1. To start with, here is an esnap taken the
day after we painted it.
MPE29 In Fife Colours
When I bought MPE29 and moved it to Fife it was in a somewhat dirty Yellow & Red livery that had seen better days, to put it mildly. Unfortunately the vehicle had a big dent and ragged hole in the offside, requiring a fair amount of repair work, and by the time that was done winter had arrived. It took until the late spring of 1996 before we got it painted up, as shown on this page.
1. To start with, here is an esnap taken the
day after we painted it.
2. This esnap, like the previous one,
shows MPE29 the day after it was painted. The reason for choosing this livery
was fairly simple - I was quite keen to use Alexanders-style off-white livery,
and we had access to a three-quarters used tin of Ayres Red, as used by Alexanders
(Fife) Ltd. The result is quite good, resembling one of the variants of Fife
coach livery.
3. Having shown you the two esnaps of
MPE29 in Fife livery I have displayed for some time on my website, here is the
first of the new vsnaps I have captured from some camcorder footage I took in
the early summer of 1996. We chose an afternoon when the lorry yard was quiet
to get some driving practice in, and this vsnap shows me fighting to get it
into gear.
4. Having finally found a gear, I
managed to get under way. The paint scheme was applied by two people in just
one day, although I remember that day as being a bit long! We had already done
some interior painting during the preceding months, so the only remaining part
to be done at that time was the inside of the open back part, which I did at a
later date.
5. A slight trail of exhaust fumes mark
me accelerating a bit as I go down the lorry yard. Not being a professional bus
driver I had never had a chance to drive a vehicle like this, and it showed!
6. I've
turned round now and am heading back. MPE29 has an engine that was in good condition
when I got it, and since (at the time of writing) I haven't yet gone to the expense
of putting it on the road (too much else to do as well!), it remains in pretty good
shape.
7. A closer view of me driving back down
the lorry yard.
8. Now for an over-the-shoulder view of me
driving down the yard on another trip. The reasonably authentic green colour scheme
inside can clearly be seen, which is an improvement of the dirty gray Kelvin Central
had used. (Which might have been a clean gray once I suppose!)
9. My friend Alistair, who helped me repair
and then paint MPE29, then had a go. Like me, he started by wrestling with the gear
lever, but did get moving eventually!
10. Here is a view of MPE29 after Alistair
had done a circuit of the yard. Although it isn't clear in any of these views, his
fiancé (now his wife) was with us that day and was sitting right behind him all the
way!
11. Yet another circuit completed! Mind
you, runs like this don't add up to much mileage, and since MPE29 usually sits doing
nothing, even at weekends, it probably isn't being run enough these days. Must get
it on the road soon. (I have been saying that for well over 4 years though!)
12. This is the last vsnap in this set,
and shows Roy, another of my friends and preservation colleagues trying out MPE29.
It also shows the only big painting mistake we made, which was to let yet another
friend of ours paint one of the wheels - despite being a Fife bus enthusiast he
painted the wrong bits red!!! (Hello George!) Thankfully this was easy to correct
later!
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