Friday 30 December 2011

The final few

The Mercedes 709 continues to dwindle away as we end 2011. Of course Plymouth Citybus' were withdrawn many months ago now, but Target Travel have run a select few of them throughout 2011. The hallmark N-BNF reg duo from Huddersfield though have now been retired, and N94 can be viewed for sale on e-bay as can be seen on the link below. Very reasonable price at the time of writing, although the reserve hasn't yet been met. The 709s are such lovely solid little vehicles, the Vario never really was a fit replacement for these fine machines, which of course was why PCB never updated their 'breadvans' and stuck with what was best! I'm sure many of you will be pleased to see these go, and perhaps, rightly so. They're cheap, not very well built, un-fit for purpose vans at the end of the day. Yet they have played a hugely important part in keeping the privitised industry afloat in their fledgling years, and for that, they deserve their places in preservation, however few and far between they are at this point! 


LINK TO N94 BNF ON E-BAY
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous31 December 2011 at 21:53

    You could say they made Plymouth what it is today - plus the Citybus ones!!?

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  2. Anonymous3 January 2012 at 23:54

    Look out for two new Dart SLFs purchased by Target, T102/3KCC.

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  3. Anonymous4 January 2012 at 00:46

    Any images of their previous owner?

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  4. G4 January 2012 at 09:53

    These haven't (AFAIK) been anywhere near Brighton, Laurence. They were new to Blue Bus, Huddersfield, an offshoot of Blue Bus of Horwich in Greater Manchester hence the Manc plates. Not sure that Brighton Blue Bus ran any 709Ds, they opted for Dodges like PCB initially did.

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  5. Laurence Mayhew4 January 2012 at 20:13

    Oh god, whoops! Quite right Graeme, I have got my 'Blue Buses' mixed up! Thanks for spotting that mistake, I'd never realised there were any other Blue Bus other than Brighton Blue Bus! I shall amend that now :-) Thanks!

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  6. Laurence Mayhew4 January 2012 at 20:31

    For Anon at 00:46

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/41294071@N02/3861323979/

    This is a photo of her while at Blue Bus in Huddersfield.

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