English: Preserved
Bexleybus bus 84 (reg. A888 SYE), a 1983
Leyland Titan (B15), pictured in
Newport,
Isle of Wight at the IOW bus museum running day.
The 948th production Titan, it's from the later batch built at Leyland's expanded factory in the Lillyhall Industrial Estate in Workington (earlier ones were built by British Leyland subsidiary Park Royal Vehicles in Park Royal, London). As with the vast majority of production, it was delivered new to London Transport as part of the dual-door T-class, allocated fleet number T888.
It entered service as T888 but after 6 years, in August 1989 it was transferred to the low-cost unit Bexleybus, a division of London Buses set up in January 1989 in the mothballed Bexleyheath garage (code BX) as a response to the deregulation and privatisation process. T888 was repainted into the unit's blue & cream livery, and renumbered 84.
Bexleybus was not a success, and was wound up before full privatisation began, with 84 re-entering the red London bus fleet in April 1993 with the London Central division. It was initially allocated to Camberwell garage (code Q), presumably regaining its T888 fleetnumber.
When full privatisation occured in 1994 it became part of the London Central fleet.
By 2000 it had been sold to West Kent Coach Sales, who after a brief loan to West Kingsdown Coaches, passed it on to Bedford based Cedar Coaches. They renumbered it as their No. 12, but it never lost its former London Central colours.
In September 2004 it was bought for preservation, and in late 2007 it was restored to its Bexleybus identity, as seen here.