You wait ages for a bus and then......

....48 come along at once.

At least, that is what happened today in Regent Street in London. The road was closed to normal traffic and was taken over by a static display of 48 London buses, ranging from the earliest horse drawn bus (introduced in 1829) up to the latest "New" Routemaster buses which first appeared a couple of years ago. This was all part of the "Year of the Bus" which appears to be a collaboration between Transport for London and the London Transport Museum.

There were hundreds of people at the display (probably thousands during the day) and it was possible to board many of the buses - including some of the early buses with the external staircase to the top deck. Many casual tourists as well as Londoners, and a sprinkling of bus geeks with their notebooks, discussing the fine details of each individual vehicle ("I'm surprised you've displayed bus no. RMxxxx: surely RMyyyy was a better example of the later version of the front bodywork panel.......")

I took a number of detailed pictures of an iconic original Routemaster bus, which you can see on my Flickr page.. Definitely took me back to my childhood - although I used to go to school on an RT bus, the predecessor of the Routemaster. (Honest, I'm not a bus geek!). Shown here is a visitor on the top deck of the modern Routemaster.

Quite an entertaining day in the summer sun.