A new arrival for Hodgsons is Plaxton Elite HC14BUS which appears to be replacement for Panther HC10BUS which has gone to Plaxton's in part exchange. Another new arrival for the front line tour fleet... after the 63 plate Panther (in Newmarket livery) a few months ago!

We have decided to combine a number of threads into one for Procters Group - mainly due to the number of changes expected to happen in the next few months to all companies within the group. I would expect to see a number of vehicles transferred around too!

Procters Group consists of a number of companies all owned by Mr Procter. These include
Procters Coaches - based at Leeming Bar
Dales & District - based at Leeming Bar too, operating the public services
Compass Royston - based at Stockton
Leven Valley - now based at Stockton too, as part of CR fleet/depot
Esk Valley - based at Whitby
There are other brand names too including Coach2.com and the Procters Bus & Coach Sales arm of the business, plus Swift Signs and the Procters Motorsport team.

Links to the old threads can be found here
Compass Royston - http://northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=9
Leven Valley - http://northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/showth...hp?tid=303
Procters - http://northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/showth...hp?tid=552
Dales & District - http://northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/showth...hp?tid=331

Me and a mate visited Compass Royston earlier to get some photos in the depot and while there was nothing new (yet!), it was interesting to see the Leven Valley fleet there, definitely stands out amongst the Compass fleet with the yellow! We also had a look at the Procters' depots, and although there was no-one there we did manage to note down all of the coaches at the "farm" (the one you can see from the A1) - as with Compass a lot of the higher end fleet was away, although the very smart Astromega was in, along with one of the Tourliners and the Bova Magiq. Notable omissions were the entire Lochs & Glens liveried fleet of Jonckheeres, which must have been away.

A lot of us will know it is the 30th anniversary of the 1984-85 Miners Strike, the longest dispute in history and shaped the area we see today.

I was wondering if anybody knows which bus companies were used to carry strike breakers, were Northern, United and then Busways used for miners* transport to work or was it just small independents contracted to do it, did many buses get wrecked in rioting and what damage was done to companies reputations for carrying working miners*

I was only 22 months old when it started, so have never had any recollection of it, do many others here remember the strike???

How old were you when it happened, was your father/uncle/granddad or brother miners, if so, did they tough the year out or go back to work before the end.

What was life like, from what I have been told and learnt is that brought a lot of poverty, nobody had a pot to piss in, and most are still seeing the effects financially to this day.

What was your families support for Scargill like and did they hate Mrs T as much

my great-nana once said to me 'I dont condone terrorism, but I wish the IRA had blew her up in Brighton in '84, bloody mickey mouse terrorists'

So over to you guys with your memories

#minersstrike30
#minersstrikememories

*I refuse to use the 'S' word to describe people who went back to work, it is a horrible word and although some probably deserve to be called it, to me it is just as bad as branding someone a rapist or paedophile...Am absolute horrible word that should not be messed with or thrown about

if they have it is anyone going (i know it's over a year away)

Stagecoach have today announced a £102million order for the 2014/2015 financial year, which follows below

UK REGIONAL OPERATIONS
· 69 ADL Enviro 400 Scania double-deckers
· 86 ADL Enviro 300 single-deckers
· 28 ADL Enviro 300 Scania single-deckers
· 23 ADL Enviro 300 Scania GAS single-deckers
· 26 Astromega Euro 6 double deck coaches (for Oxford Tube)
· 3 Astromega Euro 5 double-deck coaches
· 6 Van Hool Altano TDX 21 left-hand drive coaches
· 199 ADL Enviro 200 Dart 4 midibuses
· 2 ADL Enviro 200 Dart 4 Euro 6 midibuses
· 29 ADL Enviro400 Euro 6 double-deckers
· 13 Optare Solo Cummins minibuses
· 8 Plaxton Elite i Volvo B11R Euro 6 coaches
· 3 Van Hool Astromega double-deck sleepercoach vehicles

LONDON
· 32 Wrightbus Gemini Volvo B5LH Euro 6 hybrid double-deckers
· 40 ADL Enviro 400 Trident Euro 6 hybrid double-deckers
· 1 ADL Enviro 400 Trident Conventional Euro 6

It is the largest set of orders ever placed by Stagecoach and the biggest placed by any operator in Britain. It takes Stagecoach Group’s total orders of new buses and coaches for its regional bus operations in the UK to around £545m in last seven years.

More details below
http://www.stagecoachgroup.co.uk/media/n...03-03.aspx

Jesmond's 1411 was on Blyth's X4 earlier today

(28 Feb 2014, 8:56 pm)northtynelinks2 wrote Agreed. I was just wondering as now I would say the next major cascading process will begin with the new orders and service changers (if there are any) towards the back end of the year.

Also alot being withdrawn.

(25 Feb 2014, 6:01 pm)tyresmoke wrote Cheers that makes sense! Am I right in thinking the 24X's are on 57 boards? Passed 7464 in Shotton this morning with a decent load.

The 24X is actually on the X24A RTC.  Quite a waste of paper during term time.

Don't know how true this info is but it's from a reliable source. Enviro 400 10000 currently on Loan from Manchester could be spending 3 days on trial for service x34 to test engine and performance between boldon and felling bypass as it's a rare chance to have engine performing at maximum rpm. No Idea how much truth is in this and no doubt I will be corrected but he seemed to know what he was saying. Provisional date around April time. Again I can't verify or confirm but thought I would get the groups opinions see if there's any weight to it

Best wishes

Chris

(28 Feb 2014, 4:20 pm)brianr wrote 35191 and 36472 on the E routes today.

Probs due to 27725 and 27736 being on X34's. Spare Enviro400 for Shields depot please...