Bus Collection opens its doors in Alford

125 years ago, in 1898, Aberdeen Corporation took its first steps in running a municipal public transport operation when it bought the then private Aberdeen District Tramways Company and formed Aberdeen Corporation Tramways. A Parliamentary Order enabling local authorities to run their own transport made this possible.

The company grew and developed with electric trams taking over from horse drawn, then motorbuses taking over from all trams when in May 1958, 65 years ago, the last trams were taken out of service and down to the Queens links to be burned.

Both of these anniversaries are remembered this weekend when on Sunday, July 30, The Bus Collection at Alford holds its annual open day at its home in the grounds of the Grampian Transport Museum, Alford.

This year promises to be better than ever as it celebrates 125 years of Aberdeen Corporation Transport (ACT), Grampian Regional Transport (GRT) and First, with examples of buses through the years now maintained, preserved and conserved by Aberdeen & District Transport Preservation Trust, a charity run entirely by volunteers.

The open day will give visitors the opportunity to see a collection of visiting buses, ride on buses from the past and present round the arena of the Transport Museum and take Heritage bus rides round the village of Alford.

There are guided tours of the collection, buses in the process of restoration, talks by experts, beautifully built scale model trams in operation, models and memorabilia to browse and buy and in this 65th anniversary year of the end of the trams you can wonder at the project which is the restoration of Aberdeen Tramcar 15.

There is so much to see and do and yet it is all free to visitors.

The day is open from 11am-4pm.

For location details visit www.thebuscollectionatalford.co.uk.

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