A Tricentrol tribute

With my interest in the present-day bus and coach scene on the wane, I've started researching some of the many firms who used to ply their trade in my area but are sadly no longer with us. Very little evidence of the group's existence now remains and younger readers may never have heard of them as they went out of business about 30 years ago, but throughout the 1970s Tricentrol was one of the biggest and most familiar names in Bedfordshire and beyond. The Tricentrol empire was a substantial business, comprising not just a large fleet of coaches but also many other ventures in the car sales and truck industries managed from the head office in Dunstable, but has now vanished almost without trace.

I'm too young to have ever actually seen any Tricentrol vehicles in the flesh and not much has been written about the coaching side of the business, so this article has been compiled from PSV Circle records and contemporary news reports and there may be some inaccuracies as a result. Special thanks go to Frans Angevaare from the Netherlands for allowing use of photos from his extensive collection.  Read on for more on the rise and fall of Tricentrol...

A typical Tricentrol Bedford in London on one of the express services
(Photo: Frans Angevaare)

The Quest continues

More about Quest 80

I haven't had much time for blogging lately as the show season is now in full swing. Last Sunday I was back at Gaydon for the truck show, but I'm not going to do a full review this time as it was the same deal as the last two years. My star of the show last year was B.R. Whorton's near-unique Quest 80 tipper, and this time they went one better and had both of them in attendance. That meant what is probably the world's entire population of Quest lorries were in one place, and a chat with the gentleman looking after them for the weekend revealed some more information so I can add extra detail to my original piece about Quest 80.

Every Quest lorry in existence in one photo

The Roger Burdett collection

I imagine most bus enthusiasts will know the name of Roger Burdett as he is one of the country's leading preservationists and has a large collection of interesting vehicles that can often be seen at events. Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting his premises in Coventry thanks to my friends in the West Midlands area of the Model Bus Federation and it was a most enjoyable evening surrounded by fascinating vintage buses that was well worth the slightly fraught 50-mile journey through roadworks and rush-hour congestion.

Gentlemen, your carriage awaits. Coventry 244 ready to give enthusiastic MBF members a trip.

A futile Quest

Quest 80 and the U-drive

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds the failures of the motoring world so much more fascinating than the successes. So much has already been written about the most celebrated and popular vehicles that there is nothing new to add, but those that failed to make an impact are far more worthy of study and raise so many interesting questions. Why did they fail? Could they have succeeded under different circumstances? And in some cases, what the hell were they thinking?! Today's subject tends to fall in the latter category: unsurprisingly you may never have heard of Quest 80 buses and coaches as they went out of business more than thirty years ago after building just a handful of vehicles, but their claim to fame (or should that be infamy?) was a notoriously cumbersome and inefficient drivetrain that frankly defied engineering logic. Read on to find out more about this strange and forgotten manufacturer and their range of blunderbuses.

The weird world of Atlas Editions

Today's post focuses on a company with the strangest business practices I have ever encountered. You may have heard of Atlas Editions as they advertise extensively; their business model is offering subscriptions to collections of items, principally diecast models but also such other collectables as ornaments and plates, with much emphasis on them being exclusive to Atlas and not available anywhere else, which isn't always true. Each collection begins with a loss leader at a very low price but subsequent goods are more expensive, and they will continue to send items at regular intervals unless you choose to cancel. This all sounds quite reasonable but Atlas often go about their business in strange, disorganised and amateurish ways that have resulted in them not having the best of reputations.

In my favoured 1/76 scale, Atlas have produced a number of collections: Eddie Stobart, Great British Buses, Trams of the World, Fire Engines of the World, the Greatest Show on Earth (funfair and circus vehicles), the World of Stobart, and Classic Coaches. I am personally subscribed to two of these (Greatest Show on Earth and World of Stobart) and my experience so far has been satisfactory, but there is an Atlas Editions Collectors group on Facebook where complaints vastly outnumber positive posts, and numerous threads about the company on consumer advice forums. Read on for more about the weird world of Atlas Editions and their bizarre ways of running a business...

Model fleet focus: United Counties

The United Counties Omnibus Company is one of those fleets that although significant in terms of size and area covered doesn't have the same cult following as certain others, such as Southdown or London Transport for instance. UCOC is one of the main themes of my collection and is an operator of great personal interest for three reasons: my home town of Buckingham is served by the company's successors, my father was brought up in Northampton, where the head office was located, and my maternal grandmother spent a short period as a conductress at Stony Stratford garage. Over the years I have collected all known factory releases by the diecast manufacturers, plus a handful of code 3 repaints and kit builds that will feature in a future article, so this piece provides a hopefully definitive guide to what is available. There have been a dozen 1/76 OO models to date, mostly by Exclusive First Editions and in Corgi's Original Omnibus Company range, plus one in N gauge. With one exception they should be fairly easy to obtain and don't command premium prices like some of the cult fleets.