Alan Millar’s sideways view of the bus scene
Please send any stories, photos, (digital, prints or slides), cuttings and other information of off beat bus matters direct to alan.millar@keypublishing.com
One way of recognising that you’re in the company of bus people — or bus people with a soul — is when multiple cars gather, all with registration plates that began life on London Routemasters.
As the owner of one such plate for over 30 years, I’ve found myself in such gatherings more than once, often where the other attendees are bus company managers. So did Russell Young recently when a friend hosted a birthday party in Wansford, near Peterborough at which Russell and two fellow guests rocked up in cars bearing the former identities of RM20, RM699 and RML883, which they just had to line up in the appropriate location of the village’s London Road.
Lest you wonder, RM20 no longer exists, RM699 was last heard of in Sweden and RML883 surrendered its plate when it was exported to the Czech Republic from where it returned in 2013 and became TAS 466.
Russell tells me that he acquired WLT 699 — now on his late model Ford Fiesta — when Strathtay was withdrawing its Routemasters and transferring the plates on …
