Below are a selection of views of buses that have left the Isle of
Man Transport fleet, or were previously on the bus photo gallery
page
Isle of Man Transport 3 (EMN 203U) one of a batch of ECW bodied
Leyland Olympians acquired from Stagecoach Selkent, via Ensign
(dealer), Purfleet, but new to London Buses in 1985 as their L80
(C80 CHM), is seen at Douglas railway yard
Following a change of management and managerial styles in 1999,
the emphasis was changed to include a greater percentage of
double-deck vehicles in the fleet, which resulted in the withdrawal
and sale of all the single-deck fleet apart from eleven low-floor
Marshall bodied Dennis Dart SLF's. In view of a high requirement of
large capacity vehicles to fulfill the Island's school bus
requirements, the pursuance of a single-deck policy was eminently
questionable, and had already witnessed numerous youthful single deck
buses being placed in storage as being surplus to operational
requirements. Pictured at Douglas railway yard is Dart 24
(DMN 24R) showing the fictitious destination '22 Manx Express'.
Route 22 is a Douglas town route, the Manx Express runs over only
Island trunk routes. This was one of the eleven retained and has
since been renumbered 34
Before the arrival of the low-floor deliveries, the last double
deckers IoMT bought new arrived in 1989-1990 consisting of 13
Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympians, delivered in three
batches. From the middle batch, totaling two buses, came 66
(BMN 66P), seen at Douglas railway yard complete with a
retro-fitted electronic destination, the only Olympian so
attired.
It was twelve years after the formation of the Island's
nationalised bus undertaking that delivery of new double-deck buses
occurred, with the arrival of six all-Leyland Olympians in 1988. The
bodywork was some of the first built after Leyland resumed bus body
construction following over thirty years absence from this market,
and was not without some teething troubles, which resulted in each of
the batch being returned to Workington for attention, in some cases
more than once. Just two of the batch survive having notched up
twenty years service with Isle of Man Transport, including 87
(BMN 87G), seen parked at the rear of Ramsey garage. This bus
spent over two years out of use following severe front-end accident
damage, which was expertly repaired by IOMT's staff at Homefield
garage.