First, The Answers
But Moscow wasn't there! These, however, were featured yesterday.
Crosville
Birkenhead (or Wallasey?)
Rotherham
Sheffield
Belfast
Colchester
So here is today's selection.
One of the very original PTEs
Should be easy as the blind layout, typeface and the selection of place names are all 'iconic'. The city is not Weatherfield!
The style remained unchanged until the PTE got going.
The foundation of First Bus
The large one track number blind was distinctive.
The livery gained a red stripe ...
... and under First's ownership, gained a small thistle.
A municipal operator still owned bu its Council - and a pioneer of yellow on black ...
.... which did fade very quickly. A brighter better font followed.
Another novelty was the use of mechanical route numbers, a bit like the original digital clock displays.
Once the biggest bus company (outside London) with the widest operating area. Historically beaten in area by United!
The company also built its own buses.
The operation was split up for privatisation.
Another PTE to be.
Once a trolleybus operator ...
... part of the former Tilling Group, but with non Tilling blind layout ...
... and route letter plus number display. Later the blind display was reduced and separate number and letter blinds appeared,
Another Scottish distinctive blind style.
Post deregulation the city and surrounding area was dominated by First.
A municipality also still local authority owned.
Buses have gone from red to red and blue and now to yellow with a very strange logo.
is it a wolf?
A municipality also still local authority owned.
This blind is one of the newest in the fbb revelation!
And a trip overseas, a long way overseas, to what was once Stagecoach territory.
There is a hefty clue in the above blind.
Answers tomorrow!
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The Predestination Debate
Like so many Bible "problems" the way words have been translated in the past causes angst. How many 21st century enquirers have sniggered at the phrase "Holy Ghost"?
Taking things out of context is a recipe for confusion. The passage about 'predestination' begins thus:-
We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.
Then comes the predestination bit.
Things happen when, and only when, we are willing to be part of God's plans and put any personal desires and ambitions second place to His.
So God has a plan for each one of us, a route through life and an eternal destination which we can call heaven (although nobody fully understands what the terminus is like - but it's exceptionally good!)
So we have a pre-determined destination, but we still have to get on the God Bus and stay on the God Bus. That's our free will choice.
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Also tomorrow, fbb hopes to take his readers to the city which most authorities recognise as the source of Covid.
Next new Metro line blog : Thurs 14th May
Grampian livery added an orange band, not a red one.
ReplyDeleteMidland Red was split up in 1981, long before privatisation of the bus industry was on the cards. It was a delayed reaction to the sale of the urban centre, and indirectly a result of the Viable Network Project.
The Stagecoach vehicle is a Wellington trolleybus, which would not have had a blind for the city illustrated.
Carris, the Lisbon bus operator, had a wide variety of "wrong way round" British buses including Regents, Regals, Guys, a few Atlanteans and Fleetlines, most of them with a very basic interior configuration. Some of them sported a very narrow slit to display their destinations; the lettering on the blinds was larger than the aperture so they were very difficult to read! (Most of these buses went in the 80s, some after very long lives in arduous conditions; today's fleet is modern).
ReplyDeleteUnder the sub-heading "Once a trolleybus operator ..." you refer to Midland General and Notts & Derby as "part of the former Tilling Group". That's not really correct. Those companies, together with Mansfield District, were part of the Balfour Beatty group prior to nationalisation. Following nationalisation, the group was known as the British Transport Commission, and later the Transport Holding Company. Most of the companies in the nationalised group were from the Tilling Group - prior to nationalisation - so the name has tended to be used rather loosely, but not, in fact, correctly. The Tilling company continued to trade in other sectors for several years after the bus interests were nationalised.
ReplyDeleteThe flexibility of the "standardised" Bristol and ECW products enabled the former Balfour Beatty operators to retain their previous standard destination displays - as well as the liveries.
RC169