The Southampton Connection

It was one of those nice coincidences that happen from time to time. I was reading through my daily blog reading list at lunchtime and saw that four more Darts are heading towards Hampshire from the Devon & Cornwall fleet. I am sure in due time we will find out which ones but I was then thinking about the times that Southampton buses have been working in Plymouth and was going to put together a post on the small fleet of Atlanteans that Western National purchased a few of which appeared in Plymouth. Then as I was going through my evening reading duties I saw this excellent shot from AECRegent which mentioned an earlier photo of the same bus:
©AecRegent(Les Eddy)
PCTAtlanteanHunter added an excellent commentary to the photo:
I can shed some light on this Southampton Atlantean it was almost brand new when it came to Plymouth it stayed for over a month on mainly engineering and mechanical trials as a comparison for things like fuel consumption and breaks, gearboxes, transmissions etc it was acting as a Leyland demonstrator in effect though was owned by SCT its number 272 didn't clash with any Citybus numbers at the time so that number was retained for its stay. It was often used on Plympton and Whitleigh/Southway services. It did however leave a lasting mark in Plymouth after its stay new bonnet catches were retro fitted to all roe and east lancs atlanteans some still in evidence on the buses in the PCT preservation group now. Other demonstrators used at the time were WYPTE/Leyland Demonstrator UWW 11X, Volvo Ailsa Marshall YAU 128Y from Derby, Volvo Citybus demonstrator A308 RSU and Northern General mk2 metrobus UTN508Y i believe could have been 510y ? which is now in preservation. On the back of these we got 172-4 TTT 172-4X and 175/6 B175/6VDV -for an added update 176 has been withdrawn with a ceased engine and will not run again.

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Related Links

• AECRegent (Les Eddy)photostream Flickr
• PCTAtlanteanHunter photostream Flickr
• Ugo Southampton Plymothian Transit November 2010
• A little bit of black Plymothian Transit September 2010
• Life after Plymouth - Southampton Plymothian Transit July 2008

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