HUNDREDS of people travelled to Skipton from far and wide to take part in and to enjoy seeing vintage and classic buses and coaches.

The recent 18th annual Yorkshire Dales Running Day enjoyed perfect autumnal weather and very fitting for the theme of this year's event - the glory days of buses and coaches in the Dales.

Bus enthusiasts, those who could remember some of the buses and coaches on show, and the merely curious, were treated to a fine display of vehicles parked up in Coach Street Car Park.

As well as the vehicles, there was also opportunities to take a ride down memory lane in the vintage buses.

One man, who used to work for a bus company and now lives in Saltaire, said he was interested to see an old vehicle from his old company, even though its livery had been changed, from green to red.

Buses operated a network of services from Skipton Bus Station throughout the day.

The Aire Valley Transport Group, West Yorkshire's premier transport group, exists to preserve a growing number of interesting vehicles in the group's ownership.

The group was formed in early 2003 by a group of transport enthusiasts from other societies in the Aire Valley.

Their aim remains to restore historically important vehicles back to their former glory and to put them on show - in order to educate people about the history of road transport.

The group has 70 vehicles in its care making it one of the largest collections in the area, it also has a collection of road and enamel signs, traffic lights, petrol cans and pumps, and also a collection of bus memorabilia such as ticket machines, enamel, cast signs and badges.

The collection, which is privately funded, is currently housed in a number of places because of the problems of finding a single place where they can be on show together.

A spokesperson said of this year's running day: "This year we had a very busy event, with a large amount of people travelling on the vintage buses and with a long queue waiting to board them most of the day. A massive thanks goes to all the marshals, stewards, drivers and conductors together with all the vehicle owners and finally to everyone who supported us."

Find out more at: http://www.avtg.co.uk or on the group's Facebook page