The Isle of Wight Bus
Museum has now moved into its new home at the former Southern Vectis bus depot
in Ryde. Well known for its Spring and
Autumn Running Days the museum is home to a superb collection of buses and
coaches, mostly with Isle of Wight heritage.
independent transport videos have been involved with the
Museum since it’s inception back in 1997, producing a number of video
programmes featuring it’s Running Days as well as programmes featuring the
contemporary Southern Vectis buses. This
DVD is produced as a ‘welcome’ to the new premises, featuring the special
Members Open Day in March 2015, prior to the public launch of the Museum, the
Autumn Running Day of 2015 and the Spring event of 2016.
We begin this
programme at the Members Open Day on the 29th March 2015. The day was not the best for the
weather! Storm force gales that affected
the ferry crossings from the mainland and rain were all too present. The main highlight of the day was a cavalcade
of thirteen buses and coaches from the Museum taking a tour through Seaview and
Ryde. Our cameras were on board 703 (DDL
50), the 1940 K5G open topper – not the best camera platform judging by the
weather! However it turned many heads of
the hardy souls that were out enjoying their Sunday afternoon! We also take a brief look inside the depot –
a superb facility, we are sure you will agree.
The second part of the programme features the 2015 Autumn Running
Day. This event actually took place back
on the Quay and at the new Museum! There
were over 20 different preserved major fleet liveries on show at this event,
not to mention over six independent companies!
Operators included Badgerline, Hants & Dorset, Wilts & Dorset,
Eastern National, Crosville, Midland Scottish, Ulsterbus, Belfast Citybus, Portsmouth
and Southampton Corporations to name but a few.
Plenty of action for
you to enjoy as the buses run in and out of the ‘bus stations’ at the Quay and
the Museum. Our final visit is to the
Spring event in 2016. This event actually
ran over two days, our cameras were there on the Sunday to enjoy the comings
and goings at the Museum. 2016 sees the
celebration of 60 years of summer season open top buses on the Island. To mark this we take a ride out on 703 (DDL
50) to Ventnor via Shanklin, returning via Sandown on this beautiful old bus. Lovely sounds of the Gardner 5 cylinder
engine from the lower deck and nice views of her running along the sea fronts
at Shanklin and Sandown. We return to
Ryde and see some preserved buses running along the esplanade amongst the
modern Scanias and a brand new Enviro400 belonging to Southern Vectis. We hope we have whetted your appetite for a
visit to the new Museum, whose address is: The Bus Depot, Park Road, RYDE, Isle
of Wight, PO33 2BE. Enjoy!