I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number (or
whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were able to get a
reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same? Or, for that matter, why
they tried?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number (or
whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were able to
get a reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same? Or, for that
matter, why they tried?

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in 1959 or
thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of vehicles.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:51 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in 1959 or
thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of vehicles.

Ooh! A conspiracy! :-)

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:46:45 -0000, "John Rowland"
wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number (or
whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were able to get a
reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same? Or, for that matter, why
they tried?

Back in the days of that type of registration number, a lot of bus
companies organised them to coincide with fleet numbers. Midland Red
and Red & White did it in a big way. See
http://www.btinternet.com/~terry.harper/buses/rw865.htm for an
example.

On the other hand, East Kent didn't bother with fleet numbers, just
made sure that they didn't have two buses with the same numbers in the
registration.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:51 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number (or
whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were able to
get a reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same? Or, for that
matter, why they tried?

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in 1959 or
thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of vehicles.

But in the case of many of the LT ones (VLT, WLT, CLT) they predated
year letter suffixes of prefixes. I think that these plates were a
sort of vanity plate, indicating ownership. This was in the days when
you couldn't normally buy personalised number plates, but LT got all
sorts of dispensations in this as in various other matters.

In article ,
(Ken) wrote:

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:51 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number
(or whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were
able to get a reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same?
Or, for that matter, why they tried?

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in 1959
or thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of vehicles.

But in the case of many of the LT ones (VLT, WLT, CLT) they predated
year letter suffixes of prefixes. I think that these plates were a
sort of vanity plate, indicating ownership. This was in the days when
you couldn't normally buy personalised number plates, but LT got all
sorts of dispensations in this as in various other matters.

The LT series was allocated to the LCC. Of LT buses, only the RMs used
them in any quantity though and only for the first 1600 RMs (apart from
RM1000).

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article ,
(Ken) wrote:

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:51 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet number
(or whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they were
able to get a reg so close to the fleet number, but not the same?
Or, for that matter, why they tried?

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in 1959
or thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of vehicles.

But in the case of many of the LT ones (VLT, WLT, CLT) they predated
year letter suffixes of prefixes. I think that these plates were a
sort of vanity plate, indicating ownership. This was in the days when
you couldn't normally buy personalised number plates, but LT got all
sorts of dispensations in this as in various other matters.

The LT series was allocated to the LCC. Of LT buses, only the RMs used
them in any quantity though and only for the first 1600 RMs (apart from
RM1000).


A few years ago (or maybe ten) Routemasters started appearing without
their original numbers. Some that would have predated the year letters
were given A reg plates for example. (None of them originally had A
reg; they went straight to B reg at RM 1866 [ALD866B]).

I could understand that, because plates on the lines of VLT47 might
well be sellable as "vanity" plates.

But I've never understood why so many old Routemaster reg numbers ended
up on modern buses. Maybe it was that the vanity business was so
lucrative that LT had to make sure that they kept all such valuable
numbers on registered vehicles, eg if the bus was just scrapped the
number would become available for free? But is there a cost in
transferring the number to a different vehicle?

In article .com,
(MIG) wrote:

*Subject:* Strange bus reg
*From:* "MIG"
*Date:* 4 Feb 2006 02:23:55 -0800

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article ,
(Ken) wrote:

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:51 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

I saw a bus today with the registration "VLT 47". Its fleet
number
(or whatever they call them) was "VLW 47". I wonder why they
were
able to get a reg so close to the fleet number, but not the
same?
Or, for that matter, why they tried?

It's a re-used Routemaster plate, originally applied to RM47 in
1959
or thereabouts.

There are quite a lot about, helping to conceal the age of
vehicles.

But in the case of many of the LT ones (VLT, WLT, CLT) they
predated
year letter suffixes of prefixes. I think that these plates were a
sort of vanity plate, indicating ownership. This was in the days
when
you couldn't normally buy personalised number plates, but LT got
all
sorts of dispensations in this as in various other matters.

The LT series was allocated to the LCC. Of LT buses, only the RMs
used them in any quantity though and only for the first 1600 RMs
(apart from RM1000).

A few years ago (or maybe ten) Routemasters started appearing without
their original numbers. Some that would have predated the year
letters were given A reg plates for example. (None of them originally
had A reg; they went straight to B reg at RM 1866 [ALD866B]).

That's because they extended back to 1957 the vehicle ages to which A
registration suffixes applied. They were running short of remaining
series without year letters.

AIUI most of the Routemasters that left London for further use elsewhere
left without their original plates. Therefore many of those that came
back after 2000 didn't have them.

I could understand that, because plates on the lines of VLT47 might
well be sellable as "vanity" plates.

But I've never understood why so many old Routemaster reg numbers
ended up on modern buses. Maybe it was that the vanity business was so
lucrative that LT had to make sure that they kept all such valuable
numbers on registered vehicles, eg if the bus was just scrapped the
number would become available for free? But is there a cost in
transferring the number to a different vehicle?

Bus operators like to use old plates to conceal the age of vehicles. The
Routemaster plates form one of the largest series of such plates that
survived for such use. The second tranche of Park and Ride double
deckers that Stagecoach introduced in Cambridge had ex-RM plates
applied. This hid the fact that they were originally N prefixed while
the earlier Park and Ride series buses were P prefixed.

They can't be used again at all where vehicles have been scrapped, I
thought?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006 15:37 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

That's because they extended back to 1957 the vehicle ages to which A
registration suffixes applied. They were running short of remaining
series without year letters.

In fact London started on suffixes in 1964, with "B". Middlesex used
"A" suffixes from 1963, together with Staffordshire and certain others
which ran out of reversed registrations in that year.

Middlesex and Staffordshire were the first authorities to use reversed
registrations, with "H" and "E" respectively, in 1953.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

In article ,
(Terry Harper) wrote:

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006 15:37 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

That's because they extended back to 1957 the vehicle ages to which
A registration suffixes applied. They were running short of
remaining series without year letters.

In fact London started on suffixes in 1964, with "B". Middlesex used
"A" suffixes from 1963, together with Staffordshire and certain others
which ran out of reversed registrations in that year.

Middlesex and Staffordshire were the first authorities to use reversed
registrations, with "H" and "E" respectively, in 1953.

True but A suffixes have since been applied for re-registration of all
vehicles from 1957 to 1963. In London application of B suffixes only
started part way through 1964.

--
Colin Rosenstiel