I had presumed this was one of the iconic Routemasters when I first saw it from this angle, and therefore that it had originally run in London. However it doesn’t have an open rear platform; the doors are at the side. So it isn’t a Routemaster.

This is an AEC Renown, known as The Duchess because of its temperamental nature (hmmm!!) and after a career in Hampshire and Dorset ended up in Washington DC. Its stateside service was short-lived and for nearly decade it was left languishing outside in all weathers, until eventually it was brought back home to Hampshire where it now runs for King Alfred Buses and is where I took this.

By the way there’s still plenty of time to join in with this month’s Squares. The theme is ‘‘Simply Red‘ and as always the only rule is that your main photograph must be square. You can also double dip as I have today with Six Word Saturday.

83 thoughts

  1. I can see why you thought at first that this was a Routemaster, it does look similar. But without the open platform at the rear it clearly wasn’t. I remember those platforms from my teenage years travelling to and from school by bus – we always use to leap off at a particular set of traffic lights on the way home, with the conductor yelling at us not to, because otherwise we risked missing our connection to a second bus!

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  2. Love these buses, fairly familiar in my childhood and then some years ago on a car jolly with the car club we went on a similar bus and we’re all singing “The wheels on the bus they go round and round”!!

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  3. That’s a beauty. Very like a Routemaster at first glance. I don’t think I have ever seen one before. We lived close to London when I was a child so Routemasters are what I remember best.

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