Following on from Borderbus's eyecatching ex London Scania Omni City Decker I mentioned Ipswich Buses were getting some as well. 13 to be precise, and a couple of them have been revealed by Hants & Dorset Trim. There appear to be two different liveries, one looking quite good, and the other, well, judge for yourselves. I'm reliably informed that all wil be converted to 75 seats with Ster seating used. Nope me neither so I'll have to pop into Ipswich and find out once they hit the streets.
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| YR61 RPV at Hants & Dorset Trim |
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| YR61 RUW |
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| The alternative livery |
No positive ID on the above pic but I will be very interested to see what everyone thinks of it.
All these pics were first published on Ipswich Bus Blog, with others, and you can read the full post
here. Thanks, Clive, for letting me use them.
Coming up s the last installment of the blog trip to London, then on Friday I've been invited to Ensignbus for a tour of their Purfleet base, and I'm told to expect something rather special. Staying in Kent that night means another day in London next Saturday, with hopefully an added long distance extra if low fares still available! So plenty to look forward to.
I quite like the "swoosh" livery, but the front panel around the indicators etc. doesn't include the lines nor the colour gradation. Very odd!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same as you, but May be the green could have been more prominent where most of the purple is?
DeleteNo, the whole "bit" across the front underneath the windscreen needs reconfiguring in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree with that but I meant around the destination box is and then along the sides, that would be better in green
DeleteIt's interesting that IB are buying no less than 13 double-deckers (buy 12, get 1 free perhaps?) This represents a major shift from the previous MD's belief that the company should concentrate on single-deckers apart from a few peak loadings. Presumably there will be some weeding out of older buses so that the fleet can become more standardised (but less interesting).
ReplyDeleteIt's 14 Scanias that are due, 2 enter service tomorrow 30 and 40, each would cost around £144,000 according to the scania website, inc conversion to single door, the ones leaving are 4,5,7,8,11-17,20/21/26. Leaving just 22-25 which were later purchases.
ReplyDelete14's even better! However, knowing but not allowed to say how much BorderBus are paying for theirs, £144K is way, way more than IB will be paying. Scania have literally hundreds of these to move on and I'll be surprised if IB have paid more than 5 - 600K for the lot.
DeleteWent on 12 today and it went like the wind with no rattles. Shame to see it go.
The buses are and hand and are several years old having original been purchased by First Buys in London so they have clocked up a lot of millage
DeleteIt I debatable that Ipswich needs double decker's. In my view single decker's are far more appropriated. Cheaper and less fuel consumption
According to today's "Star": "The buses were bought with a £1.1m loan from the authority [IBC]. Council leader David Ellesmere said: “We made the loan, at commercial rates, because it is important that Ipswich Buses has a modern fleet ...” Ipswich Buses chairman Chris Mole said "The loan we have to pay back will be more than covered by the reduction in the maintenance costs”. The six-year-old buses will replace 15-year-old vehicles that will be returned to their manufacturers Scania in a part-exchange deal" (irrelevant bits left out!)
ReplyDeleteYes, 15yo Dennis Tridents returning "to their manufacturer Scania". And with that goes credibility and accuracy of entire article! Wasn't by our friend Mr Geater was it?
DeleteHow did you guess ...?
DeleteThinking of the "green" credentials - presumably the new buses are Euro V rather than VI - so not quite as good as Messrs. Mole and Ellesmere are claiming. Interesting that deckers are being bought - Mr. Cooper would not have approved methinks!
Deckers are needed. Bar one MCV the entire ex Carters fleet is deckers so they need replacing with deckers. I also imagine IB will be looking to get back some of the school work JC cleverly gave up. Some IB routes have to be single deck operated because of low bridges, but the rest can be and should be decker operated - you cannot have too much capacity on a route but you certainly can have too little.
DeleteThe Scanias cost £94k each (£79k + £15k single door/repaint), so roughly £1.3 m. I would guess the Tridents were taken in p/ex for roughly £15-20k each.
ReplyDeleteThen I can only say BorderBus got one helluva deal, even taking into account the two year age difference.
Delete1.1 million ÷ 14 will give you the price paid, this will include single door conversion, upsets to 72 seats, repaint and vinlys plus brand new cctv equipment. No where near the figure others have quoted.
ReplyDelete2 years newer than Borderbuses so I guess will be re-upholstered in 2/3 years.