My experience of buses moving from garage to garage is that the receiving engineering staff will always tut and moan, no matter from where the bus has come. And no matter the condition of them. No one maintains & presents buses anything quite like *them*. No garage can ever match *their* standards. Their worst venom is reserved for former London vehicles. Mind you, I would tend to agree that even some so-called refurbished ex-London examples can still look a little tired.
Quite a complicated service, for one operating half-hourly
Now, though, we have news from Cumbria supporting the local engineering view. Stagecoach Cumbria has apparently acquired a modest fleet of seven-year-old ex-London buses to double-in-frequency the 104 between Penrith & Carlisle. Not only is this one of the most complicated timetables to understand, the buses appear less than reliable. Said a Stagecoach manager in defence of operational problems,
“These were ex-London vehicles that had been operating stop-start, rarely at speeds of more than 10mph. When you change the kind of work a vehicle does there can be problems”Understandably, passengers were not chuffed. Said Peeved of Penrith,
“This isn’t the first time the bus hasn’t come. It has happened half a dozen times in the last couple of months. They are clapped out, totally unreliable”And this at seven years old. Perhaps Peeved might prefer to return to the former frequency. I suspect that Peeved was somewhat exaggerating (unless you know differently).
In a familiar display of deregulation ignorance, she did, however, continue,
” If Stagecoach can’t provide reliable vehicles they should give up the service and allow Reay’s [of the apostrophic debate] to do it”.It’s nice to know that Stagecoach has the option to step aside and let a competitor have a go in their place.
And to think that we’re (nearly) all used to placing Stagecoach on a pedestal. In their defence, of course, they seem to have sorted it all—and quickly (unless you know differently).
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The local press specialise in hunting down these types of people though. You should see the negative bias the Swindon Evening Advertiser puts on bus stories (and the almost lunatic public comments the Adver web-page gets!) - and that's in the town served by the Bus Operator of the Year...
Not defending Stagecoach, just providing the balance the media fail to do.
I recently saw a cab sticker on an ex-LT First bus in Edinburgh saying it was not to be used on Dunbar services, which involve a long non-stop stretch along the A1. Presumably they had encountered the same problems as Stagecoach on the A6.
Stagecoach in Aberdare have recently had two '52' plate, fully refurbished ex London buses. These are often seen hammering it up and down the A470 dual carriageway for around 15 miles in and out of Cardiff.
This is why we need franchising - so the local authority could specify more suitable new buses which wouldn't ever break down. LOL!
(Yes, I'm joking!!)
Euro 3 Tridents? Not the best product to have been born at Guildford........
Presumably they were driven up from London to Carlisle in the first place!
Wasn't that a long-enough journey to check they were OK?
Hmmm,so the upwards of 7500 buses used in London should be breaking down all day then.
The red bus fleet probably carry heavier loadings each day than most provinicial do in a month,and the penalties for lost mileage and falling short of perfomance targets in the capital are enough to make 'out in the sticks' operators wince.Of course,no native fleet buses ever break down outside London do they ?
(Just offering the opposite 'tabloid' view!)
Gives the lie to the modern belief that London no longer has to have buses designed to its specifications, doesn't it. No wonder the factory-spec stuff the capital is lumbered with only lasts seven years!
Still, nothing energises a bus used to stop-start conditions than opening it up on the open road. Cleans out the pipes. Stagecoach are good at this sort of thing, so it shouldn't be long before they sort them out.
It took a fair few months to get Aberdare's ex London Darts into the condition they are now - at one stage some spent some time at other depots trying to sort them out.
It took a fair few months to get Aberdare's ex London Darts into the condition they are now - at one stage some spent some time at other depots trying to sort them out.
'These are often seen hammering it up and down the A470 dual carriageway for around 15 miles in and out of Cardiff. '
Must be fun for the passengers! Quiet and smooth-running, are they?
Steam clean the muck out of the radiator before it leaves London and avoid the ones with the over complicated LT inspired additional electrical systems and you're onto a winner. Will need new body panels, centre door bricking up and recovered seats, but they are very cheap to buy from London. Bendy, anyone?
