Boxing Day Back Track

Happy Boxing Day Readers, hope you all had a fantastic Christmas Day, all full and rested i hope!

I am taking you back to Norwich in August 2005, sounds very odd saying that it is now 20 years ago.

 

First up is a new arrival for First that year, 32652 AU05MUP an Alexander Dennis ALX400 which was wrongly delivered in Park & Ride Blue livery before being repainted in the corporate Barbie scheme, in fact the whole batch of these arrived at Great Yarmouth Depot in Blue. The Park & Ride vehicles were then made up of 53 plate ALX400's from the fleet.

Sanders ran a few DAF/Ikarus vehicles around this time and P127RWR is seen in Castle Meadow heading out to Holt an the 44 service. This was new to Luton Airport, it moved onto Brylaine in Lincolnshire after service with Sanders.

 

Norfolk County Council had begun running some of the City Park & Ride sites, one of these being Postwick where this photo was taken. AU05FKG was in a White scheme as a dedicated spare vehicle covering all sites, NCC ran Agoralines in Green, Yellow & Purple schemes for the various sites at Postwick, Sprowston & Norwich Airport.

 

A unique loan vehicle was operating for First at the time, 32850 T850LLC, A Dennis Trident with Plaxton President bodywork appeared on the 25 service, This type was to become a fixture in the fleet from 2009 along with more Volvo B7TL's from London. 32850 did return to Norwich in Barbie colours before moving on to First Essex.

 

Finally adding to the new colourful Park & Ride fleets were Konectbus who operated the Thickthorn site using VDL/Wright Geminis, YJ05PXD is seen heading out of the new Bus Station which was yet to be completed at the time if i recall.

Enjoy the rest of the festive celebrations, hopefully i should be up to Norwich again before the end of the year.

All The Best, Grahame.