I've been a way for a few days, taking SWMBO and the kiddies to her family, in a delightful town called Beaufort West, 450kms from home...
On the way back, we turned off the main road to Matjiesfontein [history note -During the Anglo-Boer War (1899 to 1902)Matjiesfontein served the British as a military stronghold.]
There, lo and behold, parked up was a great big red routemaster bus!
The kids, who are great fans of Wheels on the Bus, thought this was the greatest thing they've ever seen, and clambered all over it, rang the bell, made brmm brmm noises etc.
I looked inside, and discovered that for only 35p, you could buy a ticket for unlimited travel on london busses for a day. (Probably cost you a fiver today...]
I'm still trying to figure out why anybody would buy a routemaster, ship it to africa, and then park it in the middle of nowhere ...
Anybody seen any other equally out-of-place vehicles?
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Ian (CT)
Clambered all over a Vanden Plas Princess a few years ago....it was 'parked' in a 200 acre paddock about 200km from Broken Hill, NSW.(2000km from Sydney). Remarkably complete even down to the RR engine and badgework. The paintwork had suffered rather badly though no signs of rust. The wheels were present but no tyres.
Ian L.
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Yep - see out of place vehicles all the time in my local Supermarket car park - Great Big 4x4's...But that probably belongs in another thread...
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Routemasters are quite a common site in Kenya - they are used as staff transport at a number of the flower farms / veg farms in the Rift Valley. Logic is that you can buy them for "next to nothing", ship it, import it and then run it for ever - considerably cheaper than locally bought vehicle, and considerably more capacity.
The farms used to import one 'spare' for every two they brought in, for spares and the like, the ingenuity of the local mechanics was such that they could make most things as required. No issues over emmissions and the like in Kenya.
Very surreal site the first time you see it.
Jono
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Isn't there another Routemaster on the moon? ;-)
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I heard that they found one at the northpoll frozen in ice? think it was in the sport !
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Its very rare to see them arrive at bus stops on time :)
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I read often, only post occasionally
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It warmed my heart when, towards the end of a very tiring business trip visiting West Coast universities, I found a Routemaster on the campus of the University of California, Davis. It was in regular employment for student purposes and was much loved by its users; I think it's still there.
Also, I shall never forget the expression on the face of one of my academic authors in Oxford one sunny day. As a top-flight international star, he was then bouncing between London and UC Berkeley every few weeks. We had lunched in a dark basement restaurant and, emerging into the bright daylight, were confronted by a US police patrol car parked directly outside. For a few moments, I'm sure he didn't know quite where he was. The car was being used for some promotional event or other.
And to round off my campus tales, equally memorable was seeing a motorbike with a serenely composed and happily grinning dog riding pillion around the campus of the University of Minnesota.
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There's also a red "London" bus used as a static ticket office in downtown Denver, Colorado. Actually, it's a Bristol bus but they don't know that :o)
Terry
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