Maidstone and District Bristol VR WKO137S Back In Sheppey.

Here is a video of Bristol VR WKO137S back in August 2021 when she visited Sheerness and Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. During her career with Maidstone and District she was stationed at Sheerness for a few years.

[@getinthevantim]

Thanks for posting. The exact sounds, right down to the shuddering cab furniture, of my school boy journeys on the number 7 service as the bus would get up to a fair old clip on the A26 between Tonbridge and Hadlow. Once, when the bus was one of those short wheelbase Leopards with the full house 0680 we actually got stopped by the black rats for speeding ! Fingers were wagged before the pocket books were fortunately stowed. The driver instantly assumed legend status amongst us kids.

[@JakeSCOC]

Thanks for watching. That's a brilliant memory to have. Those Leopard's could certainly shift couldn't they?

[@Jimbo-gi7xn]

When I was at school I was an East Kent lad and I remember riding the various Willowbrook VR's to school which for reasons unknown used to do a lot of school time routes .. Dark rainy winters late afternoons running up from Folkestone into the Elham Valley wondering what culinary delights Mother has waiting for me..

[@MrTech1210]

Loved the blipping of the throttle twice before the cyclist. Proper done! Played that gearbox like a piano 👌🏻

[@JakeSCOC]

Thanks

[@Captainpubwatch]

The good view of the Wayfarer 2 at 2:41 takes me right back to when I started exploring the Hants & Surrey Aldershot operation back in 1997. In Basingstoke we had Wayfarer 3s, so enter stage to stage and you got a number (fare) so it seemed completely alien to me that Aldershot drivers still had to look up stuff on a fare chart.
Hants & Surrey was a great network, so much interworking from the 19/71/60A/18 combo going towards Haslemere and Guildford to the very complex Camberley/Farnborough arrangement with vehicles eventually coming home to Aldershot off routes 49 and 50.
With the benefit of modern things like the BusTimes map driving today must be pretty dismal for drivers. Repetitive stuff and to be fair the rigid nature of modern networks doesn’t work for passengers - the old school deviations of A and B numbers, with some odd workings were there for a reason - people used them. The networks are too much for the convenience of the operators these days, mores the pity

[@Jimbo-gi7xn]

The unmistakable combination sound of the Gardner, SCG box and final drive lol..

[@JakeSCOC]

Part of our childhood sounds eh?

[@cornishadz]

Definitely. Alot of childhood memories here down in cornwall with the whine of the final drive

[@Grid56]

How fast are these, do they keep up with traffic on open road or are they starved at 45 ?

[@JakeSCOC]

Quite quick off the mark but do lose their legs above 50mph - although my series 2 was nearly at 60mph a few months ago .... downhill with a tail wind of course!