by stajourneyman » Mon Apr 17, 2017 10:29 pm
G'day Charles
I remember your dad, and Tom Styles, very well.
I still remember riding my pushbike to the Sunshine depot on Melbourne Cup Day in 1970.
I was just a boy, 12 years of age at the time.
I had only become interested in buses a year or so earlier.
When I turned up there, they took me around the depot and showed me all the buses in the yard.
Then, joy of joys, they loaded me up with all the old Truck and Bus magazines and Bus and Coach News Sheets they could find.
In fact those very same Bus and Coach News Sheets, I still have sitting behind me in a filing cabinet to this day!
This was actually the day that I officially became fanatically interested in buses!
I could barely carry them all home on my bike.
Of course, upon returning home, I forensically disected every bit of information contained within their covers.
I was a regular visitor there, and was always made to feel welcome by them.
After a while, and knowing that I knew a lot of what was going on at the rival Frank Bono operation, they would often pick my brains for information on what was currently going on at that location.
Mate, I sung like a canary !!
They were fun times!
From memory, Charlie's home was a large spread half way up the Avondale Heights hill on the left hand side.
He also drove a big white current model Mercedes Benz car in the 70s..
I've never thought of it before, but it must have been slightly irksome having Frank Bono's buses on route 406 going past his front door day and night seven days a week!
Another highlight for me was when they invited me to go (free of charge) to the 1972 Bus-a-thon held at Pakenham Racecourse.
This was an annual event where most Melbourne bus operators would take pensioners on a day outing each year.
It was also an opportunity for the operators to show off their latest vehicles (to each other).
That day, I learned that you didn't need to die to go to 'bus heaven' !!
Some minor Sitch events included the long awaited (by me, anyway) delivery of their very smart Comair VAM70s to Sunshine (after having put up with the annoying Comair SBs for so long!!).
The phasing in of the coach colour scheme as the bus livery was another moment, as well as fleet no. 34 LEY.880 as the first automatic Bedford in the fleet, and possibly the first auto Bedford in Australia ??
From memory, there are more photos of the Sitch fleet elsewhere on this board showing photos of the Comair VAMs.
Could somebody please provide the link?