Tayside Travel Services (Caledonian Express) G453 VSL at Gatwick - 17 Jun 1990

Sunday 17 June 1990 – As darkness falls just after 2135 at Gatwick Airport the driver and hostess of Tayside Travel Services VSR290 (G453 VSL) prepare the coach for the 15 hour overnight run to Aberdeen, Scotland. It is a Plaxton Expressliner bodied Volvo B10M new in June 1990. National Express acquired the express coach services of Stagecoach Holdings in the summer of 1989 and the deal allowed the use of the Stagecoach name for a period of time. National Express created their own Scottish subsidiary operating as Caledonian Express which used a blue and white variant of the parent company. (This was possibly the longest service on the National Express network at the time approximately 617 miles according to the Capital Transport ‘National Express Handbook’)