Two Years On

Yes, it's two years ago today that the Focus Blog made its first posting.  For a number of reasons it had become increasingly difficult in 2011 to update our main website on a daily basis so Richard Lomas took on the job of setting up this website which we have mostly updated daily. I came in as a contributor and backed up Richard's initial work and, during Richard's long spell in hospital took over as Editor.
Richard sadly passed away on 25th May 2012 and since then I have endeavoured to keep up the standards set by Richard, aided by Colin Sellers as Assistant Editor.
We rely on a small team of regular contributors including Ken Jones, Dennis Basford, Tony Wilson, Stuart Jones, Phil G, Ian Moorcroft, Sean Blair and Kath Lomas but would always welcome more contributions from new sources and would encourage newcomers to submit their efforts.
If you want advice on how to submit pictures and articles one of our team would be pleased to coach you on the finer points.
Oliver Foreman has posted some words and statistics about the Blog and these can be read here Oliver has continued to update the main Focus transport site mostly on a weekly basis and we encourage you to keep a regular check on what has been posted as well as viewing our FocusFlickr site where Colin and Dan Sellers together with Martin Arrand regularly post sets of pictures.
Thanks for continuing to visit this website, we appreciate feedback so feel free to tell us what you want to see more of and we will do our best to oblige.

 David Gambles
focustransport2011@gmail.com

From Oliver Foreman, webmaster of Focus Transport website

Congratulations to all who have worked so hard to make Focus Transport Blog such a popular and topical source of so much varied and interesting public transport information!

The founder of the Blog, the late Richard Lomas, lived in Derbyshire whereas David Gambles, who took on the Blog when Richard became ill, lives many miles away in Northumberland so the picture here of Richard and David with their wives must be almost unique.

Note also Richard and Kath in front of the bus used at their wedding in 1967 and again on their 40^th anniversary.

David’s name is to be found in many bus and coach magazines. Here he is evaluating a modern coach but just as often he will be driving a vehicle of yesteryear. 

This picture shows David with his former pride and joy, the Leyland Tiger that he lovingly restored.

 

Keep up the good work!

Oliver 

Below is a selection of pictures by some of the team, all taken this year.

 A mixture of vehicles seen at the Kirkby Stephen & Brough Easter Rally

 Optare Tempo on the 'new' limited stop service 2/2A introduced by Konectbus that links Norwich with the North Norfolk coast at Cromer and Sheringham.

 46233 Duchess of Sutherland pulling the 'The Yorkshire Coronation'

 Oliver's caption for this picture is simply  'Progress?'

 I have followed the restoration work of the Spire Fleetline Group's Leyland Lynxes and it is a pleasure to record 64 at the Sheffield Centenary event.    Colin

 Dan Sellers likes to photograph modern vehicles with historic / ornate buildings.

 Ken visited the Taunton Running Day last weekend and has sent us this nostalgic shot of two Bristol vehicles.

.................................................................................................................................................