Mid Norfolk Raiway ~ Bus & Coach Day

Last Sunday witnessed the Mid Norfolk Railway's Bus and Coach Day and those that went said it was a pleasant and well attended event.

As you will have guessed, I was elsewhere but I did receive some 40 photos for use on the blog with offers of many more. As you can imagine it was very difficult in deciding what (and what not) to use in this post and to edit the photos accordingly.

I decided to mainly concentrate this post to feature vehicles that had not been viewed and used here previously. The first is a former London Transport RMF1254 254CLT which has led quite a busy existence. After appearing at the 1962 Commercial Motor Show it was handed over to London Transport for a series of demonstrator visits. It had stints with Liverpool Corporation, East Kent, Halifax Corporation and BEA. After fitting with a Leyland engine it was acquired by Northern General where it stayed in service until October 1980. It subsequently entered preservation and is now with Imperial Buses of Outwell. It completed two trips on the Yaxham Circular.

Former Belfast Citybus Bristol RE XOI2526 is the next subject which has appeared at Dereham before but is now in Ipswich livery (See Mid Norfolk Railway Bus and Coach Day 2017). Other ex Ipswich attendees were AEC Regal 8 BPV8 and Leon Wells' Volvo Olympian 41 M41EPV.

Another Volvo Olympian making an appearance was Eagles' P492FRR. The East Lancs H49/35F bodied bus was purchased new by Nottingham City Transport in March 1997 for use by their South Notts subsidiary. On disposal in February 2008 it passed to Irvine's of Law, and then to Bryan's Coaches of Denny in Scotland on Irvine's demise.

Another Norfolk independent represented was Sanders Coaches who sent along Plaxton Elite bodied Volvo B9R SD60DGO which was previously with Parks of Hamilton as KSK986. Built to National Express specification, it features a lower front destination display. The operator's Yutong NS17GAS also accompanied it to the event.

An unusual visitor was former East Kent recovery vehicle PFN865. The AEC Regent V was new to the company as a double decker in 1959 with a Park Royal body and was converted into its present form in 1979.

There were complimentary connecting services to County School and Hardingham Stations on the Mid Norfolk Railway line. The latter is privately owned and only opens to the public on special occasions and the photo shows Westcliff-on-Sea Bristol K5G AJN825 in the station.yard.

The final photo is of former Lincolnshire Road Car Company's Bristol VR 1904 JVL619H. New in August 1969, it was withdrawn 20 years later and sold to dealer PVS of Carlton before seeing further use as a fun bus and play bus prior to entering preservation in 2002.

My thanks to Reg Vardy and Tim Major for the supply of all the photos for this post and my appreciation goes to others for offering their photos too. All but the last one is attributed to the former whilst the latter provided the final one. I must also acknowledge Ian's Bus Stop for the history of  RMF1254 and to Rob Sly for his Illustrated History of JVL619H. My apologies for the delay in finalising this post but I hope the effort has been worthwhile!

Roy