Identification Please Follow Up

In the media world the initials AP normally stand for Associated Press, who together with Reuters and East Norfolk Bus Blog are the main news agencies broadcasters and newspapers rely on for material and breaking news. Yesterday, however, AP stood for Andrew Pursey, who within minutes of me posting about the mysterious trolleybus spotted in Beccles, had emailed me with information.

Andrew told me the trolleybus had just returned from a trolleybus festival in Saltzburg, Austria, and provided an article showing 135 in attendance. Unfortunately the accompaning text is only available in german, so I have had to use Google Translate, and then translate the translation into understandable english. The following pic is taken from trolleymotion.eu and you can access the full article by clicking here.

135 at the Satzburg 75th trolleybus anniversary day.      pic (c) trolleymotion.eu

The translation eventually proved quite informative, and revealed that rather than being a Saltzburg veteran as I assumed, 135 was in fact, as Andrew Kleissner correctly commented, a trolleybus that plied its trade in Kaiserslauten in Germany. However there is more to this Mercedes O 305 GT trolleybus than meets the eye. Hang on - GT?? Grand Tourismo? Ooookay fair enough. Anyway 135 started life as a normal diesel bus in 1970, clocking up many thousands of miles before being converted to a trolleybus in 1978. Andrew says it went to EATM in 1985 but there is no trace of it now. The article states it has been in private ownership in England since 1994, and is kept in storage somewhere in the Beccles area. That might explain the lack of info in the EATM website, and no one from EATM has as yet been in touch about it.

So I did a bit more digging, hoping to find some pictorial record of 135 in action in Kaiserslauten. Alas that didn't unearth anything, and I still don't know why it has a GB plate although J reg is 1970 I believe so it's the right year. But I did find this video taken in Saltzburg at the 75th anniversary a month ago showing 135 in action. I take no responsibiity for the annoying music in the video, but the picture is of amazing quality. My thanks to the two Andrews for taking the time and effort to get in touch with information, and to my friend at Anglian for spotting 135 in the first place. Certainly made a pleasant change researching it.