It is becoming more and more common for public transport companies to decorate vehicles for special occasions and send them out on their routes. DB Regio Bus is no exception.
Last year, a “Christmas bus” was used by the Mainz-based DB subsidiary “DB Regio Bus Mitte”: the Iveco Crossway 12 LE with the licence plate “MZ-DB 4817” was decorated for Christmas and toured the Bonn region.
It is becoming more and more common for public transport companies to decorate vehicles for special occasions and send them out on their routes. DB Regio Bus is no exception.
Last year, a “Christmas bus” was used by the Mainz-based DB subsidiary “DB Regio Bus Mitte”: the Iveco Crossway 12 LE with the licence plate “MZ-DB 4817” was decorated for Christmas and toured the Bonn region.
This year, bus “D-BV 134” from Busverkehr Rheinland GmbH (BVR) toured western North Rhine-Westphalia from 2 to 17 December. Its area of operation included the towns of Ennepetal in the east, Dorsten in the north, Nettetal on the Dutch border in the west and Dormagen (on the outskirts of Cologne) in the south. The vehicle travelled from deployment site to deployment site within this large area. It began its missions on 2 December in and around Ennepetal and was on the road between Dormagen and Neuss on 17 December, its last day of operation. The bus had a special appointment on 16 December at the Grefrath open-air museum (in the district of Viersen).
This Christmas bus was once again an Iveco Crossway 12 LE, namely the 2014 model “D-BV 134”, which was put into service by DB subsidiary Busverkehr Ostwestfalen in Bielefeld under the registration number “BI-NV 1410”. The “traffic red” of DB buses is an ideal base colour for a coach for this occasion – after all, the symbolic figure par excellence, Father Christmas, also wears red. The coach was decorated with images of gentle snowy mountains, icicles and teddy bears made of gingerbread.
Inside the carriage, the handrails were wrapped in red and white foil. The seats had red covers with Christmas motifs. A young woman was at the wheel in Dormagen, dressed as Father Christmas of course, and during the journey four colleagues (of both sexes) from BVR, also dressed as Father Christmas, handed out chocolate to the passengers. And there were plenty of them: the use of the bus had obviously been very well publicised.
A good campaign to generate sympathy for public transport.
