issue 189 (February – March 2024)

We’ve had quite a lot recently about the same numbers being used for different bus routes in the same towns; now Mike Eyre gives us a comprehensive lowdown on Manchester’s bewildering bus numbers over the years. And talking of numbers, the famous Silver Star of Porton Down would have been 100 this year, and it’s 60 years since it sold to Wilts & Dorset. We report on a celebratory run; also on a re-enactment of the heydays of Southdown. 

From The Bus Archive, we have more on the LPG experiment, and John Hodge recalls a Sheffield circular route and the buses that ran on it. Jeremy Williams goes back to his school days in Wigan, recalling the buses there and in nearby towns, and Peter Snowden looks at old bus timetables and observes how transport undertakings catered for people needing to get home after dances, cinemas and theatres.

Also in this issue, we feature a bus shelter doubling up as a war memorial, the final days of mail transported by bus in the Highlands, a Maidstone & District Leyland Atlantean leaning heavily to starboard, an attempt to sell 100 buses in four countries, and a postcard with buses in Castle Square, Caernarfon.

in this issue

• changing bus numbers – on the streets of Manchester
• when the dancing stopped – there was a late bus to get you home
• adverse camber – an Atlantean on a bridge in Rochester
• going to school in Wigan – and all the buses to be seen nearby
• recalling a Sheffield bus route – and lots of lovely AEC Regents
• a Derbyshire bus shelter – that was also a war memorial
• Silver Star would have been 100 – a celebratory day out
• 100 buses for sale – in England, France, Germany or Spain
• more LPG experiments – revealed in The Bus Archive
• a final fling in the Highlands – nearing the end of mails by bus
• from Caernarfon Castle – a picture postcard view
• an Olympic tragedy – a King Alfred loss