictured on Arnold Front Street ready to do a 90 to Edwalton via City Hospital, Nottingham and West Bridgford.

LO46 was one of a trio of all-Leyland Olympians, I believe provided to SBL because of the level of warranty issues that the large fleet of AH Volvo Citybuses were having (the Mk3 B10M chassis on which these were based had a lot of teething problems). Being lowheight, they were regulars on the 66, which, prior to the arrival of the L-reg LOs (post Larkfield fire), was almost the sole preserve of older X, Y & A reg lowheight Olympians. This trio were stock build and had Gardner engines and ZF gearboxes.

It is seen here, looking a bit tail-down, in Glasgow's Union St in 1993. The building behind is the architect Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's masterpiece, 'The Egyptian Halls', during happier times. For the last goodness-knows how many years it has been clad in scaffolding, pending redevelopment, which for a period was looking unlikely and would have been a great loss to Glasgow's architectural heritage. I believe however, it is now to go ahead, to house a hotel, office & retail units, but at the time of writing this (March 2014), as yet nothing has happened. Here's hoping it does proceed.

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3 former Uppsala citybuses were used by Svealandstrafiken for transporting bus drivers. These were the last OmniCitys in Scandinavia and Baltics, which is quite an achievement, since I generation (in the photo) was also later followed by II generation in production. It seems that the operator has finally retired these veteran buses

Svealandstrafiken №STW 406

Built: 2002

Acquired: 2020

Withdrawn: 2025

ex. Sweden

Estonia, Tallinn, Reisisadama D-terminal

The Volvo Citybuses of Burnley & Pendle seemed to go on for ever with various subsequent owners.

Here one of the initial pair is seen on Turners coach park, Blackpool on 13th August 1988.

With only two weeks left to go before the operation of route 85 was lost from London United to London General, London United's pioneer DAF DB250 vehicle DN 1 is seen after its arrival at the setting-down stop for route 85 at the western end of Gonville Street in Fulham in April 2002, with the vehicle showing the smart and attractive London United red & light grey livery to good effect in this view. This fleet of DAF DB250 vehicles fitted with Northern Counties 'Palatine II' bodywork were originally new to Arriva Surrey & West Sussex in 1998 where they replaced the former fleet of London & Country Dennis Dominators and Volvo B10M Citybuses dating from 1989 on route 85. Although these DAF DB250s were transferred to London United following the collapse of Arriva's operations in Surrey in 2000 they were not very popular vehicles with the drivers at Fulwell (FW) bus garage where they were based although they did remain in service on route 85 right up until the takeover of the route by London General in May 2002, where these DAF vehicles ironically returned back to Arriva for use on the bus services in the Medway Towns in Kent with a few others going to Arriva Merseyside for bus services in Liverpool and the Wirral.

The Rigby's Volvo saloon wasn't the only former B&P vehicle to return home in later life - Mick Hodson spotted these Citybuses with one of the Barnsley scrapmen, and repatriated them in 2010. As far as I can remember, he didn't get round to painting any of them, but as they were all in the same Lincolnshire Road Car scheme, it made some sense to keep them all in the same colours. F105 XCW was part of the afternoon exodus from Clitheroe in March 2012.

West Coast Motors J100 WCM (FJ60EFW) 11019 is a Caetano Levante/Volvo B9R new to Hayton Burnage in October 2010 it is pictured here in Glasgow Citybuses South Street depot|Taken 1st August 2019|

Left to right; MCW Metrobus delivered new to London Buses in January 1988 as M1470, Leyland Titan new to GMPTE in January 1980, and MCW Metrobus new to West Midlands in November 1989.

I can't look at this picture without thinking of "Monty Python".

B175FFS was a Volvo Citybus B10M-50 / Alexander RVC CH70F new to Fife Scottish (FRA75) in October 1984. It was foisted upon Western in 1987 to cover for two E reg Citybuses that Fife "Stole". On disposal it passed to Cunninghame District Council for conversion into a Playbus and is seen here at Ardrossan South Beach.

