Saturday, 17 October 2015

Worksop to Lille by Astromega

Focus Transport will be bringing you coverage of the 2015 Busworld Exhibition in Kortrijk and yesterday we travelled from Worksop to our hotel in Lille from where we will be visiting the exhibition.
Transport was provided by Kings Ferry using one of their recently acquired 14-metre, Van Hool TDX27 Astromega double deck coaches.


 7.35am at Johnson Bros depot in Worksop, where our coach YJ15 EPC awaits passengers.
 The Johnson Bros Worksop site is home to the Irizar showroom and above and below we see
examples of new Irizars for sale

Below are pictures of some of the coaches observed during our journey south and at the Channel Tunnel coach park.












 Note the illuminated sign on this Setra, which we assume means the passengers (which were
mostly children) were running around the coach park.
The tunnel and time for a driver change for our crew on the Van Hool.
 We follow the line of other coaches to the waiting train


 The Travellers Volvo enters the train, there is very little room for error, even on a standard size coach
 The Travellers vehicle is safely on board and now it's our turn
 A very steady approach is called for on a 14m vehicle. The yellow crash barrier is there to protect the train from the out-swing of the rear of the coach
 Our driver overhangs the front of the coach over the other side of the train and then gently brings the front back into position, watching the rear of the coach to ensure it clears the  previously mentioned yellow crash barrier. Note the scrape marks on the entrance to the train!
 Job done, well almost. We now have to drive through the train and park up behind the Travellers coach which has disappeared into the distance
The remainder of our journey was reasonably uneventful and we eventually reached our hotel in Lille from which we will travel to Kortrijk to visit Busworld. 
Look out for our reports and pictures.