By Press Release
Despite the unprecedented level of diversions for roadworks, the Isle of Wight Bus Museum’s Wightrider running days on Saturday and Sunday (October 12 and 13) proved the most successful yet.
Several thousand people on each day visited the museum and sampled the 62 vehicles which operated free services from Ryde to Seaview, Bembridge, Shanklin, Wroxall (Donkey Sanctuary), Newport and East Cowes as well as a shuttle service to Ryde Esplanade.
Brading Roman Villa, Quarr Abbey, Godshill, Whippingham Church, plus a new destination of Calbourne Mill were also run with single deckers and touring coaches. On Sunday, Southern Vectis kindly provided one of their open toppers for a Downs tour.
Vehicles travelling the farthest distance were a pair of former Western National buses from Cornwall, while others came from Norfolk, Dorset, Sussex, with a large contingent of London origin double deckers owned by members of the Bromley Bus Group.
One special coach “returning home “ was Island Queen, a 1955 Commer-Beadle once part of the Moss Motors fleet.
The complicated scheduling and crew rosters were produced by Museum volunteers who supervised bus movements, substituting at times where a bus had to be withdrawn at short notice for a minor defect.
Normal access into and out of Ryde depot was complicated by the railway bridge closure and “single line working“ around a partial sinkage in Park Road. But the contractors supervising the Bridge work rendered considerable, very helpful, assistance.
A Museum spokesman described the event as the biggest and best patronised in more than a quarter of century of their rallies.
He said “We owe a great deal to our volunteers and visiting crews who worked so hard to make the event such a success and an enjoyable day out for so many local and mainland visitors who sampled a variety of buses from a past era.“