Black Prince seemed tather partial to Volvo Citybuses and as seen here in Leeds a former West Midlands Ailsa.

Verkehrsbetriebe Luzern AG (VBL): bus number 571 (Scania N94UB/Hess) in the line 10 towards the main railway station.

Having run its last service, HSF78X was relieved of parts at Dalkeith depot. Several of this batch had their entire rear end panelled over to accomodate advertising, in common with most of the B-KSC Citybuses and a good number of the Leyland Lions. As can be seen here, HSF78X was spared that 'upgrade'.

The buses of Scotland – Megabus

Seen here leaving Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station is 50411 (YX69LCA), a Plaxton Panaroma named “Aberdeen Angus” and coincidentally on a service to Aberdeen, albeit a Scottish Citylink service. Last weekend there (W/C 21/12/25) saw the last Anglo-Scottish services, the M20 and M11, to London and the ending of the final Megabus services in England. Most of the services that used to run in England and Wales were culled last year The only Megabus – if you want to call it that - now running in England is the Falcon service between Bristol and Plymouth, which has its own dedicated branding.

Megabus was formed by Stagecoach on 4 August 2003 when the initial service between Oxford and London began operating. These were joined by services in what is known as the ‘The Golden Triangle’ in Scotland, with routes between Glasgow to Perth/Dundee and a Glasgow to Edinburgh service. I know technically it’s not a triangle but routes from Edinburgh to Perth/Dundee would also follow, creating the triangle or squaring the circle if you prefer.

Megabus was a pioneer in the use of online booking – remember this is 2003 and fairly early in the internet age – and used an airline style model of demand pricing, whereby the earlier you booked, the greater the availability and theoretically the lower the price. The closer to the journey, the price went up. Seats were reservable and were advertised from as low as a pound plus booking fees. It also used off-terminal locations such as boggo-standard bus stops rather than a dedicated bus station. These maybe lacked the facilities of a bus station but didn’t charge a departure fee and kept costs down.

An all over blue livery was chosen with yellow Megabus fleet names and website address. Also used was ‘Sid the driver’ logo, a rather portly, friendly looking driver complete with cap, shirt, and tie to emphasise the friendliness of the service. Vehicles used were initially Leyland Olympians with Alexander RH-bodies cascaded from Stagecoach’s Hong Kong operations when it owned Citybus over there. Also used initially on the Scottish services were some very unusual Dennis Dragons/Condors (the name varied depending on which Hong Kong operator got them) with very rare in the UK Duple Mestec bodies and which were tri-axle vehicles. Stagecoach had bought some for Kenya Bus when it owned that business but these were then cascaded back to the UK for its Megabus routes. They were upgraded with better seats and luggage capacity and had their tropical opening windows replaced with standard UK-bus windows, a lot better for a chilly Scotland. However the Dennis’s proved to be woefully underpowered for motorway running and these were replaced by more ex-Hong Kong Olympians and Volvo Citybuses with coach seats from Stagecoach’s Western Buses operation. The Dennis’s then went onto MagicBus routes in Greater Manchester.

The concept was proven and Stagecoach began to expand Megabus. During November 2003 services between Leeds – Manchester – Liverpool were begun but these proved short lived and were cancelled by October 2004. On 28 June 2004, routes from London to Milton Keynes, Leicester, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow were added and within two months these were followed by the expansion of the Scottish routes to include Aberdeen and Inverness. Stagecoach West then lost the contract to run the National Express route between London, Cheltenham and Gloucester, prompting it to introduce competing Megabus services from 5 September 2004.

On 6 September 2004, Stagecoach took over the M8 Motivator between Glasgow and Edinburgh set up by Owen of Chapelhall. This saw it cancel the Megabus service between these two cities and sell a limited number of seats on the Motivator service instead. This saw it upgrade this service using cascaded Man/Jonckheere double-decker coaches cascaded from the Oxford Tube. At the around the same time, it cancelled the Oxford – London service, selling again a limited number of seats on the Oxford Tube service it ran between the two cities.

