A Day out to Loughborough

This set of images is to illustrate an article written for a magazine called ‘All Things Local’.

This community magazine is produced and distributed from a base in Kilburn, Derbyshire and covers large areas of the towns of Ripley and Belper.

 

We start by going to Nottingham’s Victoria Bus Station (VBS).

 

From the Ripley area we are spoiled for choice having ‘trentbarton’s (tb) ‘red arrow’, ‘rainbow one’ and rapid one’ services to choose from.

 

The choice is yours.

 

‘tb’ are currently looking at replacing the coaches used on the ‘red arrow’ but for the time being, it is the same as usual.

 

The majority of the vehicles used on this service are Swedish built chassis produced by Scania fitted with bodies built in Spain by a company called Irizar.

 

The old buses on both the ‘rainbow and ‘rapid one’ services have recently been replaced by a brand new fleet of buses called the Versa built in Yorkshire by a company called Optare.

 

Mechanically they are all the same. The only difference is the route branding either ‘rapidone’ or ‘rainbowone’.

 

 

 

From the Belper area, it will be ‘tb’s ‘the sixes’ which uses Swedish built ‘Scania’s again fitted with ‘Wright’ bodies built in Northern Ireland.

 

In Derby you will switch to the ‘red arrow’ (see above).

 

The bus from the ‘VBS’ Bay 4 to the Broadmarsh Bus Station (BBS)is a ‘Free’ to all service called ‘centrelink’.

 

The buses normally used are again built by Optare and called the Solo. These buses however are unusual in that they use electric battery power to reduce the emissions that diesels would emit in the city centre.

 

For those that can remember them, it is like riding on an old fashioned trolleybus in that all you can here is the whine of the electric motor.

 

‘kinchbus’ (kb) service 9 to Loughborough uses the same Wright bodied Scania combination as ‘the sixes’.

 

‘Kb’ and ‘tb’ are both owned by the same company i.e. ‘Wellglade’ so commonality of vehicles is not surprising.

 

The buses mainly used by ‘Kb’ on ‘skylink’ are Mercedes-Benz (MB) Citaro’s built in Germany. 

 

‘MB’ have recently announced that production of this bus has just passed the 40,000 mark...!