DSCN2675 Ellen Smith BX54 EBA in Bury St. Edmunds - 13 Feb 2009

Friday 13 February 2009 (1119) - What a surprise it was to see this coach in Bury St Edmunds bus station! Ellen Smith heralds from my home town of Rochdale. BX54 EBA, a Mercedes-Benz 1836RL Touro new in Sept 2004, was working a ‘Suffolk Villages’ tour. The previous evening the passengers must have wondered whether they would have an extended stay in Suffolk because there was a steady snowfall. However most of the snow was disappearing by mid-morning. The Ellen Smith business, founded and owned by the Smith family in the early 1900s, had all white coaches with red relief when I was a boy (unusual back then and long before nearly every coach on the road was white!). Upon retirement in 1991 the family sold the business to Rossendale Transport, essentially a municipally related bus operating undertaking, who retained the Ellen Smith name but introduced a livery containing more red. In 2002 Rossendale Transport sold this part of their business to two employee managers and the new owners introduced this striking livery scheme. The Smith family had used a logo of a leaping tiger resembling that used on the badges of Leyland Royal Tiger vehicles. The coach carries a modern interpretation of the tiger logo along with the stylised tiger stripes.