non-Arriva buses in Medway and surrounding area

Welcome to my guide to small bus companies in Medway and the surrounding area.

NU-VENTURE

Nu-venture is the largest of the small companies in Kent. They have an awesome selection of old buses. They have always run the small and obscure routes, until now. In Medway, Nu-venture has recently started running a new route from Chatham bus station though the Medway Tunnel, then though strood business park, then along a brand new 200m section of dedicated busway which links the business park with strood, then after Strood the route splits and goes to Earl estate or Medway Valley Park. This is a nice fast traffic free route, which is ran by nice old vintage buses.

Old Leyland Titans

These are awesome old buses, and are the oldest buses in service in Medway. Also Nu-venture is running the oldest Leyland Titan in regular passenger service, WYV62T, which was built in 1979.

Old Leyland Olympians

These are 3 awesome old buses, they have a nice sounding old ZF gearbox. Despite their age, these buses are fast. REGs: F346WSC, F351WSC and 3558RU (was F350WSC)

Alexander RL

Leyland Lynx

These were nice old buses. Nu-Venture used to have a few of these, but got rid of all of them but one in 2009. The one remaining one (J268UDW), ran until 2012, it was VERY slow, it had a great ZF sound, but Nu-venture has now sadly got rid of it.

Alexander PS

These are fairly nice and old, and are similar to the Lynx, but don't have quite as much character.

Pointer Dart with steps

This is nice, built back in the days when pointer darts were not boring. (Apart from Arrivas batch of modern mini pointer darts, the only darts that I like are the old ones with steps).

JWS Dart prototype

This is an unique bus. This is an awesome one of prototype bus converted from a Dartline Dart. It originally ran on RML Travel in Stoke on Trent, and was converted as an experimental project (called Zig Zag or Ziggy), to design a modern upgrade for their fleet of buses (which never happened). This bus was later sold of, where it got sold between different companies several times, and was eventually acquired by Nu-Venture. (where most people don't know what it is).

Dash Dart

This is an ex-stagecoach bus, it is fairly nice, but a bit plain.

Unknown Bus

Boring Dart with steps

These are very boring.

Marshall Darts

These are very slow.

Old new-venture livery.

Medway valley links (151 route) livery.

New green livery.

Wrightbus Darts

These are quite nice, despite being darts.

Optare Solos

Yellow Pointer Dart

Nu-venture gets a new bus (actually I mean crappy second hand bus)

This bus is crap, When new-venture brought it second hand, rather than repaint it, they decided to paint out the old companies logo but they didn't have the right color paint. Its paintwork now really looks like a very poorly done job. Also this bus is slow, and has lost its old Allison sound.

Pointer Dart (with great Allison sound)

This has an Awesome old Allison sound.

Pointer Darts (enviro sound)

There are quite a few of these about, they are kind of OK. They have the new style Allison gearbox.

Caetano Nimbus

It looks a bit like an enviro 200, it sounds like an enviro 200, but its not an enviro 200!

KENT TOP TRAVEL

Kent Top Travel is owned by Kent County Council, but despite this, it has to compete for contracts like all the other bus companies. Despite being a small company, they have a modern set of buses. They run a selection of routes thoughout Kent, including the rather posh Canterbury Park and Ride. In 2012 they lost a lot of contracts (like the 130, Twydall - Hempstead - Maidstone). In December 2012 Kent County Council said they would be shutting down kent Top Travel.

Enviro 200

These are Kent Top Travel's first main fleet of buses. These are quite nice. These buses were not built at the same time, they were slowly aquired thought the years, but despite this they are seemingly identical.

Small Enviro 200

As well as their normal enviro 200s, Kent Top Travel has 3 smaller Enviros.

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One of these buses (KX57AAO) has different seats to the other two. This bus is usually found on their Bluewater to longfield route.

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And here are the other two (YX09FNG and SF07KCC).

Optare Esteems

These are very nice buses that run on Canterbury's Park and Ride (nowhere near Medway).

REGs: PO58KPY, PO58KPV, PO58KPU, PO58KRD and PO58KPX.

Optare Olympus

These are very nice buses that also run on Canterbury's Park and Ride.

REGs: PO58KPN, PO58KPR, PO58KRT and PO58KPP.

Centro

These are very nice buses. YJ59AYX runs on Canterbury's Park and Ride. YJ58FFD runs on the normal routes.

Wrightbus Streetlite

This bus (MX60BWO) runs an extra Park and Ride in Canterbury, which goes from one of the park and ride car parks to the Hospital.

Extra buses

As well as kent Top Travel's posh buses, they also have some extra buses which they don't apear to care about, and they are not in all that good condition. These buses include some Wrightbuses (built in 2006), a Pointer Dart, and a few Optare Solos.

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Optare Solo

This bus (YJ51JWX) was built in 2001, it is not in great condition. It has an old style Allison, which apears to be geared right down so that it changes to 4th gear at 25mph. (the top speed of this bus is under 40mph). On the outside it is painted a very boring white, and it says "Kent County Council Passenger Services" as it predates kent Top Travel.

KINGS FERRY

Kings Ferry is a coach company based in Twydall in Medway. When Dockside outlet center was opened sometime around 2005, a Dockside shuttle bus was run from Chatham to Dockside. This was originally run by a specially painted Arriva Pointer Dart. In 2006 Kings Ferry took over running the route.

In 2011 when the New Chatham bus station opened, Kings Ferry could only afford stupid Medway Council's charges if they only stopped at the bus station in one direction (this means the route went from Dockside, non stop though Chatham bus station, stop at the train station, then stop at Chatham bus station on the way back to Dockside). This route was not very popular with passengers, and the competition was too high from Arriva. And in 2012 Kings Ferry stopped running bus services.

Plaxton Primo

These 2 buses were built in 2006 and were only run for a year. (REGs: MX06ADU and MX06ADZ).

see photo

Enviro 200s

These 2 buses were built in 2007 and were run on the Dockside shuttle until sometime around 2011. (REGs: GN07FDE and GN07FDF).

RARE Scania Carsa

This is a one off Prototype (REG: YP52CUU). Kings Ferry used to use it just as a back up bus. and it also did a few odd runs (like that weird shuttle from mid Kent college to Dockside in 2010). When the Enviro 200s were sold off, this became the main bus for the Dockside shuttle (note that the dockside shuttle now only had one bus). Kings Ferry stopped doing bus services in 2012. I don't know what has happened to this very rare bus.

ASD

ASD is a stupid little company that mainly have horrid mini buses. I am not sure if they currently have one proper bus or two. Over the years they have run some very obscure smallest of the small bus routes.

Mercedes Benz midi bus

This has a nice old Allison sound.

Optare solo

Seems that an Optare Solo was too much for little ASD to cope with, as they got rid of it a few years ago. (This really shows what a small company ASD is)

No photo

Chalkwell

Chalkwell run most of the buses around Sittingbourn.

1980s Wrightbus

I liked this bus, sadly Chalkwell got rid of it a few years ago.

no photo

Old Mercedes Benz midi bus

Mercedes Benz midi buses

Pointer Darts

Optare Solo

This makes an amazing old Allison sound.

THE END

And that is all of the non Arriva buses in Medway.

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Further reading...

Arriva buses in Medway
See more of my bus pictures
Go to the BENO homepage