Bristol Harbourside Event Bristol Omnibus Company Running Day Sunday 23rd May 2004

Two events, a biannual vehicle display around the scenic Bristol Harbourside area, blended with a yearly running day on ex-Bristol Omnibus Company city routes and sightseeing tours each retaining separate organising committees.

Bristol Omnibus Company Running Day

Traces its roots back to the event where I made my driving debut in Bristol on 31^st May 2002. With the demise of the old Cannons Marsh heavy vehicle park complete with pick up point for coach services not admitted to Marlborough Street the running day needed to relocate

Canons Way

Reading Transport 193 (LMO193X), an MCW Metrobus DR102/30 repainted into Reading Corporation Transport colours to celebrate the company's 100th birthday is seen here entering the Lloyds Bank Amphitheatre. Anchor Road runs from west to east in the back ground, Cannons Marsh is behind the trees to the left and @Bristol with the I-Max cinema is far right beyond the building site that has been a work in progress in all the time I have known the area.

Bristol Harbourside

When I went to Cobham in April 1998 with John & Gill Hinson I wrote "Going to an event with a participant puts a completely new spin on the day." Driving a bus into the event takes that spin, polishes it, then seam bowls it back at you!

In mid-March 2003 I started talking to Kelvin Amos about the possibility of entering a bus from Bristol International Airport into a rally and the sort of issues regarding insurance etc. that might raise. Negotiations with my managers followed and after it seemed like they consulted every department in the Airport on Wednesday 19^th May, just four days before the event came the news "As long as there are 3 fit healthy Darts at Silver Zone on Sunday you may take one"

I took advantage of breaks etc. to clean and prepare the spare bus on Friday as soon as it came back from planned maintenance at Motor Transport Section’s workshops. When I arrived at the Airport on Sunday morning all was well and I readied the bus as if for service by filling out the Daily Defect Inspection book. As usual the trip to the fuelling rig involved a battle with illegally parked professional and private drivers trying to avoid using the allocated car park for picking up their passengers and help was needed from Security and the Duty Manager to clear a path to tahe diesel pump. With the bus checked and fuelled it was time for the dventure to begin.

Being one of the first to arrive and entering the venue through a major construction site confused me into thinking that I was in the wrong place so that I turned round and went off on a little tour trying to find the entrance. A quick conference with the driver of a very nice half-cab single decker pointed me back in the right direction, this time the gate was manned and I was welcomed with a prime spot near the ferry steps.

Fotopic Gallery.

A gallery of the pictures taken on the day can be found at Fotopic by following the link. The list below is sorted into registration number order, the Fotopic gallery is presented raw in the order I exposed the film. If I photographed a bus then returned some time later to find that the tableau had changed and an alternative view presented itself, that's what you get. Owners of Micro$oft Office or suitable reader software can view the spreadsheet and database format files used to generate the HTML list.

The stars of the show

One an itinerant demonstrator in search of a home, while the other recently entered preservation

Scania OmniDekka/East Lancs demonstrator

YN53PAO came to Bristol to be evaluated by ABus. Before it went home to Scania Alan Peters brought the demonstration bus to Bristol Harbourside and I was privileged to join the single journey it did on the CCC City Centre Circle to Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station and back.

Click on the photo to read the full story or find the image in the main Fotopic gallery

Southern National Bristol VRT VDV122S

Bristol VRT/SL3/6LXB VDV122S was rallied extensively in 2003/4, at first with First logos, but later with the correct Southern National fleet names from when it was with the Cawlett Group by Kelvin Mann of Nailsea. On the 28th December 2004 it passed into the ownership of Terry Partridge.

Click on the photo to read the full story or find the image in the main Fotopic gallery

Link buttons in text above are Java Applets generated by Microsoft® FrontPage®2000 and may not display with the security settings of some systems

© Martin G. Layton 2005

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