Buses, beer and banter: June 2015

It still didn't seem real...2599 had finally been given the clean bill of health and MOT that we had been working towards for 18 months as a group, and with news filtering through from Paul that it now had the correct tax and insurance and was fully road legal, it was just a matter of finding the right time to blow off a few cobwebs.

And that we did. When I finished a slow 8hr shift at the office on Saturday 6 June I was only expecting to meet up with Calum, Matt and Geoff for a few quiet drinks and go home - I never for one moment anticipated meeting Paul and going for a mini-pub crawl with 2599 around Derby and the surrounding area! We were also joined at one stage by Chris Gaskin, and we had a good laugh and a few beers (in most cases).

(C) Calum Maclennan/Calumbus

The next day Paul, Calum and your blogmaster met up at the farm, and decided to take 2599 for a short spin around the Ashfield area. As we were heading this way, I thought it an ideal opportunity to treat my transport-mad 3yr old Godson George and his parents to a ride on a proper bus, and also made arrangements for my good friend David Toon to take the bus for a drive around the local area. Now David used to drive Bristol RE's in their twilight years when he first started out in his driving career at Trent Buses at their Alfreton Depot, and certainly looked most at home behind the wheel of 2599. After dropping everyone off at their respective homes, we headed back to HQ ourselves reflecting on the day's events.

Our thoughts on all this? All in all, 2599 never missed a beat, although we still had work to do to solve our charging problem on the alternator which was still giving us cause for concern. But that is for another chapter...

(C) Calum Maclennan/Calumbus