Latest Yellow Bus News
Transdev Yellow Buses driver gets taste of the high life
Thirty eight years to the day after he joined Transdev Yellow Buses, he was chosen as the VIP ‘dignitary’ to launch the Homebase store in Mallard Road, Bournemouth.
The store is housed within the former Yellow Buses garage, home of the ‘Yellows’ for 53 years until operations moved to a new £5 million complex in nearby Yeomans Way a year ago.
Colin, 63, is Yellow Buses’ second longest-serving member of staff with 38 years on the clock.
Bosses arranged for him to be picked up at his home in East Howe Lane, Bournemouth, and then taken by chauffeur driven limousine to Mallard Road.
After meeting up with former Yellow Buses staff who had been specially invited, Colin declared the store open by cutting a paper chain with a pair of shears.
“It’s wonderful. I’ve never done anything like this before but I’m getting the taste for it,” laughed Colin.
“When I was first asked to this I really thought it was a wind-up. This site has many happy memories and I think they’ve done a superb job of preserving the building.”
The former Yellow Buses garage, workshops and stores in Mallard Road were opened on July 24, 1953, on the site of a former corporation farm.
More than one million bricks and over 60 miles of pre-stressing high tensile steel wire were used in the construction.
The former bus garage had the largest span of pre-stressed concrete in the country when it was built in 1951.
It became a listed building eight years ago.