History

'Safeway Services' of South Petherton, Somerset was one of the bus operators for the Crewkerne area. They operated this bus (registration 200 APB) between South Petherton and Yeovil via Crewkerne Station during 1962 to 1982. They purchased it second hand from Safeguard Coaches of Guildford in November 1962. The bus itself is an AEC Reliance chassis [MU3RV1007] with coachwork [Bm 6244] fabricated by H.V. Burlingham of Blackpool. Burlingham manufactured these buses from 1952 to 1956.

200 APB went through a variety of modifications and colour changes during its life and to achieve authenticy it is necessary to research as far as one can the appearance of the bus for the period of interest. My period of interest is roughly 1960-1965. The bus retained its Safeguard colour scheme from purchase until at least 1967 because it was a close match to the Safeway livery. The Safeguard emblems on each side were painted out by Safeway using a cream colour and the bus spent its early years with very odd looking blank emblems on each side of the bus.

Essential Web Links (open in a new window)

TiNY Bus & Coach Kits.
Safeway Services. (brief history and photos)
Safeguard Coaches. (interior photo).
Bus Web - AEC Reliance (photo).
Other photos can be found on the web showing later liveries.

This book covers the history of Safeway Services, its bus fleet and staff.

Kit Manufacturer

TiNY Bus & Coach Kits are a group of bus enthusiasts who manufacture bus kits in small production runs. In October 2009 they introduced this bus kit to market.

Kit List

The TiNY kit contains:

1. One piece body shell (see slide show above for modifications)
2. One piece detailed interior (see slide show above for modifications)
3. Two lower guard rails
4. Steering Wheel (About 3mm removed from the stem)
5. Six Road Wheels and two axles
6. Glazing panels
7. Instruction Sheet

The parts are finely detailed and easy to assemble. Painting requires a steady hand and good eyesight.

For authenticy the following additional parts needed to be fabricated by oneself.

1. Two rear view mirrors (See slide show above for information)
2. AEC badge (ink jet printed on copier paper from a reduced-photograph file)
3. Two number plates (ink jet printed on copier paper from a word processed file (Vrinda font size 8pt))
4. Side emblems (See slide show above for information)
5. Destination Board including surrounding rim (See slide show above for information)
6. Bus crew and passengers, modified and painted from off the shelf 4mm scale figures.

Other materials required:

Note: The paints were used from my existing paint box and may not be fully authentic. Matching to photographs is hit and miss due to variable image quality. The only sure way is to obtain the pantone colour code of the real bus paint.

1. SuperGlue
2. Woodworking PVA glue
3. White Spirit
4. 0.5mm strand of wire from a mult-strand wire (for Destination boards rim)
5. Two dressmaking pins with heads (for side mirror mounts)
6. Styrene card (for side mirrors)
7. Double sided sticky tape to fix decals
8. Masking tape for paint masking
9. Car grey primer spray paint - spray body and interior inside and out.
10. Humbrol Paint #19 (red - body and wheel rims)
11. #20 (Crimson - seat covers)
12. #74 (Yellow mixed with a liitle white - coach line and interior roof)
13. #11 (Metallic silver - steps, lamps and some metal parts
14. #33 (Black - steering wheel and underframe)
15. #29 (Brown mixed with a little black - flooring)
16. Revell #2 (clear matt varnish - for lamp lenses and sealing decals)

Useful Tools

1. Small electrical pliers and wire cutter
2. Craft knife/scalpel
3. Fine point paint brushes
4. Cocktail stick for very fine line painting or glue application
5. Small flat file
6. Badger paint sprayer
7. Magnifying Glass
8. Pin chuck and drills
9. Nail scissors to cut glazing panels out

Assembly details appear in the slide show above.