Ex-bus boss opens museum with 60 vintage vehicles

18 hours ago

Henry Godfrey-Evans,Essexand

Luke Deal,in Great Yeldham

Peter Newman kept some buses when he sold his company in 2023

Jamie Niblock/BBC A man with glasses and a dark blue cardigan. He is smiling. He is standing in front of a row of vintage green buses. — Peter Newman kept some buses when he sold his company in 2023

A retired bus company owner has opened a museum with more than 60 of his old vehicles and 10,000 models.

Three years ago, Peter Newman, 86, sold Ensignbus - which operated mostly in Essex and east London - to FirstGroup, but kept some of the vintage buses.

On Good Friday, Zero2 Bus Museum opened its doors at Poole Farm in Great Yeldham, Essex.

"We like to have them, but not just leave them standing around. Let them work, let them go out in the road, let them carry people, not just sit in a barn or anything like that and that's what we wanted to do and that's what we've done," said Newman.

Since 2023, he has been making his vintage buses available for hire at weddings and for films.

"I think if you look at any film that had buses in it, 90% of them were ours," he added.

Newman named the museum Zero2 after the callsign he was given as an operator at London Pride Sightseeing, which gave tourists open-top tours of the capital

Jamie Niblock/BBC A colourful row of buses inside a building — Newman named the museum Zero2 after the callsign he was given as an operator at London Pride Sightseeing, which gave tourists open-top tours of the capital

With some buses dating from 1932, visitors can learn how fares used to be collected and how the vehicles were kept roadworthy.

"Every bus has a story, some more mundane, they've just lived in one city or worked in one city, others have been halfway around the world and back again," Newman said.

"We've had vehicles that have been to Australia, been to America, been to Canada, been into Europe, been everywhere."

Jamie Niblock/BBC A side view of three buses that are a mix of cream and green — Three of Peter Newman's old buses

Chris Moore, who was an engineer at the company for almost 20 years, said: "I'm hoping that the younger generation will turn up.

"We need some young blood to get involved in this, because obviously everyone's going to get older and older and if you haven't got any young people coming into it, it will die out.

"There'll be no-one there to maintain them [the buses] or no-one to drive them, no-one to visit them.

"It's quite important to get the younger generation involved."

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