Ferrying vehicles between depots and operators - who drives em ?

[OptareOlympus]

When Ensignbus bought buses, did they always transfer them to Purfleet, or did they sometimes leave them with the seller, and once sold, move from seller to buyer (always assuming no work was required on them e.g. removing centre doors)?

Yes, vehicles would also be collected by new owners direct from the disposers. What you see listed for sale at Purfleet would account for maybe only 10-20% of sales at a given time. There would be a waiting list of buyers and in demand vehicles of the time would be sold to those or to operators that Ensign would contact directly if they thought they could be of interest to them.

There would also be vehicles that were bought specifically for the Ensignbus operational fleet that were never offered for sale, such as the ex Blazefield Volvo Olympians and ex Kent Top Travel B9TLs.