Names on the buses

602 Magnus Volk

Connections with Brighton and Hove : This son of a German clockmaker was a great inventor and pioneer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He brought electricity early to his own house in Dyke Road and soon had the Royal Pavilion illuminated in the same way. He also brought the first telephone service to Brighton. Volk then built in 1884 his delightful seafront railway. It was such a success that it expanded and now runs between the Aquarium and Black Rock. More remarkably, Volk fashioned a railway that ran with its rails in the sea between Brighton and Rottingdean. Nicknamed Daddy Long Legs, the extraordinary contraption made slow but stately progress in the water. It survived the worst the weather could throw at it but could not bypass new groynes put down by Brighton Corporation to protect the beaches. Volk’s own little line, the oldest electric railway in Britain, was taken over by the council and in the late 1930s and is still council run today. Volk was a prolific inventor and operated the first telephone system in Brighton, provided the Royal Pavilion with electricity, worked on the electrics for the Clock Tower, in 1887 invented an electric car, and the following year sold one to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. He lived in Dyke Road near Seven Dials; the house displays a commemorative plaque to him. He died in 1937 aged 85 and is buried at St. Wulfran’s church, Ovingdean.

602 Electric Streetdeck - carried name since delivery in March 2026, originally on Trident 810 in January 2004 until January 2011. Reappeared on Volvo Gemini 441 in January 2012 until September 2024. Reappeared on ADL Enviro 362 in December 2024 until March 2026.