On Friday 19th February 2016, I managed to get an exclusive visit to Quality Line's Epsom Bus Garage. The main aim of the visit was to see Route 463's new Streetlites before anyone else and that indeed was successful.
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| WS01 (SN64CTZ) ex-GAL WS33 parked up at Epsom. |
All 10 were at the garage at the time of visit and the blinds were explored. They also have routes such as S1, S3, E16, E9, 404, 406 and 418 on them as well as 463. X26 however was missing from the blinds, which was disappointing because I woulld have wanted to see how one of these would have coped. The first one I saw was WS01 or WS33 as it was at GAL, which was also the first Streetlite I did on Route 192! I also saw a blind replacement on WS07, when they took out the Northumberland Park Blinds, still in storage with routes 192, 389, 399, W4 and W10. You have to smash out the glass and replace it with new glass.
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| Route 463's Streetlites Parked up in a Row, but this angle is because of Car Photobombings. |
After that, I went to take a look at DD03, and of course, I started her up and it was amazing! I had a playabout with the blinds and found the perfect route to change it to, which the bus would get deroofed immediately on... Route K5 (Ham - Morden)
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| DD03 (SK07DZC) blinded for Route K5 |
After starting her up, I went straight to the upper deck to see the view of Epsom from DD03 and it was... a generic bus garage view and beyond the garage was a heap of trash, LITERALLY the dump was there.
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| Epsom Garage from DD03 |
I then went over to the driver trainer, which was a nice healthy nimbus. It was hard to believe it never actually went into passenger service. I checked all blind boxes and was disappointed to find out they never actually installed blinds. The bus had a generic seating moquette and some Rowan Telmac seats. Anyway, I did the proper bus enthusiast thing to do and start her up. Brilliant sound from the engine and the over revving made it better. The final exhibit I went to was MCL08 which I saw in Croydon later that day, at least I know I didn't ruin the bus. The blind system was some German Trash that I call "The Lucky Dip Blinds" because you never know which destination you are going to get, so I had a go after starting her up, which totals up to 3 buses, and I got 463 to New Malden xD
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| Well Done Impossible Blindsets |
And that brings a close to the post. Here are some other photographs from the day.
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| Interior of WS04 (SN64CUK) |
