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Friday, 8 May 2015

Helsinki Special (And A Bit Of Barcelona)

It's taken me sometime to get around to posting this - apologies for that - but here is Part Two of the photos sent to me by First Eastern Counties Supremo, David Squire. In Part One we saw examples of public transport in Tahlinn, capital of Estonia (see here ), and today David takes us over the border to Helsinki, where among others there is a rather special tram, with a very attractive destination.

First of all a couple of buses from Helsinki - we start with this VDL tri-axle.

A tri-axle VDL in Helsinki
Secondly this rather older Volvo Carrus operated by Veola, whose name rings a huge bell but can't remember why! Being up all night watching the Election coverage won't be helping there1

Veola's Volvo Carrus in Helsinki - any idea what's behind it?
I'll now quote from David's email to describe the next two pics;

Whilst in Tallinn, we caught a ferry to Helsinki, a few photos from this city, with the final one being the beer tram, yes really!! This operates a couple of times in the afternoon operating a circular tour of the city, included in the price is your first beer!!! Its the only one I know of, unless your readers know differently - theres a challenge!!

And here are the pics of the beer tram complete with that rather good destination display.

Best route going
Cheers everyone. Now if the interiors of Presidents looked more like this....
So keeping to the refreshment theme, only slightly more formal let's jet a few miles south to Barcelona, and again I'll let David describe;

I have also been on a double deck coach in Barcelona that does an evening tour of the city they serve wine or beers and then stop where they then cook a three course dinner downstairs and serve it at your table upstairs!!
 
And here is the bus in question, sadly no interior shots and I can't decipher the badge on the front but you can see it's quite a flash mobile cafe!
Barcelona's Gourmet bus
The rear view
Many thanks, David for sharing the pics, and hopefully there will be more to come.

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3 comments:

  1. suffolkraider8 May 2015 at 18:53

    Now there's 2 tours I would book for ! Wheras over here its all static routemasters burgers lol mmm peckish and thirsty now !

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  2. dwarfer197910 May 2015 at 13:22

    Veolia is a French owned conglomerate whose bus business was merged with Transdev. It has operated bus services in the UK buying up a collection of independent operators and operating in Yorkshire, the East Midlands (through the purchase of Dunn-Line & Paul James Coaches amongst others), the Severn Valley (Astons) & Wales (Bebb & Shamrock amongst a number). As can be imagined this disparate collection of small independents didn't provide a suitable business for a major multinational and when Veolia merged its public transport arm with Transdev both Transdev and RATP (a former major shareholder who was bought out by the transfer of major operations around the world) declined from taking on any of the Veolia operations so they were largely run down with some sold off. Veolia had previously operated in the UK as Connex who picked up major contracts in London before selling up to National Express (who subsequently sold it on to Abellio).

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    Replies
    1. Steve W10 May 2015 at 14:47

      Ah - and that would explain the big bell ringing - 15 years ago I was working for Connex........

      Many thanks for that detailed history Dwarfer.

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