From 18 April 2005, Nottingham, Worthing and Winchester were added to the network by slight extensions/modifications to existing routes, but rationalisation of the rest of the network took place, with some early morning and late evening services were withdrawn. From 13 June 2005, the Liverpool to London service called additionally at Stoke-on-Trent and a new service was introduced between Coventry and London. However, the London-Cardiff-Swansea service was withdrawn between Cardiff and Swansea.

The creation of a joint venture between Scottish Citylink and Megabus led to a co-ordination of services in Scotland. On 21 November 2005, the 900 Motivator service was replaced by an enhanced Citylink service. However, the facility to buy seats through the Megabus website was retained. The next week, most of the faster Citylink services between Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth and Glasgow, and Inverness, Perth and Edinburgh were replaced by a more frequent, combined Megabus/Citylink service.

Following the loss of National Express contracts at Rugby depot, on 5 December 2005, the London to Birmingham service was increased in frequency to every two hours. However, an

additional stop was introduced at the outskirts of Coventry, with the withdrawal of the direct once a day Megabus service to Coventry city centre. One journey a day in each direction was extended to Wolverhampton. The stops in the south of Birmingham were no longer served. Further changes on this day were the doubling of the London to Nottingham service to twice a day with one journey extended to Chesterfield, which regained its Megabus service lost in April 2005, and the introduction of a new once a day service from London to Norwich.

From 16 February 2006, a slower Citylink service between Dundee, Perth and Glasgow became available to book through the Megabus website, restoring Perth bus station to the Megabus network. The same day of the Citylink service modifications, the London to Manchester route was extended to Preston, with certain journeys extended further to Blackpool and Lancaster. This coincided with the loss of National Express work at Preston depot. The extensions to Blackpool and Lancaster were short lived, and were withdrawn in February 2006, citing low passenger numbers.

A number of changes to routes were made on 27 March 2006. A new direct service was introduced between Ferrytoll Park and Ride just outside Dunfermline, Edinburgh and London via Newcastle and Sheffield. Together with changes to the Leeds to London services meant that changes at Tibshelf services were no longer needed. In addition, many routes had timetable changes. In particular, the London to Southampton and London to Portsmouth routes became feeders to the London to Bournemouth service, meaning that passengers were required to change at Winchester. Some London to Bristol journeys were extended to Cwmbran. The London to Norwich service was withdrawn on 14 May 2006, as were the services from London to Wolverhampton and Chesterfield, while the London to Cheltenham service introduced an extra stop at Reading Coachway on 20 November 2006.

Early in February 2007, it was announced that the service between London, Milton Keynes, Leicester and Nottingham would be withdrawn on 11 March 2007. These services would later be restored weekdays and Saturdays following the acquisition of the East Midlands Trains franchise by Stagecoach, to and from London by Megatrain. From 21 May 2007, services between London and Leeds were extended to include Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle. Services from Green Line Coach Station moved to Victoria Coach Station in a deal with Transport For London on 1 October 2007.

A quick word about Megatrain. It was sold through the Megabus website and had feeder coaches – branded as a Megabus Plus – which would feed into the rail network. So the coach would collect you from somewhere and drop you off at a train station and then you’d get the train for the rest of the journey. It was used where Stagecoach had the rail franchise and was primarily its South West Trains and East Midlands Train operations. With Stagecoach losing its rail franchises in the UK, it ended Megatrain and Megabus Plus operations.

Also started was a sleeper coach service between Scotland and London in 2011. Sleeper coaches were not uncommon in parts of Europe but it was a new concept in the UK. These initially used Volvo B10MA articulated coaches with Plaxton Premiere and Jonckheere Mistral bodywork and were adapted from their previous lives as commuter coaches. As such they weren’t really the best suited for such operations but Stagecoach has never been afraid of innovating. The services were greatly improved with the purchase of dedicated Van Hool Astromegas with convertible seating which changed into beds. These coaches, branded as MegabusGold, were impressive vehicles and would work overnight as sleeper coaches, be converted into normal coaches and used on Citylink Gold services between Aberdeen/Inverness – Glasgow during the day. However the sleeper services ended in 2017 and the coaches went on Citylink Gold services, only for these to end as a result of pandemic.

