Thoughts from Southwestbus

For the last 14 months, or so, we've been having to contend with the effects of a worldwide pandemic. This has manifested itself in the real bus/coach industry in differing ways.  Coaches have been utterly decimated by a collapse of private hire work, tour work and all the 'in between' jobs that come a coach operator's way alongside traditional school contract work. All the while, the outgoings remain the same. Coaches are expensive items of equipment and usually are on finance, so that bill is paid whether or not the vehicle moves.  I have seen these effects as a coach driver and for the last 14 months, my work has been in the home to school category, after a 6 month hiatus from mid March 2020 when the schools closed.  That was complicated by a house move to Yorkshire, so it allowed me time to reflect on what I want from life, added with the benefit of loads of free time, but no funds with which to do things.   The bus industry has also had it's issues during this

  Now that I've explained a little about me, I thought we would explore my interests in model buses and fleet operation. When I was 9, in 1992 my birthday present was one of the EFE 'grey box' AEC RT buses. Dad bought it from a model shop, no doubt with money he didn't have. Being obsessed with buses I had very few toy ones until I entered the world of work delivering newspapers. Even then purchases weren't as numerous as later on in life.  I didn't have a games console, or a model train set, or a racing track so in my early teens I started my first model bus 'fleet'. Blue Bus began in November 1997 using a Corgi Juniors Mercedes 'minibus' which resembled a 608 but wasn't in practice. But as a representation of a commercially available at the time bus it did the job. This Mercedes operated an interlinked network of traditional out and back 'Market day' type shopping services based on my native home of Yeovil. I assumed just t