32 photos from the South East Bus Festival

Thursday 10th April 2025

Last Saturday I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the annual South East Bus Festival held at the Kent County Showground at Detling near Maidstone. What a lovely day it was with thousands of visitors wandering around the large display of buses, old and new, enjoying glorious sunshine as well as browsing a whole host of sales stands and model displays. It was great to meet up with old friends and colleagues and many thanks and well done to Richard Lewis and his team for laying on such a splendid event.

They say “a picture is worth a thousand words” so by way of a change to normal literary blogging content, here are 32 photos from last Saturday’s event with each one telling a particular story. Let me know if any chime with you.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

29 thoughts on “32 photos from the South East Bus Festival”

      1. I think this one has its original body as well. Can’t be many in that category. It was red whilst in LT service, but looks so good in green.

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  3. Lovely set of pictures! Re the first one, showing Tilbury Ferry as the destination……not no more, alas, as the ferry ceased operation in March 2024 because Thurrock and Kent County councils couldn’t find the funding to guarantee the operators a further 3-year contract to continue operating it. Yet almost a year to the day later, our cash-strapped Government managed to find the money to announce the building of an £8m+ road tunnel a mile or so down river. So now Tilbury and Gravesend look at each other across a narrow strip of water with no way of getting between them except a lengthy detour. Graham L.

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    1. Correction to my previous post – the Tilbury-Gravesend road tunnel will cost £8bn+, not £8m+. Graham L.

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      1. The government may have found the money to announce that the Lower Thames Crossing can go ahead, but they have not announced that they are funding it; quite the opposite – they are looking for private funders.

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  4. A wonderful selection of pictures showing the many different faces of buses over the years. I’m pleased to be able to spot two buses that I have worked on in preservation in past decades (coincidentally both Leylands), that survive to the present day.

    Peter Murnaghan

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  5. A lovely trip down memory lane, thank you.

    Born and brought-up in Gillingham, I remember a few M&D buses in dark green before the change to NBC green, but none as old as HKE 867. I also remember the Maidstone Corproration brown and cream on buses and trolleybuses, the latter terminating at The Wheatsheaf (before Loose). Dad said the trams ran to the top of Loose Hill, but that’s long before my time.

    When I started at Loughborough University in 1980, South Notts still ran a few of the older Leylands (including No. 82), mostly on the shorter workings to East Leake. Just 36p for almost an hour’s scenic rural ride from Loughborough to Nottingham.

    John M.

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  7. Two vehicles certainly chime with me…..HKE867 of which I part own (only a little bit!) and 26, the Maidstone Corporation PD2. In my years working as a pert-time Conductor for Maidstone Boroline, this vehicle had been re-instated to ordinary service. But in those intervening years, they had installed very bus unfriendly speed-humps in Park Wood (Arriva service 82 these days). And dear old 26 did not have very modern suspension……pure torture!

    Terence Uden

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  8. During the harsh winter of 1962/63, my father and I helped several others push London Transport GS which had got stuck in the snow while passing our house on the steep climb up Station Road in Amersham. Happy memories!

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  9. Fantastic to see a Southend Corporation PD3 on route 7 to my home town; and blinded correctly for the mid 60s before it was extended to the station!

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  10. Great to see Lynx II K101 JMV in preservation! I have fond memories of this bus with Trustline Buses of Hunsdon, Herts.

    Dan Tancock

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  11. A very interesting and varied selection of buses and lovely weather too in April!

    I remember the Lowlanders at South Notts from when I went to college in W Bridgford, badged as Leylands but actually built by Albion in Glasgow.

    The SNB – Leyland National – from London Country brings back memories of working at Reigate when these were very common. Too well presented for a Garston bus though as they were usually scruffy and without garage codes.

    The early Dennis Dart reminds me of a trip doing some conducting on one when it was new. This was at a Routemaster rally in St Albans arranged by the late George Watson. I mainly conducted and slept on an East Midland RM but the Dart was used for a few trips.

    The final picture of the prototype Enviro 300 is of a type I drove whilst at Stagecoach in Mansfield. Borrowed from Gainsborough during COVID I found it to be rather ponderous in operation.

    Good hear Richard Lewis is still sorting things out, I remember working with him during my Arriva days.

    Richard Warwick

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  13. I might add, thank the Heavens Stagecoach have finally abandoned that insipid 2020 mis-match of disparate colours for a proper livery once more. It may not be the best creation in the world of bus liveries, but ANYTHING is better than previously. But not the change from moquette to leather seats as standard (yes, I know many newer vehicles already suffer this feature). That is NOT an improvement, particularly on warm days!

    Terence Uden

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  14. Interesting to see vehicles I remember newly into service now entering preservation. Makes me feel old, but if the interest is to continue then it is only right that people attempt to preserve things that reflect their past.

    John

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    1. I was thinking that about the Watfordwide SNB, I remember when these cleared out all the SMs (IRRC). That said, the W5/6 were mainly operated by ANs, so I’m not sure this was a very common sight.

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  15. Lovely display – many happy memories of LT green RTs, RFs and Greenlines areound Sevenoaks in the 1950s and 1960s – thanks

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    1. Enjoyed your talk very much and good to say hello afterwards. Thanks to your blog I have enjoyed some great open-top bus routes such as Lynmouth- Minehead and Bridport-Weymouth, etc..

      Jeremy

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  16. Is that Roundabout greenhousy thing (I don’t know the maker or model) the ugliest bus ever?

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  17. I like the model of Bexleyheath Garage. The real one was one of the locations of my bus spotting days in the early 1970s. I “might” have liberated a Saunders body plate from a withdrawn (I hoped it was withdrawn!) RT in the open air yard behind the building. Purely for sentimental reasons, of course, and I still have it.

    Steven Saunders

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  18. I do like the livery on the Cuckmore Buses Sprinter, green and cream, traditional colours but in a contemporary style.

    Peter Brown

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  19. The 370 brings back memories of desperately trying to complete a Croydon-based clockwise Green Rover circuit of London (which I’m not sure was possible – and for some reason I never tried anticlockwise) heading for the late lamented ferry, complete with its signage in Russian.

    Happy days!

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    1. I think it used to be possible using only four coaches from where I lived.

      Croxley to Romford (724)
      Romford to Tilbury (370)
      Gravesend to Heathrow (726)
      Heathrow to Croxley (724 or 727/321).

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