Megabus also expanded overseas with operations in the USA and continental Europe, including services from London to various European destinations. Stagecoach owned Coach USA and used this to launch Megabus in the States. Starting initially in the mid-west it expanded across the continental USA and became a major operator there. It also expanded into Canda and by 2014 it was carrying 40 million passengers per year. However in 2019, it sold it’s North American operations and although these still run in North America, they are no longer run as part of Stagecoach. Despite also expanding Megabus in Europe to countries such as Belgium, Spain, Italy, France and Germany between 2012 – 2015, it sold it’s Megabus Europe operations to fast expanding FLiXBUS.

Turning quickly to the vehicles operated by Megabus, as mentioned initially these were double-deck Olympians as mentioned, with the odd Stagecoach standard coach sometimes substituting. Initially Neoplan Skyliners replaced the Olympians, which given the type’s history with Stagecoach wasn’t a surprise. Some of the Man/Jonckheere buses used by the Oxford Tube were also cascaded onto Megabus work. Then Stagecoach got Plaxton to develop a tri-axle version of its Panther coach on Volvo B12BT chassis. These were a real statement of intent by Stagecoach. These were followed by more Van Hool Astromegas and then it got Plaxton again to develop a new design for Megabus, this time the Plaxton Elite-I on Volvo B11RLT chassis. These unusual coaches featured an early attempt at accessibility, with a wheelchair space next to the driver and a front overhang with seats continuing above the driver. As seen in the picture, Plaxton Panoramas were then used and with the ending/pausing of Panorama production, Volvo’s integral 9700D double-decker coach, assembled in Finland, has been preferred.

The last variant of Megabus was Megasightseeing. This was launched in London in 2018 with through booking from the Megabus website. It ran in London and offered three circular non-stop tours from the Tower of London. Run initially with Dennis/TransBus/Alexander Dennis ALX400/Tridents from Stagecoach’s London fleet in semi-open top configuration these were replaced for the 2019 tourist year by Alexander Dennis Enviro 400s in open-top configuration. The pandemic saw Megasightseeing not appear for 2020 unsurprisingly but in 2021 it came back, albeit this time branded as CitySightseeing London. Megasightseeing was the last new variant of Megabus. One interesting feature of Megasightseeing was that a taped commentary was used with a voice given to the Megabus logo, Sid the Driver. So you could actually hear him for the first time. A model of a Trident/ALX400 in Megasightseeing livery was produced by Northcord and can be sourced if you look hard enough. Megasightseeing was never expanded beyond London.

The livery of Megabus hasn’t really changed much and remained pretty static from its launch. However from the mid-2010s, Sid the Driver began to be replaced on some coaches with branding for low fares, still being advertised for a pound plus booking fees. However, this got Stagecoach into bother in 2018 when the Advertising Standards Authority found it had very few seats at that price. This prompted Stagecoach to simply with the pound fares which, meaning that the Authority had actually worked to the detriment of passengers as some fares are better than none. With the launch of the Stagecoach local livery, a variant was designed for Megabus which saw a yellow swoop at the rear and branding to highlight USB access.

Sadly, the last few years have seen Megabus slowly decline. As mentioned it sold its overseas operations and closed down Megasightseeing. In 2022, Stagecoach was sold to DWS. As part of the Stagecoach Group’s sale to DWS, it was agreed that Megabus' retail activities (the sale and marketing of tickets) would be sold to Scottish Citylink. An earlier proposed sale of Stagecoach to National Express would have seen Megabus sold in its entirety to ComfortDelGro. Scottish Citylink is a longstanding joint venture between Stagecoach Group and ComfortDelGro, which also took over the Falcon at the same time. Stagecoach would reduce its stake in the joint venture so it was the minority partner. At the time, the contracts to operate Megabus services were still held mainly by Stagecoach subsidiaries but Stagecoach then slowly reduced its involvement Megabus runs. This saw independent operators stepping in, although Stagecoach still ran a significant part of Megabus operations.

