Cover picture: Cobham Bus Museum needs to raise £150,000 to keep 70-year-old London Transport RT1 in Britain. To learn more

Contents

NEWS
Job cuts at First; Veolia quits Hull; Stagecoach launches Megabusplus; Your chance to save RT1; Optare’s electric Solo; Bristol VR celebrations
BUS PEOPLE
New Optare CEO; Newport MD goes to Blackpool; Pilbeam to run First East England; deaths of John Gillham and Alan Earnshaw
INSIDE TRACK
Chance would be a fine thing
GLOBAL NEWS
Stagecoach and New York rival join force; Kiel Tempo withdrawn; Maltese developments
IN LONDON
The latest tendering results; the cost of replacing artics; newer buses for the X26
MILLAR’S TALES
Birth of the National Expressliner; more stamps on buses; hybrid hides its weight
CEDDIES
Geoff Mills profiles an Essex independent that embraces change
SANDTOFT BIRTHDAY BASH
Late-May Extravaganza planned for trolleybus museum’s 40th
TROLLEYBUSES NEED STRONG ADVOCATES
Sixty years after the UK’s last system opened, we reflect on who has argued their case
THE BIG 650
David Stanier salutes the Daimler engine that never quite made it
PICTUREVIEW
Heathrow in half a century
FENTON FILE
Mike Fenton tracks down what may be the only 7.4m SlimLine Solos