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Post by swfcforever on Mar 23, 2007 20:06:37 GMT
Hi. Does anybody remember the B6's that Mainline were going to use to launch in Ipswich. I believe they were standard Mainline fare. Does anybody know the registrations,what they were re-registered to and what year it was happening.
Sean
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Post by foxydebs on Mar 23, 2007 21:09:40 GMT
Cant help you there as only info I used to get from my dad was about tracky, although he did know a few mainline drivers
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iane
Driver
Posts: 271
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Post by iane on Mar 23, 2007 22:45:51 GMT
remember m411 vhe or 411 now 40450... was painted in mainlinelivery with ipswich on black lining.around 1995.but as we know nothing ever came of the venture.cant remember seeing any other painted up ..hope this helps
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Post by galaxy on Mar 23, 2007 23:52:22 GMT
Didn't they end up moving to Goole when they came back, or am I getting this confused with something else? Can't remember it that well as I discovered girls around this time!
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Post by jswallow on Mar 24, 2007 10:12:36 GMT
Nope, nothing came of the venture at all.
The B6s were delivered in Mainline Ipswich yellow (as someone said, standard Mainline livery but the word IPSWICH added in white on the underline part). A photo of one of them appeared in Buses magazine. At the time I thought this venture had something to do with Mainline being 20% owned by Stagecoach (so a hit on First Eastern Counties) but apparently it wasn't - it was all planned prior to partial sale to Stagecoach (read that in one of the Buses Focus mags recently).
The buses passed to First Eastern Counties before operations even began and I'm sure they ended up with guidewheels on them for their little busway they have in Ipswich.
That's as close as my hazy memory can get with it.
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Post by galaxy on Mar 24, 2007 11:17:59 GMT
Now I vaguely remember it, something like this ...  ... although I would have preferred ...  God haven't used that font for years and years!! |
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Post by jswallow on Mar 24, 2007 12:23:23 GMT
First's one spot on. Don't know why they didn't go with the second one though - I suppose it's probably because by that time though they'd ditched the local identifiers.
Where do you get that font though? I'd love a copy of it.
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Post by galaxy on Mar 24, 2007 12:34:42 GMT
I have had the font for a number of years. I do a number of documents for various TOCs and one of the update discs which have all the fonts that rail companies use and for some reason it was on there - had it ever since!
Sadly I can't "lift" them off the disc but it is called Napoli if that helps.
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Post by greenbus on Mar 24, 2007 18:01:16 GMT
Nope, nothing came of the venture at all. The B6s were delivered in Mainline Ipswich yellow (as someone said, standard Mainline livery but the word IPSWICH added in white on the underline part). A photo of one of them appeared in Buses magazine. At the time I thought this venture had something to do with Mainline being 20% owned by Stagecoach (so a hit on First Eastern Counties) but apparently it wasn't - it was all planned prior to partial sale to Stagecoach (read that in one of the Buses Focus mags recently). The buses passed to First Eastern Counties before operations even began and I'm sure they ended up with guidewheels on them for their little busway they have in Ipswich. That's as close as my hazy memory can get with it. The B6s outstationed at a Volvo dealer ready to attack Ipswich Buses, rather than Eastern Counties I believe. At the time First didn't exist, but Eastern Counties was in the capable hands (in Scotland at least) of GRT, who had a good relationship with Stagecoach (kind of like the one with EYMS, but EYMS's is for very different reasons indeed!). The venture went nowhere and the B6s were simply sold to GRT. |
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Post by manontheinside on Mar 26, 2007 20:58:30 GMT
The buses were 411-420 (MxxxTET), were housed (in theory) at the local Volvo dealers and never turned a wheel in anger on the 33 to Tower Ramparts.
None went on Goole, all were sold to GRT (Eastern Counties) and became M584-593ANG in the EC fleet.
And no, the venture was a Mainline initiative, not a Stagecoach one. Some considerable effort was afforded before Ipswich was chosen!
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