The National Transport Trust has awarded a lump sum towards the Ipswich Transport Museum’s restoration of a 1932 Bedford WLB.
New to a Wiltshire operator, Alexander of Devizes, WV 1209 was operated latterly in Suffolk and had fallen into disrepair before the museum turned what the trust says was “something of a wreck” into “a very viable and handsome little period machine”.
Vauxhall Motors adopted the Bedford name in 1931 for what hitherto had been the Chevrolet range of buses, coaches and commercial vehicles, so this is an early example to carry the British name. Its 20-seat bus body was built in Suffolk by Waveney at a factory in Oulton Broad, just outside Lowestoft.
This was the sole bus or coach winner presented by the Princess Royal as part of the NTT’s normally annual restoration awards for road, rail, air, sea and inland waterway projects. Because of Covid-19, these combine awards for 2020 and 2021 and were judged from written entries and portfolios of photographs instead of volunteer judges’ visits.
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