With increasing competition from FLiXBUS and National Express, Megabus was being squeezed out. It had a cheap and cheerful image but tastes change and FLiXBUS was increasingly replacing it and the new upstart had a better and cleaner image. In October 2024, Megabus announced that it was ceasing all operations in England and Wales apart from The Falcon route and the Anglo-Scottish runs. At the same time, it would sell through tickets to former locations it served by directing customers to the National Express website. Then as mentioned earlier, it withdrew the Anglo Scottish runs this month (December 2025) with little or no fanfare.

It’s all quite sad. Megabus was one of the industry pioneers the digital age and to see it go out with barely a whimper is a disappointing end. The Falcon route will no doubt continue, as long as it makes money. But that’s all. One legacy of Megabus will live on though in respect of the M-prefix on certain Scottish Citylink routes. But with no routes to run, coaches in Megabus livery will soon be repainted out of their liveries, probably into Stagecoach coach or Scottish Citylink colours. Very soon little will remain of one of the British Bus Industry’s last major innovations. Megabus. May it Rest in Peace.

From Aberdeen to Penzance, this atlantean really has traversed the UK from one end to the other. Starting with Grampian in Aberdeen, this wonderful looking decker is seen now working for another part of the First Group, but this time in Cornwall having had half its lid removed. I always thought these were strange addiditons to the Devon & Cornwall group, but anything had to be better then the Roe boied Lymps thet struggled with most of the hills on the route to Lands End and St Ives. This route is now in the hands of ex Bristol/Bath/Weston Volvo Citybuses, and they make mince meat of the climbs ;-). Picture taken outside Penzance Bus Station.

Ordered fro Western E909 KSG and partner E910 KSG were delivered to Fife in exchange for the 2 RVC bodied Citybuses used on Citylink duties E909/10 KSG were used in the main on the Glasgow- Fife trunk routes, those days with an hourly headway at best . Here at Kirkcaldy in March 88 it displays a modified livery as applied to the pair simple but smart...

27th August 2014, and the sight of AFJ706T appearing amongst the wilderness of the north Penwith coast here at Geevor Tin Mine on normal service meant quite a lot to me, reviving the memories of travelling the 300 route by both open and closed top VRs.

Having dragged the other half to Penzance on the off chance of finding this substituting for the usual Lodekka and Citybuses I was rather pleased that the gamble paid off on the last full day of our trip.

VRs to St Ives, St Just, Sennen and Lands End have been possible on the yearly running days in April of every year since VRs finished in 2007 but 2014 has been the first time since that it's been possible to travel the whole of the north Penwith coast again by VR thanks to the Cornwall Preservation Society providing their 1141 (seen here) as a standby heritage bus for the route.

Three other occasions when the route had been seen over the summer by myself it had been on two occasions a Volvo Citybus and on one a Royale bodied Olympian!

The VR has been reported on a handful of other occasions.

The weather only got worse throughout the day, but the bus was well driven on the challenging, in terms of hills and very narrow in places, route by the two drivers who drove it on this day.

Walked off at St Ives and realised how deafened I had been by it! Top quality entertainment. Well done First Devon & Cornwall, and thank you to those in the same company who kept these buses going ten years ago.

back in 2009, all the huddersfield volvo citybuses were withdrawn & lined up in the depot with names and numbers painted out, hoping to get pics of all of them lined up i went to the depot only to find out yellow schoolbuses had been parked across in front of them, the one above was the only one i managed to photograph at the depot although i did get good pics of a few at the scrap yard

Verkehrsbetriebe Luzern AG (VBL): several trolleybuses and buses in the main transport hub in front of the central railway station in Luzern.

My one and only time I saw one of these in service in London was this capture on Kingsway on 24/4/93.

Cosidering I had to run across the road and get a quick snapshot I feel it turned out reasonably well.

This was the second of two Mark 2 Metrobuses delivered to London Transport in 1984 as part of a future evaluation fleet. Also delivered were (I think) 2 Leyland Olympians, 2 Dennis Dominators and 2 Volvo B10M citybuses.

