Ipswich Buses 148 (WOI 607) - 16 May 1992

Saturday 16 May 1992 – Ipswich Buses 148 (WOI 607) seen inside the garage at Constantine Road.
At the time Ipswich named its buses and this one carries the name ‘Maid of Connaught’.

It was one of the six Alexander (Belfast) bodied Leyland B21s acquired from Ulsterbus/Citybus, Northern Ireland in 1991. The B21 was a chassis based alternative for export customers using components in common with the integral Leyland National.

This one had chassis number B21-007 and became fleet number 3000 in the Ulsterbus fleet circa February 1982. In November 1983 the bus visited Ipswich on demonstration. Nearly eight years later in the summer of 1991 Ipswich acquired the vehicle along with the other five which had been Ulsterbus 3001 and 3005 plus Citybus 3002-3004. These five had corresponding WOI 3xxx series registration numbers with chassis numbers of B21-101 etc.

In 1985 Ipswich had received four B21s which were to have been part of an order for the Egged Co-operative in Israel. However that order was cancelled and the buses were delivered to Ipswich as their fleet numbers 114-117 with registration numbers B114-117 LDX. They were later renumbered 144-147. To operate all of the ten B21s in mainland Britain made Ipswich Buses unique.