Tayside Regional Council 126 (NSP 326R)
Vehicle
126 was one of a batch of 35 Ailsas delivered to Tayside between August and November 1976. The Ailsa was assembled at Volvo’s plant at Irvine in Ayrshire, and was the vehicle that helped to establish Volvo in the UK bus market in opposition to the then market leader Leyland—a company that Volvo would eventually buy out in 1988. Tayside had already bought five Ailsas from the first production batch earlier in 1976; unfortunately, none of Tayside’s first batch survive.
It entered service in September 1976 on the main Downfield – Ninewells Hospital route. The following year it was one of a number of vehicles across the UK painted silver to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee; later in life it carried an overall advert for Bell’s Scotch whisky.
The first 19 of the R-registered buses were delicensed in 1986 and put into store. Most of these were then sold to the dealer Ensign, and a number of these vehicles were sold on to Boro’Line Maidstone, the Kent municipal operator that enjoyed a brief period of success operating tendered services in London, and these vehicles spent several years operating intensive services in London, ironically at exactly the same time as Strathtay Scottish in Dundee was operating former London Routemasters. However, 125–129 remained in Dundee and were reinstated two years later by Tayside Public Transport Co. and repainted in their blue and cream livery.
126 was finally withdrawn in 1991 (seen here in Dundee the previous year) and sold to a local farmer for use as a berry bus for the following ten years.
Restoration
Three TVVS members bought 126 for preservation in 2001. The vehicle was complete and in more or less original condition, except that the middle doors had been sealed shut when it was sold by Tayside and an additional seat placed in the stepwell. Some of the seat cushions have been replaced with ones to the original pattern, rescued from similar bus 128 which was recently scrapped. The bus is being repainted into its original livery, and has returned to the road in 2008 for the first time in several years.
Video
126 crossing the Tay Bridge on the way back from Lathalmond
