The adventure begins: Saturday 4 January 2014

The new year arrived, and was shrouded in a little sadness when Peter, for personal reasons, decided to leave the group at an early stage. A major blow for the group, but he does still assist with odd jobs and takes a keen interest in the project. This just left three of us, Paul, Calum and your blogmaster, Dan.

So we'd done it. Rumours among coach drivers and public house pipedreaming had turned into a reality - 2599 was now the property of Paul Waplington, with Calum and myself acting as shareholders, and the Ulsterbus 2599 group was slowly becoming established behind closed doors (unbeknown even to us at the time!). In the days leading upto the purchase of the bus, those who needed to know had been kept informed via a secret page on facebook called 'Project X' (how fitting, as 2599's bodywork is classed as Alexander X-type!). With the festivities of Christmas and New Year out of the way, we set a date of Saturday 4 January 2014 to conduct an inspection of the bus, in an attempt to see what we were taking on.

Saturday dawned, and in a cold and damp Hucknall Market Place Paul introduced me to Tim Moss for the first time, a fellow enthusiast, part-time coach driver and the man who was to perform 2599's first 'health check'. We set off to pick Calum up and arrived at the bus' temporary home at Tiger European of Colwick. A quick chat with the management there revealed that the bus had been generating rather a lot of interest amongst local enthusiasts, many of whom at this stage were oblivious to what was happening. Payment for storage was made, many words of thanks uttered in the direction of the staff at Tiger for their assistance at such short notice, and we set about the task in hand. The bus was to be driven, again on trade plates, just down the road to Silverdale Coaches where a thorough inspection would take place over their pits - thanks to them once again for all their assistance.

The short journey was uneventful, and once at Silverdale, 2599 was parked over a pit in the workshops and the task begun. Now I'm no engineer so at this point I left Tim to do his stuff and proceeded to pour through the finances and get everything up to date, as well as offering assistance where required. Initial inspection turned up the following:

• A full set of replacement tyres needed
• A couple of securing brackets on the front springs requiring replacement to get through MOT, but the front springs themselves would need changing longer-term
• Rear brake shoes required relining
• Exhaust manifold was broken by the flexible housing
• Hinges for the access panels around the engine bay
• Small oil leak near flywheel
• Horn and speedo
• A little welding work needed on the chassis/body mounts at the rear of the chassis - couple of brackets to replace

All in all, not mammoth tasks, but expensive ones, most of which could be sorted over a few weekends if we put the graft in. Inspection complete, we set about moving the bus onto the wash bay next door to smarten her up a bit - several years of dirt having collected on the bodywork. A couple of trips through the bus wash and a thorough hosing down, and she looked a lot better for the wash! From doing this, it allowed us to see that the paint was fading in places, and that long-term the bus would require a full repaint. But that is all cosmetic and for a later date. Our minds were focussed on the mechanical elements that required sorting to get 2599 to the next step - MOT. 

Paul reversed 2599 off the wash and parked her in the middle of the yard, and Tim set about writing up his findings for us. Arrangements were then made to move the bus to her permanent storage at Langar, after the disasters of the weekend previously. Once complete, we set about starting her up for the next leg of the journey, which is where we discovered our next problem. A charging issue meant that, for the first time since buying the bus, she required a jump start. Once Tim had sorted this, he took his place in the cab, Calum joined Paul in 'Starship Focus', and once I joined the bus we set off for Langar.

The trip went smoothly, and on arrival we were introduced to the relevant people and given the necessary information about the site. Finances were sorted out, and other formalities completed, and once again all was well. We now knew what was required to get 2599 up to MOT standards, all we had to do now was work out a plan of how we were going to sort it all out. The adventure begins...