DSCN8019 Regency Road Pullman Touring Company EUU 117J in Bury St. Edmunds - 4 May 2012

Seeing EUU 117J participating in the Ipswich-Felixstowe Historic Vehicle Road Run on Sunday 6 May 2018 reminded me that I had photographed the same coach six years earlier when it passed through Bury St. Edmunds on a very grand tour.

Friday 4 May 2012 (1333) – This fascinating coach was passing through Bury St Edmunds on a 25 day long ‘Capitals and Countryside of Scandinavia, Russia and the Baltic Coast’ tour - not a bad achievement for a coach which first entered service 41 years earlier in 1971. From England the tour visited the cities of Copenhagen (Denmark); Stockholm (Sweden); Helsinki (Finland); St. Petersburg (Russia); Tallin (Estonia) and Riga (Latvia). Sailing from Latvia on a Baltic Sea cruise the tour then travelled via Germany and the Netherlands before returning back to England and attending the AEC Rally in Newark on the way back home. The road miles for the tour were planned to be just under 2600 miles (of which more anon).

EUU117J is an AEC Reliance with Plaxton Panorama Elite bodywork featuring the centre entrance layout only favoured by a very small number of coach touring companies by this time and yet a style which had almost been the norm for coaches during the 1950s. New to Glenton Tours of London SE14 and now operated by Regency Road Pullman Touring Company of Northwich, Cheshire. The rear area features a kitchen. The seating configuration includes some seats facing each other between which there are tables.

(It was unfortunate that just after pulling away from the top bay the compressor failed resulting in the coach facing a breakdown and consequently a delay. Local operator Mulleys Motorways helped out by initially sending Tony the mechanic down to the bus station and later Daniel Munson and Gavin Starling came with the tow truck. The coach was towed to Ixworth and replacement parts driven down from Cheshire by the evening. A repair was carried out in the Mulleys workshops by owner Clive Screaton who then departed for the port to catch a ferry on Saturday morning (to Hoek van Holland I think which would then mean an additional road journey of about 500 miles). The passengers had continued to the port of Harwich in a Mulleys coach so they were not delayed by the problem. They met their Friday evening sailing departing at 1745 by the DFDS vessel Dana Sirena which was to arrive in Esbjerg (Denmark) at 1300 Saturday lunchtime. Alternative arrangements were made to take them on the 40 mile journey from Esbjerg to Legoland at Billund where they were booked to spend Saturday overnight. The departure from Billund to Copenhagen was scheduled to be lunchtime on Sunday so hopefully there was sufficient time for Clive to get to Billund with the coach by then).