THE LONDON & HOME COUNTIES BUS IMAGE GALLERY
Red Rover AEC singledeck buses
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 The Swifts were followed by a pair of Plaxton Derwent bodied AEC Reliances in keeping with coach deliveries at the time. They arrived either side of Christmas 1970 and were regular performers on the Saturday south coast express services. This photograph from the company archives of 5 (UKX105J) shows it on the Aylesbury town service on Elmhurst Estate. The town service needed one bus doing an hourly repeat of three services to Quarrendon Estate, Belgrave Road via Bicester Road (route 12) followed by an Elmhurst (14) and a Quarrendon Estate, St Peter's Avenue via Buckingham Road (route 13). In practice this work was intermingled with country services providing a variety of vehicles for town service passengers and a variety of work for the driving team. All the services competed with United Counties in the town, but Red Rover's were so reliable they took the lion's share of the passengers. As for 5, later 105, it passed to Tillingbourne.
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Tillingbourne |
 All three Caetano Estoril bodied Bedford YMT coaches seen together with 105 in the Aylesbury depot yard. |
 A unique occasion at the height of the summer back in the late seventies is seen here. Saturday stage carriage operations required just six buses, normally four of the five AEC Renowns were used and most likely Derwents 105 and 106. However on this particular busy Saturday 106 was despatched on one of the South Coast Express services and the fifth Renown put to work. That was fine until around 6.00pm. The Bicester service went under a low bridge and the the 4.30pm and 6.00pm departures from Aylesbury overlapped. So on this occasion the Renown left Aylesbury with blinds set for route 16 to Bicester. It rendez-voused with 105 at Linnett Drive in Westcott, with the Renown returning to Aylesbury and 105 assuming the 6.00pm Bicester service. Passengers can be seen transferring between the buses. Using the Derwents on South Coast Expresses was not a regular occurence and the Coaching Manager, Brian Kirton, recalls an occasion when he put passengers suitcases into the boot of one of the buses only to see them bob on the water that filled the boot from a recent downpour!
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 A second view of the Westcott Interchange.
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