FPE88 - YSF88S
As late as September 2006, despite
my friends and I having preserved no fewer than 5 buses, we had not yet actually
put one on the road, let alone taken one to a rally. However my friend George, a
long-time part of our 'inner circle', solved both of these problems in quick
succession by negotiating the purchase of yet another ex-Fife bus from Strathtay
Buses, which had recently been taken over by Stagecoach and was scheduled to
receive buses from elsewhere in the group. YSF88S, formerly FPE88, was then
29-years old and had been with Strathtay (as their 561 and latterly 25788)
since 1987. It was by
this time in use as a schools bus at Arbroath depot, but as one of the oldest
buses in the Strathtay fleet was due to be disposed of. Since it was still in
working order, was road-legal with a current MOT, and had a reasonably original
interior, it looked ideal for preservation, but it turned out to be a very
challenging preservation project indeed! And (sooner or later), I will document
it all here...
Straight Out Of Service?
Just
16 Days Later!
Turning Back Time!
'Big Cat' Hunting!
A Paint Job With A Difference!
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Here To Return To The J-Files Disclaimer
Well
not exactly! When we went to Arbroath depot on 22nd September 2006 to collect
YSF88S, it had been sitting idle there since the the start of the school
holidays a couple of months earlier, during which time it had received a
Stagecoach fleet no without ever leaving the depot. Read about out trip to
Fetch the 'Big Cat'!
Having
preserved a bus that was not exactly in mint condition, George managed to wangle
a late entry for FPE88 to the 2006 Bridgeton Bus Garage Open Day, so we found
ourselves making our rally debut having had very little time to cure
it's ills. Take a sideways jump to my Rallies & Events pages to see my pictures
from The Bridgeton
Open Day 2006!
Having
got past the hurdle taking FPE88 to Bridgeton, we were able to combine the
novelty of having a bus on the road with the fun(?) of restoring it to it's
original appearance. And since I took pictures and film during the main stages
of the restoration, you can see at least some of the work we did
Restoring The Big Cat!
Unsurprisingly (to anyone familiar with my website) many of the better
pictures of FPE88 I have taken can be viewed in
J-Files - Rallies & Events, but I have also
taken many interesting pictures of FPE88 at places other than
rallies, and you can see an interesting selection of them in
The FPE88 Galleries
.
By 2011, having already had to patch up peeling paint on FPE88 more
than once, it was clearly time for a complete re-paint! And this time we tried to
re-produce an advertisment livery it had once carried. And I have lots of pictures
to show you of the re-paint that saw
FPE88 Adverted!
.
These pages are owned and maintained by Jeffray Wotherspoon. The storage
space for these pages is provided by the University Of Stirling, but it
is in no way responsible for the contents of these pages. Please email me at
jeff.wotherspoon@stir.ac.uk if you have any questions, comments, problems etc.