East Kent at the South East Bus Festival
The East Kent Road Car Company Ltd. dates back to
1916. Its maroon and cream buses were a
familiar sight running along the roads of Kent up until the formation of the
National Bus Company when the corporate colour scheme of poppy red and white
was introduced on the company’s buses and all over white on their coaches. Fortunately for the many bus enthusiasts in
the United Kingdom a number of East Kent vehicles have been saved in
preservation. Since 2011 the South East
Bus Festival has become an annual event on the bus rally calendar, thus
providing a showcase for a good number of preserved buses mostly from the south
east of England, East Kent being one of the companies represented. Our cameras attended in 2012 and 2014 to
record the action at the Kent Showground, Detling, near Maidstone in Kent. We have majored on the East Kent vehicles on
this programme, but we have just had to show the other exhibits, as they are
too good to be ignored!
Our
programme
opens with the unveiling of newly restored 1950 East Kent Dennis Lancet
J3 with
Park Royal DP32F bodywork, registration number EFN 584. We
take a ride on this superb vehicle around
the showground site. We then film the
action of many vehicles running around.
Some of the companies represented are Maidstone & District,
Maidstone
Corporation, London Transport and Metrobus to name but a few!
There is even a bus from Malta! We also see most of the exhibits
leaving the
ground offering a superb bus and coach ‘traffic jam’.
Our cameras return again in 2014. Taking up many different locations on the
site, with these vantage points to show off the buses and coaches to their
best. Again East Kent takes centre
stage, where we see the Guy Arab, AEC Regent Vs and a Daimler Fleetline in action
along with beautiful Dennis Lancet single deckers running around the spacious
showground. On this visit we take two
rides. The first on board East Kent AEC
Regent V, a 72 seat Park Royal bodied full front bus with the registration
number of PFN 874. The second ride is on
Maidstone & District Bristol L6A, SO43 (LKT 991) that has an ECW B35R
body. There is plenty of action for you
to enjoy featuring many south eastern bus fleets and we even see a ‘New
Routemaster’ in service running alongside original RMs and RTs!
To conclude our programme we have some
archive video from the camera of Malcolm King.
Filmed in 1991 in Folkestone and Canterbury we see Metrobuses and
Bristol VRTs going about their daily business.
We hope you enjoy our programme.
|
|
Filmed
: |
2012, 2014 & 1990s |
|
|
Duration
: |
84 minutes (approx). |
|
|
Price
: |
Within UK - £16 |
|
Rest of world -
£18 |
|
|
Format
: |
DVD -R |
|
Picture Aspect 16:9 |
|
|
Order
Ref : |
D225 |