London Special!

Regular Contributor Kieran Smith visited the capital last week, he takes up the report on his sightings.

On October 29th I traveled the some 98 mile journey to London from Norwich. I always enjoy travelling to London because of all the coach travelling up the A11 and M11, not only the coaches taking people on excursions, but the local coaches owned by Ambassador. I even saw a Coach Services Alexander Q-Type when I neared Thetford.

After a good 1 hour journey I reached Junction 8, a rather odd junction, but just past it on the A120 is a small industrial estate where there is a National Express Depot, a Scania bus and truck garage and a patch of land where I photographed a Stansted Airport Mercedes Benz Citaro.

The next day I left to travel into London. After starring at the back of the same Terravision Irizar Century, I finally reached Aldgate. My first photo was of a Routemaster (WTL 324) which is owned by Stagecoach. I then had a quick visit to Aldgate Bus Station where I photographed four buses from Stagecoach, Abellio, London Central and later a Go-Ahead Scania N94UB/East Lancs Myllennium.

I then took the half an hour journey to Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex, where I spent most of my day photographing buses. Here I caught up with two of our old girls, ex-Sanders Volvo B9TL/Optare Olympuses PL08 YMA/YLZ. The picture shows one of Ensign’s other Olympus deckers PO58 NRE. 

Other buses which run to Lakeside include First vehicles, from London and Essex. The 100 which runs from Chelmsford to Essex is run by Wright Eclipse single deckers, all of which were very dirty. Some of the buses on the 100 included sisters of the batch of Scania L94UBs which came to Norwich; they have now left to Ipswich. Unfortunately, the batch of new Wright Gemini 2s from Ensign bus were not out!

I then travelled back into London where I photographed some more buses, Aldgate is served by Abellio, First , Stagecoach, Arriva and Go-Ahead as well as National Express and Westbus. Buses come around every minute, causing much trouble for a photographer. This picture is of a Stagecoach Alexander Dennis Trident/Alexander ALX400 seen in the evening dusk.

On the way home I stopped at service on Junction 8, where there are always coaches sat in the coach park. Unfortunately it was really dark so no pictures came out good! I noted Eastons YN08 NNE, a Plaxton Panther which is on loan, it then left heading back for its depot, around 10 minutes away from Norwich. There were also two D&H Harrod coaches, including N19 DHH, a tiny Mercedes Benz Tourino, the other was a Plaxton Paragon.

My Thanks to Kieran for sharing his sightings.

More of Kierans pictures from London can be found on Flickr.