In the end, LT stayed with their already preferred types, namely Leyland Titans and Mark 1 Metrobuses. Once these were no longer available LT switched to buying Leyland Olympians.

As a privatised entity, London Buses did go on to buy (lease) mark 2 metrobuses for the Harrow Buses operation.

For the first time since the colour coded network was introduced in 2001, the 25 has new buses!!

In 2001, the service started with E reg Volvo Citybuses, upgrading to S reg Volvo Olympians in 2002, then T/V reg Dennis Tridents in 2004, then the 04 OmniDekkas in 2012.....

424 fresh out the box today turns into Mansfield Road at The Vale PH in Daybrook with a 25 to Arnold.

Now boasting a full fleet of Enviro 400 Scanias on the Turquoise Line, this group of services just eleven years ago was pretty much the bus graveyard, with 1985 Leyland Nationals, 1988/9 Leyland Lynxes, 1986-8 Leyland Lions, 1988-90 Volvo Citybuses, and if you were really lucky, one of the G reg 1990 Alexander RH Scanias!!

659 swings round the Lace Market off the tramlines with a 79 to Arnold via Radford, Bulwell and Rise Park.

Route 24 started in 1910, when it ran from Hampstead Heath to Victoria. It was extended to Pimlico in 1912, still quite a short route for its time, and it still does the same today. Surely the most stable route in London!

Through its history Chalk Farm (CF) was the most significant garage of operation, having held an allocation continuously from before 1934 until 1988. It was variably assisted by Holloway (J), Palmers Green (AD), Battersea (B) and Victoria (GM).

In 1988 the route was won by Grey Green, operated from a garage at Stamford Hill – it was pretty much the first tendered route to enter Central London and its grey, green and orange Volvo Citybuses stood out against a sea of red. Grey Green became part of Arriva and the route ended up, by 2000, garaged at Tottenham (AR), well off line of route.

Predictably it was lost on tender in 2002, moving to Metroline and running from slightly closer Holloway (HT). The route’s home moved south to London General for the next tender in 2007 and it was operated from Stockwell until 2012 when it returned to Holloway.

The route was the first to convert to New Routemaster operation (although a few prototypes had run on route 38) on 22/06/13 and LT102 is seen here at Westminster.

For reasons only known to First this all Leyland Olympian was re-painted, returned to service then withdrawn, sold to PVS and scrapped. This seems to be the norm with First as Scotland East re-painted Volvo Citybuses E188/90HSF then promptly scrapped them within two months of returning to service. Such a waste of time and money!.

P264 PAE & R714 BAE. Code 1 EFE First Badgerline Dennis Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointer & my code 3 CMNL First Badgerline Dennis Mini-Pointer Dart. Strange that EFE used this very short-lived (as little as 6 months). First Badgerline livery. Model has no fleet number, no tax disc, incorrect (much earlier) legal lettering and shown on 352 (Bristol-Weston) route. Most 352 and these low-floor buses were on Weston town servicesinappropriate as B10M Citybuses with coach seats were on .

Immaculate in appearance with the addition of coach-type wing mirrors is one of the former Burnley & Pendle Volvo Citybuses. It had been acquired from Hodsons Coaches of Clitheroe in Lincolnshire Road Car colours.

A memory of times past, as City Buses no longer operates double-deckers - I took this during a 2006 visit. I have visited Gibraltar on a number of occasions and never saw any double-deck bus loaded to anything like capacity, but independent operator Calypso continues to use an interesting selection on its solitary route 10.

A couple of weeks ago I spent an early afternoon in the Fenland vllage of Somersham, watching the departure of Dews vehicles from their home base on School and College services.

Here one of three Volvo B10M-50/ Alexander RV Citybuses heads through the charming village centre.

The vehicle in its recent past was with Fowlers of Holbeach Drove.

West Coast Motors replaced their ex-London Leyland Titans and ex-Fife Scottish Volvo Citybuses with Alexander Royale bodied Volvo Olympians, acquired from Lothian Regional Transport when they were retired early from Edinburgh's streets during Edinburgh's headlong rush to low floor buses. The Volvo Olympian/Alexander Royale in West Coast Motors livery is represented here by these highly detailed 1/76 scale models from Creative Master Northcord Ltd.

