Great Western Coffee Shop

I passed one on the 1717 from RDG to PAD today - was in that old bus depot before you get to Royal oak

Looked like an old routemaster

Had the newish heathrow express sticker on it

Literally said - takes 15 minutes every 15 minutes

When was the last time even a bus or taxi could get from pad to LHR in 15 minutes?

So how old was that bus?

One suspects it was advertising the HEX train service, rather than offering to do the journey itself!!

Was it an open top tourist bus in which case it's aimed at suckering people into paying one of the highest Capital to Airport fare in the world.

See this months Which.

As far a I recall there are no Routemasters for the No. 15/23?  allocated to that depot.

I regularly see it at Westbourne Park depot, no idea if it is actually allocated to be there.
And yes it's advertising Heathrow Express.

Is that the bus depot wedged between the GWML and A40 Westway?

Yep

There's an old 'Bubblecar' advertising the Wrexham & Shropshire service that I've often seen languishing in Chiltern's Wembley Yard.  A bit of free advertising, and I shudder to think what the W&S regulars would do if it actually turned up on one of their services!

For those who don't know what a 'Bubblecar' is, there's a picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W55033_at_Colne_Valley_Railway_2.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W55033_at_Colne_Valley_Railway_2.JPG)  Not the specific unit in question, but hey, you get the idea.

Is that the unit that was restored and used for the Aylesbury to Princes Risborough peak shuttles in recent years? Shame if it's no longer running. (If so, that would leave the Cardiff Bay shuttle as the last regular 1st generation stock in use.) Sorry - not really connected to London buses and Heathrow advertising I know. 

Thats the one

I'm fairly sure that unit's still running. Chiltern has (or at least used to have) a bit of a collection of 121s that were used for things like driver route learning and also sandite application in the autumn, so my guess is that it would be one of those.