The mileage game

Long before I listened to radio 1 there was a feature on the roadshow (long before I listened to that as well) called Smiley Miley's Mileage Game. People had to guess the mileage travelled by the roadshow truck to the current location.

 

The final 2023 event, the 2nd Model Bus Scotland show at Bridgeton Bus Garage in Glasgow.

Much less thrilling than the Radio 1 Roadshow is my annual adventures to a number of model bus events each year. The (t)rusty southwestbus support van has visited 10 events in 2023, which is some kind of record for me. We've visited far fewer events in the past sometimes doing just one or two.  The fleet lives in two wooden shelving units in my home, with 8/9 shelves in each. 

I bought these as 5 shelf units in 2012, and added in extras. In these shelf units sit a number of layouts with workshop buildings and portacabins. So it's possible to choose one of those layouts for an event. To double up my parking space for vehicles there are two backboards I can use on these layouts.  

So I thought I'd work out how many miles I've driven in the support van this year to attend all these events and see if there were some statistics to share. Turns out there are.  :D

2023 has seen us visit events in Ruislip, Codnor, Stafford, Wythall, Aldwarke, Gaydon, Nelson, Chester Coventry and Glasgow. 

MBF London Area Show, Ruislip March 2023.

This is a total of 2,650 miles. Equivalent to 3.14 journeys between John O'Groats and Lands End (837 miles end to end).  The manufacturers of my van tell me it has a 60 litre fuel tank, as we're very environmentally aware here the van has a 1.6 litre diesel engine. If we assume that fuel is £1.60 a litre (rather than £2), then it's £96 to fill up. 

Even more dubious is the manufacturer's stated figure of 690 miles to a tank of fuel, but we'll assume they're right and not telling fibs. In any event, as I drive like a member of the senior citizen community (slow, like in a Morris Traveller sitting at 48mph....) it's possible the 690 miles figure might be accurate. So this 2,650 mileage theoretically needs 3.84 tanks of diesel. We'll round this up to 4 tanks so at £96 a tank we get to £384 in fuel. 

1st Midland Bus Kits show, Codnor March 2023. Very much looking forward to the 2nd!

Senior management could potentially supply the cost of bags of sweets consumed on her 4 trips and if I was properly organised we could also add in the cost of coffees en route to the events. I did mention to senior management I was typing this post, but met with little enthusiasm. The usual 'thanks for that thrilling information' response was received amongst other 'positive feedback'. 

So this information isn't available for 2023.

No record of time taken has been recorded either, but with one exception I only attend events on a one day basis. So my journey to/from has to be completed in one day from my base in flat cap and whippet country (where we all keep Kestrels as pets too) here in England's largest county. Typically I'll start my journey around 0600 on a Saturday on the basis that professional, sensible drivers use the road network at this time of the day. Unscientific analysis on camping trips has demonstrated the sense of this logic more than once - later you leave more people you meet.  So I avoid as many as I can. 

set up for the October 2023 MBF AGM in Coventry beside Leon Richardson's display.

Equally proven is that the unintelligent road user drives on the roads later in the day. There has been research conducted (of the observational variety) into the brands of car these people drive and you'll be delighted to know these are primarily drivers of supposed 'executive' German models with drivers of a medium sized blue oval manufactured vehicle with 5 letters in it's name coming in behind that. 

Scrapyard engineering in action - YJ05 on the right arrived in November 22 with misty screen and has been revived using cannibalised parts from another Myllennium bodyshell acquired in October at Chester. Livery has been finished in 'pseudo' Blackburn Transport colours from the early 2000s. It's parked beside an adapted out the box example at the 2023 MBF AGM in Coventry, or rather Balsall Common. Almost home to Onslow from Keeping up Appearances.  

Note that Blue oval drivers in the smaller cars (either two/four/six letters in the name) in their range, and the largest (six letters, built since 1993 and no longer available) continue to be sensible road users. The most sensible seem to be drivers of Japanese and Korean manufactured vehicles. Maybe they also used to drive Morris Travellers back in the day?! 

In mileage terms, the two furthest events from home have been Bridgeton and Ruislip, 223 and 224 miles distant. The nearest was Aldwarke which was my local MBF event in June. 

early July saw me visiting the British Motor Museum at Gaydon thanks to a kind invite from award winning Crossways.
Their vehicles are the nice immaculate white ones on the left of the photo, next to my doddering old wrecks....

So, one wonders what 2024's mileage will be. It'll be a bit lower thanks to Citizen Khan's 'you're unclean tax' although I could just pay £12.50 and then be clean and green. 

Well done if you got this far with this thrilling post. 

We now have professionally printed business cards to hand out at events!