#MyTopThree; Vehicles. Number 2

Number 2 is on my fridge,
a rare honour indeed!

So here we have number 2, which is a bit of a curveball! I imagine most of you know I started on buses and coaches before trucks and one company I worked for was Clarkes of London. I worked there after The Glider, the summer season after. I was 22/23, only been driving 3/4 years, and they didn’t know me from Adam frankly so how I ended up driving the new Setras at London’s best coach company after the initial 3 or 4 weeks driving the usual ‘new guy’ older coaches is beyond me! I even had a few days driving their double deckers. Nuts when I think about lots of my bonkers career but nothing I say is ever made up I promise! There really is no need! (I’ve only realised how crazy my career has been after thinking about it over the past 18 months!). Oh and just to add, NONE of it is ever ever ever a boast. I’ve just been lucky, I’ve not done anything no one else could do, I’ve just taken more opportunities than most. I’m often left bewildered when I think about my career! Bewildered but also so so so grateful. 

So anyway, number 2! Not actually one of the new Setras I drove at Clarkes, including their millennium special (that pissed the driver right off. It usually never went out when he was off!), but one of the older ones. This one- 

R128 NFE

As is usually the case with outgoing models they are often the perfected best of a long running model, tomorrow is one, and this was one of the last in that shape, all the other Setras I drove at Clarkes were newer shape versions, they only had two left of this shape if I remember correctly, this and a white one in a Globus livery. (Always open to correction if you know better)

‘So Luke! FFS! What is that the second best vehicle you’ve EVER driven?’ I hear you say? ‘Stop waffling and tell us!’ Well, I’ll tell you! If you don’t know coaches Setra is basically the Scania of the coach world, but it’s very different to the truck world. Most coaches you can spec different bodies on different chassis. So at Glider for instance I mostly drove a Berkhof on a Scania chassis. At Londoners my new coach was a Plaxton on a Volvo B7R chassis. Setra are different. Open to correction here is calling them ‘integrated’ correct? Or integrals? There is a word like that for them. You buy a Setra, you get a Setra. I.e one of the best bodies in the business with a Mercedes engine with an enormous amount of poke. This had a 4 over 4 manual gearbox, meaning you did 4 gears, knock lever through a gate, do four more, and it was smooth perfection. As you can imagine manual coaches with box usually at rear can be really dodgy gear changes with wear if not looked after but this is pretty much the best manual I ever drove. This beast always took off from standing like a rocket, but the passengers would never notice you were accelerating flat out. Give me credit I was only 22. A coach racer if you will,

Turns out this is coach in pic
I grabbed off Google!

As you can imagine coaches have a huge variety of quality and some are right old rough creaky things! Berkhofs* bad for that if not looked after. Plaxtons, the British company, pretty much in the middle ground quality wise but being a National Express regular as Plaxtons once were there were some real rough ones, Van Hool /Jonckheere* slightly better and Setras and the other integral (think it’s integral) Bovas* at the top. Drove Bovas a lot all over Europe for the now sadly departed Parnhams and they’re very like Setras, but they use DAF engine (being Dutch). Nice precise gear changes. Bovas are the one with the Futura that sported a big mono boob at front. Great for skiing with luggage as they didn’t have a huge chassis getting in way.

I was only at Clarkes of London for a single summer season and will always be one of those companies I’m proud I worked for. They are part of the furniture on the London travel scene, they are exactly who you think of when you think coaches and London, & I imagine a great many of you will recognise them no matter your location. Now ultimately owned by National Express via Kings Ferry Group but still run by the two Clarkes sisters when I was there, which was about 20 years ago. They also have one of the best transport yards and office set ups I’ve ever seen! At Clarkes I did all the stuff Londoners used to do, incoming tourists, sightseeing, dinner transfers, airport transfers along with doing the commuter runs every now and then. It’s fun when the office say ‘the commuter run starts here (in Kent) at 7am tomorrow. The first passenger will show you the route!’. Funny as I write this memories coming back. One is of the Globus double decker pictured above. The new boy never got to drive ‘deckers’ so it out so many noses were put very much out of joint when they started putting me on them. Deckers are generally considered the cream of crop as more passengers means more tips, and coach drivers rely on tips. Well, did then. Almost enough to make up for all the extra cleaning!

Their Millennium Special
In South Wales now 

So yeah, number 2 is a specific vehicle - R128 NFE! Being a Setra it’s almost certainly still on the road somewhere and I’d love to know where I’d you know. Shows you how much I loved it it being on my fridge door with a registration number I can still remember. Can’t remember to get butter from shop but recalling a number plate of a coach I drove a for a few days 20 years ago? Easy. 

Have a great day all.

Seems they had one in new livery. May be Globus branded coach repainted

*Setra owned by Daimler via Evobus

* Jonckheere / Berkhof / Bova part of and known as VDL Group 

*Plaxton one of our most successful vehicle manufacturers but now owned by a Canadian company

The double decker that was usually never driven by young or new drivers! But was me! This a Jonckheere on a Volvo B12 chassis

Jonckheere the more bread and butter coaches. These are the Mistral, the replacement for the Jonckheere Deauville below. However they never filled the fleet as much as the Deauville did as they changed over to Setra

One of the newer Setras I drove too. I worked there mid livery change and at time I preferred old but this ‘new’ has grown on me over years.

The Older ‘Jonks’. These were such a good coach, not flashy but solid & reliable and many a coach company has been built on the back of these. Jonckheere Deauville

A Bova is the other integral coach besides Setra. Ugly as sin but lovely to drive. Parnhams are no longer but I drove these all over the place. Another good company that I loved working for who met a sad end that wasn’t entirely their fault. I’ll let you Google it if interested.

Coaches live a very long & productive life, esp when cared for and looked after like this one. You’ll recognise Ffoshelig as it’s owned by my friend Rhodri and I drive for him sometimes. Hoping to do a lot more for him in future and do some coach driver videos. Turns out he owns an ex Clarkes below-

After Clarkes it was here

Turns out this is an Clarkes and it’s very likely I drove it in its first life as well as this one. Coaching is a very small world. (He had told me before but that memory was a victim of the great memory purge of Feb 2020.)