Buses Festival at Gaydon

A couple of months since my last visit to Gaydon for the truck show, I was back again on Sunday, this time for the Buses Festival. Organised by Buses magazine, this was a new event on the rally calendar for 2014 in response to dissatisfaction with the 2013 Showbus venue at Long Marston, and returned bigger and better this year, with almost a hundred vehicles in attendance. This was the first bus rally I had attended for a couple of years so these are my impressions, both as a first-time visitor to this particular event and as a returnee to bus rallies in general.

The good...

The vehicles present were a good mix of preserved and still in service, buses and coaches; inevitably not everything booked was able to attend and there were substitutes and late entries so the programme is not an entirely accurate indication of what was actually there. At an event of this size I was expecting the usual Routemaster domination, but was pleased to see only three in attendance, an appropriate number to represent the type without overwhelming the event. No pre-war vehicles attended, the majority dating from the 1960s onwards, and some popular types were notable by their absence, there being no Bedford OBs or Leyland Titans present to name just two. The major difference from the truck show is that almost all were presented in authentic liveries, the most controversial exception being the Bristol RE in full Midland Red coach livery. Although completely fictional as this operator was never even likely to buy such a vehicle, I thought it made an attractive might-have-been, but the purists turned their noses up at it.

Midland RE-d! A work of fiction and certainly a talking point.

Some of the exhibits were familiar, having been widely known on the show scene for many years, but there were a lot I hadn't seen before, and they came from all parts of the country. Star of the show to me was the magnificent and very rare Alexander M-type all the way from Scotland, something I have admired for years but never previously seen in the flesh. Other highlights were the Mercedes 0303 and Setra Imperial, two types of coach that I remember seeing in service not so long ago but have now become very uncommon; the former had recently emerged from a substantial and reputedly very expensive restoration so it is great to see there are still some people willing to invest in saving the more unusual types.

The unmistakable Alexander M-type, beautifully restored and a credit to everyone involved.

A number of coach operators had organised trips to the event as part of their established tour programmes, swelling the numbers of modern coaches present, which provided an interesting contrast with the older generation and illustrated how standards have improved in the coach industry. Naturally given the location, buses from the West Midlands formed the biggest group but there was plenty of variety among them, representing the unique tastes of the many operators who have served this area.

FirstGroup provided three of the heritage-liveried buses from their Leicester and Midland Red fleets, and it struck me how well these vintage liveries sat on modern vehicles and how much more tasteful and individual they looked than the group's bland corporate livery. There does seem to be a growing trend towards garish liveries that look cheap and tacky, using bright colours and lots of branding, often including meaningless buzz words and catchy phrases. Against this background Delaine's Volvo double-decker, nearly new but in the traditional livery that hasn't changed for decades, looked a model of restrained elegance and good taste with its classy gold lettering and subtle route branding.

Understated elegance in a sea of tackiness and proof that traditional liveries work on modern buses.

 

It wasn't just a static display though, with a variety of vehicles frequently providing journeys on three routes: a loop of the museum's internal road network, a short trip to the next village and back, and a longer circular tour. I didn't actually sample any of these as there were long queues all day and every bus seemed to be running pretty much full, but this aspect of the event seemed well organised with a segregated queueing area and the operational vehicles separated from the static display and given plenty of room to manoeuvre.

The Leyland National picks up another load of passengers from the long queue.

...the bad...

Unfortunately I can't help comparing the type of people attending this event unfavourably with those at the truck show a couple of months previously. While there are some great people in both the bus and truck hobbies, the former seems to suffer from far more than its fair share of obnoxious characters who do nothing to dispel the 'anorak' image. I nearly came to blows with one old git (I can't call him a gentleman as his behaviour was anything but gentlemanly) who would repeatedly take photos by standing so far away from the subject that it was impossible to avoid getting in his way, and then swear like a trooper at anyone who walked into his shot. Quite apart from the selfishness of his actions, that sort of language is hardly appropriate at a family event with many young children present. It's people like him who give the hobby a bad name, yet he is doubtless too self-absorbed in getting his precious photos to even realise the damage he is doing.

Bus photographers do tend to act a little like sheep when presented with static vehicles at shows, everyone clamouring to take their photos from the same position. I really can't understand this behaviour as it just means everyone ends up with near-identical photos and in these days of online file sharing it is very likely they would be able to find other people's photos very similar to their own, which to my mind defeats the point of taking their own photos. The bus isn't going anywhere and there's no hurry so why not try some different angles for more interesting and unique photos?

Like the back end of a bus. Photographing this end is considered strange but there's some nice signwriting here.

Another odd group who don't seem to exist in the truck world are the 'recorders', those people who painstakingly write down the details of every single vehicle in a notebook, or even in some cases record them onto a dictaphone. In the olden days such records were much more important to ensure vehicle details were correctly recorded for posterity, but nowadays there are so many resources available that the majority of vehicles are already fully documented with nothing new to add, and I was able to find full details of most exhibits from the comfort of my own home. The effort of the recorders seems to be largely a waste of time that doesn't really further the hobby, but I guess that is their interest and it keeps them happy.

This has been with its current owners since 1967 and is already fully documented, so why bother writing down its details?

The trade stands were a little disappointing as, although there were a large number, they nearly all seemed to be selling the same things: photographs, books or diecast models. With stall after stall of the same old EFEs and OOCs, the model bus market is well beyond saturation point and there must have been literally thousands on offer, of which I suspect very few actually sold as the majority weren't particularly cheap. The sheer number of run-of-the-mill models made it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff and although I did buy a few things there were no real bargains, even among the unboxed and incomplete models only really suitable for repainting or converting. Prices were all over the place too: I bought a new release for £13 but found other stalls charging between £14.50 and £16 for the exact same model, so I have to wonder how they manage to make money in the face of so much competition.

What is particularly irksome is that a number of Model Bus Federation members had been invited to display their collections but were sacrificed at the last minute to make more space for traders, so the chance to see these modellers' unique collections was missed in favour of yet more stalls selling the same old generic boring diecasts. A friend who had exhibited last year was particularly put out as he had confirmed his attendance early, turned down other events that day and handed out many leaflets to publicise the Festival, only to be told at short notice that he would no longer be able to attend. I suspect profit was the ulterior motive here as traders are charged to attend and exhibitors aren't, but that attitude really isn't very fair in a hobby that relies so much on people's goodwill.

Looking down the main drive to the museum. Operational buses on the left, static display on the right and trade stands in front of the building.

...and the ugly

Bus design seems to be entering a new era of ugliness. Just look at the Optare Versa and Wright StreetDeck below. They're certainly distinctive but could hardly be called attractive.

The StreetDeck is just hideous and that garish pink livery does it no favours.

De Courcey's electric Versa. In that colour it looks a bit like a frog.

Overall, in spite of the issues described above, which to be fair are not unique to this event and part of a much wider problem, this was an enjoyable day out and a chance to catch up with recent developments on the bus scene, both historic and modern. There were many interesting vehicles on display, the majority of which I hadn't seen or photographed before, and the organisers had certainly succeeded in attracting a varied selection of exhibits. A lot of my fellow Model Bus Federation members obviously thought the same way as I met up with many friends throughout the day, all of whom felt positive about the event. The 2016 date has already been confirmed so the Buses Festival will be returning to Gaydon next year, hopefully once again bigger and better, and seems to have established its place on the event calendar.