I was talking to Derek Brumpton of Irizar UK recently. His family used to be coach operators and he told me how, in the early 1980s, his father had said to the salesman delivering his new Plaxton bodied Bedford, that it would be his last new coach because you couldn’t make money with coaches costing […]
After last week’s blog was brought to you courtesy of a chance meeting on a ScotRail train, I’m back on the rails writing this week on a Piccadilly Line Underground train to Cockfosters, but it’s safety on the roads I’m focusing on. I’ve just been on a day training course with Driver First Assist and […]
One of the upsides of public transport over using my car is that I can get work done when otherwise my time would be entirely unproductive. The point was emphasised yesterday when, sat on a train heading from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, I was downloading my pictures from the previous 24 hours. On screen came the […]
Avid readers of CPT’s daily News Desk service may have noticed a reference to a talk hosted by the Werrington Local History Group entitled The History of Delaine Buses on Thursday evening last week. Alerted by this mention I went along after work and found the car park at the community centre of this Peterborough […]
My last vehicle launch of 2013 was TfL’s new BYD e-bus and at the press lunch that followed it Isbrand Ho, General Manager BYD Auto Europe, said that now was ‘the Kodak moment’ for the European bus manufacturing industry. It was a reference to the once all-powerful film manufacturer’s refusal to take seriously the threat […]
There was a certain irony in holding the launch of TfL’s new BYD electric buses at Go-Ahead’s Waterloo depot because the last time I was there was in 2002 for the launch of London’s first Mercedes-Benz Citaro articulated buses. They were to be the next big thing in London and I still don’t believe that […]
The news from EvoBus this week that CEO and MD, Jan Aichinger, has left the helm for, as yet undisclosed, pastures new means that Interim MD, Mike Beagrie will be the fifth to hold the position in eleven years with recruiting for a sixth already underway. The number of changes is actually one more than […]
Last week’s visit to Northern Ireland to see all of the latest from Wrightbus was a marked contrast to my first, over 25 years ago, when the company was still in its old premises before the move of the coachbuilding plant to the Galgorm Industrial Estate. On that occasion, the reason for the visit was […]