THE ORIGIN OF THE IPSWICH TO SHOTLEY ROUTE

All three pictures taken with grateful thanks to Peter Horrex. Ipswich allocated First Eastern Counties Leyland Olympian 34872 F172 LBL in 2004 in the ghastly Barbie 2 livery at Shotley terminus.

Many people may or may not be interested to know that the first country bus service was from Ipswich to Shotley or that it was operated by the Great Eastern Railway, the service began on the 21/08/1905 for which 12 double decker omnibuses seating just 30 people were built at Stratford works for services in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, originally they were to cost £600 each, however the cost spiralled to £1000 and were heavy weighing in at 4 tons 17 cwt because of wagon type springs, later that year they were soon replaced with bus type springs because of the original springs unreliability. During 1916 because of World War 1 the route was suspended due to Shotley being a Royal Navy Station, after the war the GER built needing replacement, so 6 Thornycroft/Hora B28F double deckers were built, 3 being allocated to the depot in Croft Street, Ipswich. In 1922 the Eastern Counties Road Car bought out the buses and the service from GER, the 3 buses transferring to the Thames Valley Traction company.

Heading to Shotley on the 98 through Lower Holbrook is Eastern Counties Bristol VR 138 SNG 438M in 1993 at the grand old age of nearly 20.

Going back to the time before the routes were renumbered in the mid 1980's we have Eastern Counties Bristol RE RL 739 AAH 739J awaiting time at Shotley.