Sometimes Twitter can be very useful. I was having a chat with Borderbus Chief Engineer Dave Marshall last night, when he casually mentioned that they had purchased a 5th ex Stagecoach London Scania Omni City Decker. I remarked that he'd kept that quiet, and Dave revealed it came as a bolt out the blue to them too, and was totally unexpected. Not only that but Borderbus have bought back the last remaining B7tl Gemini, that has never actually left the Beccles yard, but was loaned back to them by Scania as cover while the other Scanias were being converted and painted. So in effect they have two new deckers!. So this morning I went over there to take a look.
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Already converted to single door, former Stagecoach 15137 LX59 CNA has what I'd call 50/50 seats - ie not as well padded as the other Scanias Borderbus have had done, but not as bad as the original non existent Scania padding. I have to confess I do like these buses, but only with decent seats! As yet I don't know what registration the new Scania is to receive, but I bet my bottom dollar that if BB55 BUS is available that will be it,
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| Gemini 200 |
The Gemini will be mainly used on school journeys, as the Presidents are beginning to show their age and are needing extra maintenance.
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| The two together |
My thanks to Dave Marshall for the heads up, and particularly Borderbus' genial Geordie Dave Laverick for positioning the buses for me, co-ordinating screens and just being an all round decent bloke.
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| The three different types of decker at Borderbus |
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| Rear view of the Scania |
One other piece of local news is that Chris Speed, already Head of Operations at First Eastern Counties has added Head of Engineering to his portfolio. Congratulations, Chris, I expect all rattles to vanish overnight, and I'm looking forward to our planned meeting in a couple of weeks.
Konect Double Decker carrying 60 children was stopped by the police for speeding on the A144 near Spexhall, near Halesworth on Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteHe knows. He retweeted it.
DeleteI'm not sticking up for Konect, but every company has drivers which speed. I think more needs to be done to tackle it. I've been on first, Sanders, borderbus and Konect where they have been doing 10+ more mph than the speed limit.
I know that stretch of road very well. It's gun barrel straight, extremely difficult to stick to 30, which is why they were there, and knowing the school on board I'd want to gey rid of the angels asap too! We also don't know how fast the driver was going. If it was 35 then it's headline making at it's worst. If it was 55 then it's reckless and I totally condemn it. Did I ever speed as a psv driver, yes. Was I ever stopped? Yes. Was I ever ticketed? No, and I think maybe that tells a story. But until we know how fast the Konect bus was going I'm not going to join the 'outraged' brigade. As one manager I spoke to last night, and there were several, said, 'I wish my buses would go that fast...'
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ReplyDeleteProbably due to his contacts there.
DeleteSteve - have you ever approached Konect (since the demise of anglian) or Sanders to do a write up on them?
Lol I've done precious little on anyone recently but yes I've followed Borderbus from the start, know a lot of people there, it's my nearest depot, and I've always been made to feel welcome.
DeleteNo, I'm not going to approach Konect until I see an upturn. You just have to follow their Twitter feed to see all the daily cancellations, breakdowns, driver shortages and service disruptions to know things aren't all that happy there, and I'd rather avoid negativity at the present time.
I've never done much on Sanders, mainly because they're not much closer to me than Ensign are, without the museum that Ensign has. With all the Sanders triaxle deckers gone now there's not a huge amount to excite me, and I can pretty much guess any talk of the future would be dominated by the need for Council subsidy, which Charles Sanders is quite vocal about. However, I'll make an approach and see what happens. I've still got to get over to Lynx at some point too.
Is the added portfolio of engineering yet another cost saving? More shoe strings required !
ReplyDeleteGood question. I'll ask him when I see him.
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DeleteIt seems hedingham & Chambers have relocated their offices to Clacton
ReplyDeleteThe previous office address was a rented portion of an office block on the outskirts of Colchester. Although Sible Hedingham was always shown on legal information when owned by the MacGregors, much of the office work was done by Mrs. MacGregor junior in Colchester. The location was supposedly chosen so that she could go home to lunch.