Upon withdrawal, all the remaining Volvo Citybuses were neatly lined up awaiting their fate. Some were transfered away, some scrapped and an odd couple sold off...

'Should have gone to.....' (the chain of Opticians) springs to mind here. One can only presume that this design was conceived late one Friday during or after a long session in the local pub.

The only Leyland Olympians to carry this rather bizarre style of Alexander double-deck coach body (Western and Fife (I think) had some similarly-bodied Volvo Citybuses), Cambus 507, seen at Walthamstow Bus Station in April 1993, had been purchased from a dealer around 3 months earlier, having been sold along with its sister bus by Eastern Scottish where it was latterly numbered ZLL145. Cambus took both examples and this one was a bit of an unexpected sighting amongst a sea of LT red, Capital Citybus yellow and Grey-Green.

This image is copyright and must not be reproduced or downloaded without the permission of the photographer.

Seen from the elevated walkway crossing Connaught Road shows the typical Hong Kong bus scene. Forefront im this view are are a couple of Citybuses ADL400 7006 with 7041 behind.

Verkehrsbetriebe Luzern AG (VBL): a Mercedes Benz O530 Citaro bus working a service in the line 18 to Kantonsspital-Friedental.

After AEC faded from the bus market, I turned my affections to Volvo. I liked their debut double-decker product, the Volvo-Ailsa B55 - a design that was as much Scottish as it was Swedish, with the engine in the right place too. Volvo buses made the right melodious sounds too, the B58 coach being vastly superior to the rough and raucous Leyland Leopard. Around the same that Leyland brought the much-improved Tiger, Volvo announced its own upgrade, the B10M coach and single-deck chassis. Absolutely top-notch, in my books. Superseding the Ailsa, Volvo also offered a double-decker variant, marketed as the Citybus. Its underfloor engine made for a high centre of gravity and a step entrance. Alexander produced the RV style of bodywork that was tailored to fit the chassis, a combination that found favour with Greater Glasgow and Grey-Green when it took over the prestigious 24 bus route in London.

Having been a stalwart Ailsa customer, Tayside Buses bought a batch of 15 Citybuses in late 1989. Now carrying Travel Dundee labelling under National Express ownership, G100PES had seen over eight years’ service at the date of this view, which emphasises what imposing buses they were. The bus enjoyed a later career operating schools services for Hilton’s Travel in North West England. After a service life of some 28 years, it has been secured for preservation.

April 1998

Rollei 35 camera

Kodak Ektachrome 100 film.

The last day of routes 12/28/29/30. All three Citybuses remain in service into July.

Dews still operate three Volvo Citybuses, with a fourth in the corner being used for spares. All have Alexander bodywork. E208 GCG is one of a pair that started life on the south coast with Bournemouth Yellow Buses and is seen setting out for an afternoon college run on 1st November, 2018.

Deputizing for a B9TL, B7TL 32590 is seen preparing to cross Argyle St with a 3 from Drumchapel Station to Govan Bus Station.

Rather remarkably, First Glasgow has managed to retain all 83 members of it's native SF54-plate batch of Gemini-bodied B7TLs (32543-32626), most of them currently concentrated at Caledonia & Scotstoun, with a handful based out at Blantyre. They have proven themselves to be faithful, reliable servants and to be more than worthy successors to the Atlanteans, Ailsas & Citybuses of old.

Photo Date: 28th April 2017

From an elevated vantage, two Lothian Buses navigate the Foot o’ the Walk, weaving between the sunlit stone buildings that line this historic Edinburgh street. Rooftops and chimney pots stretch diagonally across the frame, capturing the quiet rhythm of a June evening.

The soft, fading light warms the red sandstone façades, highlighting the textures and history of Leith Walk. Every rooftop and storefront seems to hold its own story, a gentle reminder of the city’s blend of past and present.

A subtle cinematic dehaze enhances the textures and shadows, inviting viewers to drift through this elevated perspective and feel the gentle pulse of urban life.