Sunday Lost Scenes - Sunday 16th June

Today, we look back to Oxford in 2006.

City of Oxford 631 - P631FFC - Oxford (High St) - 7th August 2006

My first visit to Oxford was back in August 2006. With the prospect of applying to Oxford for university, I visited the city and various sites of important university interest in the morning. In the afternoon, I got the camera out... perhaps why I didn't end up in Oxford in the end. The City of Oxford fleet is one of the most rapidly changing fleets in the country, regularly buying in new buses and then quickly cascading them to sister Go Ahead fleets. Very little of what I saw in 2006 remains, with the Oxford Bus Company presently cascading the remaining T-reg Dennis Trident double deckers/

The photo above is of dual-doored Volvo B10B 631 (P631FFC), which has Plaxton Verde bodywork. Verde bodywork is now very rare countrywide, but at this point there were still large numbers of Lances and B10Bs around the country carrying it. 631 is also seen in the older white, red and blue City of Oxford livery - at this point it was gradually being phased out, with even a number of Volvo B10Bs in the new red based colours at this time. 

Since my last visit on a Sunday in April last year, the Oxford Bus Company has purchased some brand new Volvo B5LH hybrid double deckers, and will receive diverted Southern Vectis Enviro400s before the end of the year - before then getting some new buses themselves. With Stagecoach equally prominent in the city, Oxford is one city of buses that doesn't ever stand still.