No coaches this week, we are staying local, heading just a couple of miles up the road and I have been volunteered by Mr UKBuses to help out at the first National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage Open Day.
It's just after 08.00am and
Mr UKBuses is driving today and he picks me up from home and we make our way through Wollaston, Amblecote, Wordsley
(with a cyclist thinking he owned the road) and
Kingswinford before arriving at Pensnett Trading Estate, home to the Dudley area of bus routes,
National Express West Midlands, Pensnett Garage. We set to work before we get to the garage by putting up signs showing the way to visitors on the Pensnett Trading Estate, with our final sign to put up on the bus stop showing the times of the shuttle bus between the garage and Dudley bus station. With that job done, we park up, don our Hi-Viz jackets and make our way into the garage. Mr UKBuses first job is to make him a cup of coffee and finish a few things off, I do see a sign saying "no admittance", asking if that is supposed to be on his wallet, I got a dirty look off him for that one. With everything complete, we make our way downstairs and outside ready for the visitors to flock in.
After putting up a few signs downstairs in the traffic office, we make our way outside, where it starts to rain. A bus driver is getting one of the new Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 MMC's ready for the bus wash, which would be the cleanest bus in the garage at the end of the day, the shuttle bus had arrived which was a demonstrator, a Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B5LH which National Express West Midlands are trying out giving it a good test on the garage shuttle service today between the trading estate and Dudley, it seems odd to see a bus with two sets of doors in the West Midlands. A few of the garage's own buses were being put into position being lined up at the top of the garage yard. This gave me a chance to try out these before everybody came, so I tried one of the new Enviro 400 MMC's, a Dennis Trident and also a Volvo B7RLE with the fleet number of 2095. This is also a bus which has been named after one of the Pensnett Garage's own driver, Dave Gerrard, who over the years has raised a lot of money for different charities. Dave was also on hand today and managed to get a picture of him next to his own bus,
see picture right, he can be seen in one of his uniforms from when he was working with
Midland Red. With the shuttle off out on the first trip to Dudley, it was nearly time for the crowds to arrive, so it was time to do some work and the first jobs was showing the preserved buses that turned up where to park, some of the preserved buses included:
MCW Metrobus, Ex West Midlands Travel (2989)
Optare Excel, Ex National Express West Midlands (693)
Optare MetroRider, Ex Travel Merry Hill (155) - Back in it's old garage!
Leyland National 2, Ex West Midlands Travel / WMPTE (1026)
Volvo B6LE, Ex National Express West Midlands (669)
Mercedes-Benz 0.405N, Ex National Express West Midlands (1707)
Optare Spectra, Ex National Express West Midlands (4001)
Daimler Fleetline, Ex Birmingham City Transport (3472)
Leyland Fleetline, Ex WMPTE (6600)
The crowds arrived on the first shuttle bus which was being driven by
Tony Hunter,
see picture left, the youngsters went straight for the garage's buses
as they could sit in the cabs and it was weird how they knew how to set the destination blinds in the buses and also how to open and close the doors. Luckily they didn't know how to drive them so I can safely say that the buses stayed in the same position all day. As soon as people started arriving, the rain also arrived at the same time which stayed with us on and off for the rest of the day, a fresh air break was needed so we decided to have a stroll to "The Graveyard" where all the withdrawn buses are situated and making sure that no-one was straying behind the fences. A quick break was had after in the office to rest our legs for a few minutes before heading back out to the garage. We were getting hungry now so decided to have a burger and take shelter and eat it away from the crowds on one of the parked up buses in which Mr UKBuses forgot how to close the doors. Dinner over we decide to go on a trip on the shuttle bus to
Dudley and back before carrying out our duties for the rest of the day. With the day coming to a close and the rain stopping and blue skies showing, we have a final cuppa before making our way back home, that is after our final job of taking down the signs that we put up this morning and Mr UKBuses driving me back to
Wollaston.
National Express West Midlands (Pensnett Garage) Enviro 200 (825)
National Express West Midlands (Pensnett Garage) Enviro 400 MMC (6115)
National Express West Midlands Platinum Liveried (Walsall Garage) Enviro 400 MMC (6721)
National Express West Midlands (Pensnett Garage) Dennis Trident (4199)
National Express West Midlands (Pensnett Garage) Volvo B7RLE (2095) named after Dave Gerrard
A good day was had with the garage staff making everyone welcome and for organising the event and also to the garage's engineering team who went out of the way to make the event even better for some enthusiasts, hopefully Pensnett Garage may do another open day in the future, I've got my hand up for any help needed that day. I did not get any Mr UKBuses bald spots today as he was actually doing some work, so instead you will have to put up with me learning how to drive a bus:
Me behind the wheel of Pensnett Garage's Enviro 200 (825)
Me behind the wheel of Walsall Garage's Enviro 400 MMC Platinum (6721)
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