The
Taunton Vintage Bus Day has now established itself as one of the
leading running days in the UK buses rally calendar. This is the
third visit by the independent transport videos cameras to this event
based at the Art Deco style bus station in the Somerset town of Taunton
on Sunday May 8th 2016. Our cameras are out and about bright and
early in the morning as the vehicles begin to arrive in glorious spring
sunshine. Castle Green is the location as we see a superb line up
of vehicles representing fleets from North Western, Crosville and
Stockport, Huddersfield and Bournemouth. Also present is a
Leyland Titan PD2 in the livery of Scout Motor Services. We also
see a line up of mostly former Tilling fleet vehicles in the bus
station, with buses from Western and Southern National, the Bristol
Omnibus group of companies, Crosville and Royal Blue just to name a
few! Filming now starts in earnest, with a variety of locations
for you to enjoy. These include Castle Way, Tower Street,
Corporation Street, Fore Street and of course the Bus Station.
Our cameras jump between locations, and they are subtitled on the
programme to help you identify them if you are not familiar with
Taunton.
We take a ride on board 18 (RTC 822), a
Leyland Titan PD2/12 with Leyland H56R bodywork. This bus was
originally owned by Rawtenstall Corporation, but has been restored and
painted in the interesting livery of red, ivory and black as used by
Scout Motor Services from the north west of England. This ride
out was for a photo shoot for the popular enthusiast magazine, ‘Bus
& Coach Preservation’.
The present day bus
operator in Taunton is ‘First’, who’s buses are painted in a smart
two-tone green livery and branded ‘Buses of Somerset’. To tie in
with the event their garage on Hamilton Road was open to the public and
our cameras made a brief visit there. From the garage we return
to the bus station in Taunton on board 1056 (OTA 290G), a Bristol
VRTSL6G with an ECW H70F body. Formally owned by Western
National, this bus spent most of its working life in Plymouth and is
now restored to ‘as new’ condition. Now back in the town we do
further filming on Castle Way, Corporation Street and Tower Street
concluding at the Bus Station. This event certainly has a good
variety of buses and operators from the past represented. Apart
from the fleets mentioned above, you will also see buses representing
Barton, Bere Regis & District, Caerphilly UDC, Damory, Devon
General, Exeter Corporation, Mendip Mule, Thames Valley and West
Riding! Quite a list, so sit back and enjoy the experience.