LT Museum model bus launch, 26 July 2008

The Model Bus day at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden on 26 July 2008 marked the launch of two model buses produced by Exclusive First Editions (EFE) commemorating the Arriva London heritage fleet of Routemaster buses, and saw three of them in attendance to mark the launch - gold bus RM6 (reg. VLT 6), red coach RMC1453 (reg. 453 CLT) and red open top coach RMC1464 (reg. 464 CLT). The models were commissioned by the LT museum and Arriva, and went on sale on the day of the launch from the museum's shop, at 10am.

The two models were limited edition releases of RM6 in its special gold Arriva livery (EFE catalogue number 15633A), and RMC1453 in standard red Arriva livery (EFE catalogue number 31703A). The special editions feature adverts and destinations displays promoting the heritage fleet, matching the appearance of the real RM6 and RMC1453 on the day. Making up the numbers, as a fellow fleet member RMC1464 was similarly set up.

The A on the catalogue numbers denote these models as reworked versions of original models of the same number, where the base colour is the same but minor details like route number and adverts are changed:

The first model of RM6 in Arriva gold, as catalogue number 15633, had previously been released in April 2003 as a standard product, with the destination set to route 137 and Oxford Circus, and with adverts and additional logos, plus smaller fleetname and purple logo, that denoted it as one of the Golden Jubilee buses (see this image of the real RM6 in that guise).

The first model of RMC1453 in Arriva red, as catalogue number 31703, had previously been released as another LT Museum commission, going on sale in their museum shop on the day of the museum's official reopening on 22nd November 2007.

For the launch, the three real Routemasters were lined up in the piazza outside the museum's main entrance, which is sited at the south east corner of the square that surrounds the Covent Garden market buildings, and faces north west. The buses were parked up in a line facing west, toward the middle of the Covent Garden market buildings, with their rears against the covered walkway that leads to the main entrance. Gold RM6 was in the middle, flanked by open top RMC1464 on its right, and RMC1453 on its left.