FRD187 - BXA452B
Back in 1994, through friends, I
got involved with the 'Stagecoach Fife Bus Club', which started both as a social
organisation running bus trips and the like for Stagecoach Fife staff and anyone
else interested enough to join it, and also with the long-term aim of preserving
a particular bus then in service with the company (another story for another
webpage!). However while on a trip to a bus rally at Gateshead in 1994, some of
us (not me) were approached by someone belonging to Tyne & Wear CND with an offer of an former Alexanders
Fife bus for sale. It was not long before we took a couple more trips back to
the Newcastle area to inspect it, and since it was in good mechanical order,
several of us (including me!) and the bus club itself all clubbed together to
buy it. And now (a mere 14 years later!),, I have got around to setting up some
webpages to tell the story of my first foray into bus preservation...
First Impressions
When
we first saw it, FRD187 was stored behind bars in a bleak concrete building
providing rented storage. Here are some vsnaps from our first two trips to see it
in
FRD187 At Newcastle.
All The Way Home
When
we had inspected FRD187
it seemed serviceable, and the transaction to buy it went OK, but
Newcastle isn't exactly next-door to Fife so there were a lot of miles to cover
to get it home! Find out about FRD187s'
Return To Fife!
Learning Curve
While
some of us (including myself) had previous railway preservation experience, bus
restoration was a new departure for just about all of us. And despite being
mechanically sound, FRD 187 was in need of a lot of restoration! Find out how we
got on in Initial Restoration At Cowdenbeath.
The Last Authentic Alexanders Fife Repaint?
After
having done much internal restoration to FRD187 in parallel with repairing &
priming the bodywork we could have attempted a repaint into a version of
Alexanders Fife livery ourselves. However we found some people who were far
better qualified to do this... Read the story of FRD187s'
Repaint At Aberhill!
Back To The Grind!
Getting
FRD187 repainted was not nearly the end of the restoration story, as the
internal restoration wasn't finished. So the next part of the story is therefore
Further Restoration At Cowdenbeath.
Mothballed!
There is a break in the story at this point. I stopped going to Cowdenbeath on Sundays in the autumn of 1996 (the reasons were personal, and now quite irrelevant), and not long after (cutting a long story short), FRD187 ended up stored at the Lathalmond Bus Museum. This was very disappointing, as we had had high hopes of getting it through an MOT soon and taking it to bus rallies, but instead my immediate friends and I became somewhat detached from FRD187 and turned instead to our many other preservation projects. Years went by, and FRD187 ended up in the museum display shed at Lathalmond due to the excellence of it's paintwork, where it was (I gather) not used or moved much. However the story resumes in 2005, as an unexpected chance came to get it out of storage...
On The Road Again (Sort Of)!
When
the chance to get FRD187 out of storage, we
wasted no time in arranging it.
However FRD187 was not able to travel under it's own power this time as the
brakes were not working. So we enlisted the help of a fellow-preservationist who
owned a Recovery Vehicle similar to my own, and the
Move To Methil was on!
The Last Lap.
By
the time FRD187 was moved to Methil in 2005, we were far more experienced than
we had been a decade or so earlier. Just as well really, as the paintwork needed
some remedial work, the inside needed much cleaning and some repainting, and,
worst of all, the brakes were not working. So we got straight to work on the
Final Restoration At Methil.
MOT Time?
By
early 2007, we felt we had got FRD187 roadworthy and booked it for an MOT
at Perth. And it failed! However these days we don't give up that easily and
simply fixed the one remaining problem. So we ended up going
To Perth & Back, Twice!
FRD187 Let Loose.
Many
of the better pictures of FRD187 I
have taken since we first got it through an MOT in 2007 can be found in
J-Files - Rallies & Events, but I do take a lot of pictures at other times,
and a selection of the best of these can be found in
the
The FRD187 Galleries!
Click Here To Return To The J-Files
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