London Bus Hire

Hello Dave and Trish.

Following our phone conversation the other night, I did some digging
around, looking for companies/groups who would hire a bus for your purposes.

There are a number of variables which I can't account for.

- What sort of bus do you want? I suppose it depends on what sort of bus
that Trish's father worked on. I'm guessing at RTs or RMs
(Routemasters). You mentioned Aldenham and that opened, I THINK, in the
'fifties. I'm not 100% certain of that but if it was, then it HAS to be
RTs/RMs and possibly RFs (single-deckers). According to some Aldenham
Trade Union records I found on the 'net, the site was developed in 1956.
(Confirmed by another historical site)

- Where you want to go with it

- Whether you want a party on board, or not, and whether you want to do
the catering or the company does it.

Clearly, it would be better if the company was local to you. However,
there don't seem to be any very near.

RM254, the one I am involved with, is effectively off the road at the
moment. It hasn't been moved for about two years, now, and is in a yard
and trapped behind a load of other junk. (A bit like my room really!) So
I can't offer it.

There are other enthusiasts groups but neither I nor the other guy
involved with our bus knows of any that offer this facility.

Some companies come to mind. The most likely is:

Timebus - based in Watford: www.timebus.co.uk/index.htm

Memory Lane Vintage Omnibus Services - Dorking, Surrey: www.memorylane.co.uk

London Central Buses (part of TfL so probably expensive):
www.londoncentral.com/hireabus.htm

Blue Triangle - based in east London and probably expensive:
www.bluetrianglebus.com/privhire.htm

If Trish's Dad worked at Chiswick, I think she mentioned it, then we
COULD be talking about even older vehicles. There are very few options
here. The London Transport Museum - if they did it they would be very
expensive, I would imagine. There is also the Cobham Bus Museum. A
Google search would find both of their sites.

Is this useful information? I hope so because I can't think of an
alternative at the moment. As I said, the most likely would be Timebus,
if the dates and costs are mutually OK.

Dave - on a more PC front, I'm having nightmares trying to get my three
machines to network. One machine, this one, is running Windows XP Pro,
one is running Windows 2000 Pro and the laptop is running W98SE.

Some days they are fine, some days they won't talk to each other. After
a lot of faffing around, I asked on a networking Newsgroup. Quite
quickly it transpired that I was powering things in a random order! It
should be: Hub/PC with ICS/any others. However (isn't there always one!)
I still had trouble. It all seems to come down to the Firewall. In order
for the machines to meet, I need to turn the protection down. That's
irritating. I turned protection down to 'Medium'. Now the machines talk
but the others can't access the Internet. I have had them on the 'net
but today they will not! How jolly annoying. Still, it passes the time.

I hope you are both keeping OK, and busy. I must go now. I want to play
computer networks again!

Talk soon,

Alan

--
Alan Stokes
(E-Mail Removed)
http://www.aspal.co.uk/rm254