I don't quite understand the venom directed at "peeved of Penrith" about this.
Following the floods in Carlisle in 2005, Stagecoach essentially had to replace their entire Carlisle fleet with brand new Transbus Darts. Other recent improvements include buying a load of E300s and they've got plenty of ex-Preston Solos knocking about too.
If the ex-London buses can't cope with the A6 without breaking down all the time, then why not diagram a different bus for the route? They used to send the Transbus Darts out on the 104 (and the similar 685), they still could. Leave the ex-London buses on the slow stop-start routes in Carlisle if they're that problematic.
Go North East had a similar problem with reliability on their ex-London Vykings. So they took them off the long distance route from Newcastle to Bishop Auckland and now only use them in suburban Gateshead and Sunderland.
One of the ex London Tridents was out on the 61 Carlisle City service yesterday so they may indeed have sent out a Dart on the 104. The Center Parcs (sic) jaunts on the 104 are still run with the E300s as before (these were the trips that made up the previous hourly service.)
punctuality has never been particularly good on this service and I have never understood why.
"Anonymous said...
I recently saw a cab sticker on an ex-LT First bus in Edinburgh saying it was not to be used on Dunbar services, which involve a long non-stop stretch along the A1. Presumably they had encountered the same problems as Stagecoach on the A6.
12 July, 2012 07:43"
Nice theory, unfortunately the reality is somewhat more prosaic and concerns a low bridge on the route.
First have some lower height Scania deckers elsewhere in the fleet. Naturally many of them are allocated onto routes with no height problems...
You only show part of the timetable, there is an evening service which goes on till midnight. It is a remarkably good service for such a rural route - Penrith is not a big town and car ownership is high. Cumbria Council and the Lakes park authority only play lip servcie to public transport - Keswick bus station has no shelters and Keswick is a very rainy place.
Of course buses are no use if they are unreliable but you say hte problem has been solved.
Anon @ 08:49
The previous batches of buses designed specially for the capital had regular overhauls at Aldenham at great expense. Since most fleets for TfL work are leased now thanks to their specification, there appears to be less incentive to maintain them properly - just look at the state of the older members in Go-Ahead London's fleet that haven't yet been refurbished. A local independent to me bought a pair of their PDL class Tridents, which were in an absolutely shocking state inside and out....
"punctuality has never been particularly good on this service and I have never understood why."
Mainly because it has to grind up London Road in Carlisle which can easily get gridlocked.
Stagecoach seem to be doing a bit of frequency enhancement on a number of provincial routes. The 104 is a bit ambitious given that there's not much between Carlisle and Penrith and there is the rail service (though the Penrith station is a good 15 min walk from town).
I tend to agree that London buses are used intensively - probably 18-20 hours a day, in stop-start traffic, suffer knocks and bumps - so yes, once they are finished with in London they will need some TLC to bring them back to scratch. But this rosy eyed view about Aldenham is rather outdated - many ex London buses have years of service in the "provences" after use in the capital - I can think of at least one G reg Dart still AFAIK running in Birmingham.
On the other hand, the ex-London Titans of several years back still give me nightmares just recalling them!
The response from a Stagecoach manager is possibly a bit disingenuous too - as I understand it the buses being spoken about are the Tridents based at Carlisle depot - some of these are from the very first batch (the S-BWCs) which have been based in Lancaster for several years since leaving London whilst the others are ex Manchester/North West examples which have probabaly never been near London since they left the Dennis works in Guildford.
It is true though that a vehicle becomes accustomed to the work that it is used on - with the very wet summer we are having all the earliest Tridents with nearside radiators need regular attention to keep the rad's clear of roadside debris which will block the radiators and cause the buses to overheat.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these buses - they're not perfect but neither are B7TLs or DB250s.
Surely it's traditional, when one depot transfers buses to another depot, for the worst examples to be "disposed of"?
A shame that First's favoured cascade is the dreadful, clapped out Marshall Dart from London.
True. Those buses are, from a passenger's point of view, crap, IMO. They looked horribly dated and cheap on the day they were built.
However, they are better than *no* buses.
Neil
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