BAMMOT'S BIGGEST HIRE
The Museum undertook its biggest private hire to date when three buses worked all day for two days at the International Classic Motor Show at the National Exhibition Centre, held on 8-9 November.
This is not the Motor Show, which goes on for rather longer. This one is devoted to classic cars and is a major annual event, this year occupying six halls at the NEC. The organisers thought it would be a nice touch if the visitors had the opportunity to ride on classic buses from the car park in addition to the normal shuttle buses operated by Dunn-line Flights. It was most important to our reputation that our operation went off without a hitch so, in addition to the three buses, we took along a fourth bus (the Trent PD2) in case of breakdown. The three buses contracted were the Crosville L5G, Birmingham Guy 2976 and Midland Red D9 5399 which all ran superbly. The number of people overheard commenting on the fine running qualities of the buses was very rewarding.
The three buses had breaks built into their activities but, to give crews the opportunity to look around the show and for unforeseen circumstances, we had additional crews on hand. All were asked to wear busmen’s jackets, dark trousers, white or pale blue shirts with ties. The Dunn-line Flights staff all wear very smart uniforms but our chaps looked just as excellent, giving the impression of a quality operation behind the well-turned out buses. At least a couple of us found we no longer fitted into our winterweight uniforms! Staff, who all worked at least one long day, were Robin Bennett, John Bowden, John Brogan, Mick ‘mighty fine’ Green, David Hales, Kevin Hill, Geoff Hodkinson, Phil Hoole, John James, Malcolm Keeley, Keith Lewis, Alwyne Marsden, James Munro, Eric Pounder and Fred Withers with Phil Ireland joining in towards the close of the second day. We thought we might be pushing our luck by the second day so we persuaded Dave Parry to be engineering lucky talisman - he was finally able to demonstrate his powers on a minor problem which only arose as we were leaving!
Prior to the event, we made contact with Dunn-line Flights controller, Alan, who was most helpful and welcoming, and decided that our buses should intermingle with theirs. Two sets of car parks were in use, the North and the East. The performance and speed of loading of the historic and standee buses were barely compatible, however, and unexpected demand soon meant we were handling the North entirely with Dunn-line Flights more than fully occupied with the East. The car parks are opened in succession so morning activity would suddenly switch from seemingly unceasing demand to virtually nothing. The evening demand was more even but we only just kept on top of it. We had included evening queue control in our duty roster, this job was ably handled by Robin Bennett, David Hales and Keith Lewis.
Inside the show a firm called Cover Systems was displaying the ultimate car cover after contacting the museum for a double-deck bus. Kevin Hill and James Munro kindly lent WMPTE Fleetline 6971 for this purpose. The
deal included the museum keeping the cover afterwards and promotional panels for the museum on the side. These attracted a lot of interest although we would like to have seen more people take away our annual leaflet, produced for the first time two months before the New Year! The promotional panels looked splendid and the principal credit for these goes to Frank Abbott of the EMES.
Who knows if this will become an annual event for us or if we would want to put ourselves through it every year! The level of demand means that next year’s show will be spread over three days (22-24 October 2004). Our staff seemed to enjoy their day out but your feedback would be welcome. Conductors were required to hand out leaflets which proved difficult when their primary role was to ensure the buses were not overloaded; this element would not be repeated if we were invited again. Happily the passengers both admired and respected the buses, virtually the only litter was the leaflets! Mick Green suggested the event should be videoed - this would be superb if the cameraman widened his view beyond the buses themselves. The most comical sights were the passengers who had bought giant cuddly toys, presumably with Christmas in mind. These often required a seat of their own and an imaginative cameraman could include polar bears sitting haughtily amongst the throng and furry crocodiles staring excitedly out of the window.
Finally, who would have believed the L5G could keep pace with the D9? This unlikely outcome was due to the time loading and unloading the D9 which had twice the seats of its Bristol counterpart. That D9 ate up the queues though - the people on the Dunn-line Flights standee single-deckers to the East car parks gazed out enviously at the comfortably seated riders aboard our buses!
Malcolm Keeley
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
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