DeleteI assume that the lease on Colchester has now expired so it removes an unnecessary overhead.
Do you know it's London history steve?
ReplyDeleteSeems to have spent its life at West Ham, although was also on loan at Ipswich Buses last year.
DeleteThe first Swiss built trains for Greater Anglia are due to arrive in the UK later this month probably going to Cambridge or Norwich for testing and training. They are likely to go into service in May
ReplyDeleteDo you know why Konect are using a load of bluestar bus castoffs? loan or permanent?
ReplyDeleteLoan. The tactful reason is because Konect buses keep breaking down.
DeleteActually they are permanent. They are replacing several tempos and the older scanias
ReplyDeleteSo get the bloody things painted so the poor customers don't have to play musical liveries. It's getting ridiculous!
DeleteAt the very least pull the bluestar logo off! From a passengers perspective they are pretty horrible to ride in.
ReplyDeleteI notice the breakdowns on konect's twitter every single day. Considering they once had a much newer nicer fleet than First it really is time for some investment from Go Ahead. Respect to the 95% of drivers who still remain really friendly and helpful every single day.
Just keep painting the fronts different colours .
ReplyDeleteApologies, I accidentally deleted a comment by Anonymous, so here it is!
ReplyDeleteThere is so much wrong with the bus industry where do you start?
The industry seems to think anything will do,. Scruffy buses , scruffy drivers with no uniform, buses that keep breakdown, random cancellations with no real reason given. Poor time keeping and high fares
All they are doing is driving passengers away who are giving up on the abysmal services they provide. Buses are now a transport mode of last resort only used if you have no other choice
It should not be like this but it is. The local councils and government are just as disinterested. It has gone on for decades but slowly getting worse. I don't see it getting any better though
The only hope is a disruptive new player moving into the market with fresh ideas. Uber are testing the water in a small way . A bus services based on an Uber type app maybe the way to go. A sort of shared taxi service using mini or midi buses
I'd like to disagree with a lot of that but I can't. There aren't that many without uniform these days though.
DeleteAs for Uber style buses? No. The one thing buses have going for them is people know when they should turn up, and can plan around those times. With Uber there is no guarantee a pick up will be available at the time you want, as Click users are finding out, so it's just one more thing gone. Uber style buses might take taxi users, but they won't appeal to bus users one bit.
But buses are so infrequent and unreliable that you cant really plan around them in fact you would have to try to plan your life around the bus times and that simply does not work for most people
DeleteI think Uber will make it work. With Click the service level is to basic to work well. It could develop into semi fixed routes so you could say get a bus within say 20 minutes . The current way of operating buses is no longer working. They bus companies need to move to smaller buses. It makes no economic sense to have large double decker buses running around almost empty for 90% of the day. In many cases they are to large for the rural roads.
What will work for the future is yet to be established but it will not be buses as we know them than the large town and cities. The councils are moving to Demand responsive services but these are far too basic and have to be booked well in advance so that does not really work
If you have good quality small buses which provide a frequent and reliable service that goes almost door to door people will pay for it
There are challenges faced by on demand services but technology will overcome those. The problem is more one of getting a critical mass of users to both make them commercially viable and to meet customers expectations
The government and local councils could also do more by looking at the over all benefit of buses The soft costs are difficult to quantify. This can be reduced pollution and reduced congestion and a reduced accident rate
First in Lowestoft never seems to get the use of the double deck fleet right . Often the 99 has a standing load on a Dart/ Enviro you will then find a nearly empty DD on anot her route in town.
ReplyDeleteBus Stop Changes in Colchester from 21st October
ReplyDeleteThe problems seems to be down to the replacement bus station being inadequate so they have ended up with a mess in Colchester with buses stopping all over the place and causing congestion. This appears to be a poor attempt at trying to improve the current mess. What bright spark has thought up the idea of removing the bus numbers the stop services I have not a clue. It sounds just like the daft thing councils do though so if you are not familiar with the buses you will be left guessing as to what stop you need
https://www.essexhighways.org/getting-around/bus/colchester-bus-stops.aspx#docs