Shayne Howarth writes (7 August 2010):

Six years ago more or less to the day, Stagecoach East Midlands were busy amassing additional vehicles for its Chesterfield Depot due to the imminent take over of the Aston Buses operation on Wednesday 18th August 2004. From memory, two Dennis Darts with Alexander Dash bodywork (J506/507 FPS) were transferred in from Stagecoach Bluebird along with two Volvo B10M’s with Alexander PS bodywork (K720/744 DAO) from Stagecoach North West. Several “reserve” Mercedes 709D’s from East Midlands also re-entered service at Chesterfield. By far the most interesting vehicles (although not the most well liked by the drivers at Stonegravels) were five Northern Counties bodied Leyland Olympians which were transferred in from fellow East Midlands operation, Stagecoach in Hull. New to London Buses Ltd but built to Greater Manchester specification (I believe they were a cancelled order), they entered service as part of a batch of 30, numbered 1 to 30 for the “BexleyBus” operation. When relatively new most of the batch were sold to Busways which was later taken over by Stagecoach and many of the batch was then transferred to Stagecoach in Hull. Becoming 14901/14909/14918/14922/14924 (E901-24 KYR) these buses entered service in Chesterfield in August 2004 mainly on route 74 between the Town Centre, Inkersall & Staveley. They also ventured onto various school services and were used on staff ferry duties to and from Crystal Peaks and Meadowhead - remember the M17?, their use being limited as they were full height whilst Chesterfield’s allocation of double decker’s was low height. They were short lived and returned to Hull within months being replaced by mixture of single deck types including the Northern Counties B10M’s which are currently being converted into training buses. Christened by Stephen Read the Operations Manager at Chesterfield as “Bexley’s”, this is what they were always referred to even on the allocation sheets. Today (Saturday 7th August 2010), 14901 and 14909 were still giving sterling service with Judds on their 701 service between Peterborough, Whittlesey & Coates.

E924 KYR – Stonegravels Depot after completing a journey on the 537 from Tupton Hall School to Wingerworth

E922 KYR – Lay by on A61 between Dronfield & Unstone operating light back to Stonegravels after operating service 121 to Dronfield School

E918 KYR – Staveley working service 74 to Chesterfield

E909 KYR – Wingerworth working service 535 from Tupton Hall School

E901 KYR – Eckington Bus Station – Staff ferry

Judds E909 KYR - Coates

E901 KYR – Whittlesey Market Place