Great Western Coffee Shop

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/dirtybus.jpg)

Isn't illegal for the number plate to be obscured?

It isn't as obscured as the livery is. As for the livery, is it Tesco? Seem to recall a similar pattern of blue and white on the Tesco shuttle bus in Carmarthen.

My car looks similar at the moment. I spend my days down country lanes. It was only washed 3 days ago, and already looks similar dirty to this.

I believe the pictured bus is Faresaver's MX56AAO

I'd concur. Probably either the X34 or X72, at Melksham Market Place.

From the "where there's muck there's brass" school.  Yes, Faresaver

Faresaver used to provide a service to my school which I used for a few years, long before they got these shiny newer vehicles. There were some pretty interesting stories!

1. Lloyds Bank: Melksham, Market Place.  :D

Oh - you mean that camouflaged thing parked in front of it?  :o

MX56AAO normally used on the 69, otherwise known as the Zigzag service. Our guess is that this bus was cleaned a day or two before this photo was taken but when you are traversing the lanes of Wiltshire to the likes of Broughton Gifford it doesn't take long to get like this! Sometimes feels like you are fighting a losing battle in the winter months!

Welcome to the forum, Faresaver! I know what you mean about the lanes and the mud.  Not only do the buses get dirty - even the bus stops do.  Some of us have taken to a bit of Gorilla cleaning around Melksham, and there are now reports on Facebook that the station is dirty ... so you may feel it's a loosing battle but you're not alone :D

I'm amazed they stay still long enough to let you clean them...

Not sure which is more dangerous: trying to clean a gorilla, or a guerilla..!

Good to be here Graham, although predominantly train related topics here we like to be up to speed on the bus front. This bus along with three others are based at our Melksham outstation and so the cleaning of them involves a bit more...... thought! Always good to hear feedback good and bad, although we prefer the good and when I see buses like this on the road my heart sinks. I would say I'd prefer running buses in Spain where it rains less but then the buses would just overheat more!

I didn't have my camera today but saw a First Kernow Alexander Royale decker that looked like this to the top of the top deck. It was on a route predominantly involving country lanes.
I was quite impressed the dirt had reached to very top on a double decker.

Reminds me, had a trip on an Aylesbury (Arriva?) bus Route 4 couldn't see out of windows.

It's one of the curiosities of the public transport world that we haven't totally fathomed yet that people will organise and get behind their local train service, and indeed ask questions and come up with their own suggestions far more than they will for their local bus service. (It may be a case of "careful what you wish for" / I personally take care to research any suggestions I put forward and then defer and look to understand the expert's inputs, but not everyone does).  My understanding is that more bus than train journeys are made in the UK, but more public transport journey mileage is done by train - and yet the difference in online / forum interest, and community partnership, seems "chalk and cheese".

So - PLEASE - feel free to add bus information / your bus information here.  It will be very gratefully received and I know you'll be able to fill in gaps in my posts (and others) where perhaps we didn't know prices or reasons for things. 

But then your usual exemplary reliability would be awful... :( Certainly in the rural parts of Spain the 20 or times I waited for a bus it only turned up 3 or 4 times! >:( As for punctuality I'm not even going to go there............ :-X