THE LONDON & HOME COUNTIES SHOWBUS BUS IMAGE GALLERY
Southend Transport & Arriva serving Southend
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 Marshall bodied Leopard 209 (GJN509D) is one of the pair of Leopards to have been preserved and was seen at the 2009 North Weald Rally. |
 Southend 244 (FOP429), new in 1945 to Birmingham Corporation has had a chequered history: It was acquired by Canvey & District in 1949, passing to Westcliff-on-Sea and in turn to Eastern National as the various undertakings were taken over. It was bought by Southend in 1955 and converted to open-top in 1956, it continued in service until 1970 and is now preserved at the Castle Point Transport Museum. It is seen here at North Weald in 2007. |
Seen on the X3 service to Southend from central London is this Northern Counties bodied Volvo Olympian, one of a batch of five delivered in 1996. The bus represents the last in the line of doubledeckers which featured on the London commuter services introduced at the time of deregulation. The service even featured integral Van Hool luxury deckers at one time in a vivid yellow and blue livery. The service later became a joint Green Line operation with First Essex Buses.
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Southend 122 (VLT44) was originally London Transport RM44. The Routemaster is now preserved in Southend's livery, commemorating the time it spent working in the seaside town. The location is North Weald in summer 2004.
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 Deregulation saw Southend Transport dabling in all sorts of operations. Not only express services, but they also went into the London sightseeing market with a venture dubbed "Culture Bus". This utilised the drivers off London commuter services. The buses used were painted in the same colours as the expresses and a number of East Lancs Olympians were hired from Cardiff Bus for the operation. Somewhat ironically many of these buses ended their days with Guide Friday/City Sightseeing in open top form and on city tours again, though not in the capital,som eeven ended up in San Francisco. Seen is Cardiff 554, Southend 364 (B554ATX) on Marylebone High Road. |
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