January 11, 2004

Ever since I was seven or eight years old I've been fascinated with buses.  I grew up in north-west London (on Dollis Hill), and spatial coordinates were almost exclusively expressed in terms of bus routes and Underground lines. We lived a few yards from a stop for the number 16 bus, one of the main long-haul routes from London (Victoria) to the suburbs (Sudbury Town Station).  Thereafter many bus routes played a role in my life - the London 140, which I took to go to school in Ealing (and which carried me through the last great London smog in 1962); the 362 and 363 London Country routes that I took between home (Beaconsfield), school (High Wycombe) and in between; the Oxford route 75 that I rode between High Wycombe and Oxford every week while working at the UKAEA Harwell in 1968-1969; various Newcastle bus routes around Jesmond Dene and Gateshead when I was doing postgrad work at Newcastle University...

After moving to the USA in 1981 I started acquiring small mementos of life in England.  On one trip back to visit family in Oxford, in about 1992, I came across a 1/76 scale model of a London bus - an AEC Routemaster on route 16. It looked a bit like this:

AEC Routemaster bus
On subsequent trips I found other bus models that had somewhat nostalgic associations for me, such as this Stratford Blue Leyland. (I'd ridden the original many times during farm holidays in Ilmington.):
Stratford Blue Leyland PD2 bus
Then I took the fatal step of befriending the owner of a model shop in Oxford - Promotize - who told me of the tax-free advantages of overseas mail order. Pretty soon the collection was growing out of control.  I subscribed to the magazine Classic Bus and when we moved into our house in Brookline I arranged for one wall of the basement to be fitted with shelving that was unsuitable for books or many other items but absolutely perfect for dozens of model buses and cars.... 

Over the last couple of years I've slowed my acquisition rate to a trickle; I'm deliberately restricting myself to London buses (except for a few irresistible ones, like the Midland Red D9 - see below).  Of course one reason is that I'm building up my collection of 1/400 airliner models, and I can't afford both.

Herewith a few photographs of my favourites.  These are all linked from other model bus sites on the web; eventually I'll include my own pictures. Click on an image to see the full-size picture. Enjoy.
Leyland Tiger bus Bristol VR IIIAEC RF Green Line  AEC Reliance Oxford Leyland TD1  Dennis Trident bus  Bristol Lodekka FS - United Counties Leyland PD3 "Queen Mary" - SouthdownLT Q1 trolleybus  Metrobus - LT route 16London Metrobus Midland Red D9 busPlaxton Premiere - Oxford Citylink Optare Solo - London  AEC Q type - London Country