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Post by greenboy on Jun 26, 2021 12:23:00 GMT
The B&H buses run in all electric mode through the city centre, something that is worth advertising but TfL clearly have no interest in promoting bus travel. When I'm stuck in traffic on the A13 and I see an electric 173 stuck behind me that also needs to stop at stops, I don't think I'll be interested in the bus whether it's electric or not. If you think branding an electric bus is the answer to declining usage then you've got it extremely wrong. So B&H, Lothian and the various other operators who make the effort to promote their products have got it extremely wrong as well? Or maybe it's you that's extremely wrong?
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Jun 26, 2021 13:10:06 GMT
When I'm stuck in traffic on the A13 and I see an electric 173 stuck behind me that also needs to stop at stops, I don't think I'll be interested in the bus whether it's electric or not. If you think branding an electric bus is the answer to declining usage then you've got it extremely wrong. So B&H, Lothian and the various other operators who make the effort to promote their products have got it extremely wrong as well? Or maybe it's you that's extremely wrong? Do any of these operators have anywhere near the amount of electrics London has? Londoners are quite accustomed to electric buses now. They're hardly a wow factor. The fact is London is ahead of these cities and we are past the point of electrics being anything special.
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Post by wirewiper on Jun 26, 2021 17:53:08 GMT
So B&H, Lothian and the various other operators who make the effort to promote their products have got it extremely wrong as well? Or maybe it's you that's extremely wrong? Do any of these operators have anywhere near the amount of electrics London has? Londoners are quite accustomed to electric buses now. They're hardly a wow factor. The fact is London is ahead of these cities and we are past the point of electrics being anything special. I would have liked more of a fuss from the "early adopters" of double-deck electrics, such as the 43/134 at Metroline and the NP double-deck routes. There's still a case for making more of their credentials as they are still being introduced into areas that have not seen them previously.
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Post by greenboy on Jun 26, 2021 22:13:49 GMT
Do any of these operators have anywhere near the amount of electrics London has? Londoners are quite accustomed to electric buses now. They're hardly a wow factor. The fact is London is ahead of these cities and we are past the point of electrics being anything special. I would have liked more of a fuss from the "early adopters" of double-deck electrics, such as the 43/134 at Metroline and the NP double-deck routes. There's still a case for making more of their credentials as they are still being introduced into areas that have not seen them previously. Yes and SE London doesn't have any electric double deckers at the moment and when some arrive for the 132,160 and 180 few people will notice because they look much the same as any other red double decker.
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Post by YY13VKP on Nov 30, 2021 16:24:08 GMT
Noticed most of them in service when I was in Edinburgh at the weekend, including a few 71 reg MMC's too. I presume these have replaced the 57, 08 and 09 reg B9's Lothian had as a lot of them have been through Ensign's recently, and I didn't see a B9 older than an 09 plate this weekend. When I was there last year they still had 57 reg B9's in the fleet.
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Post by snowman on Dec 11, 2021 21:01:28 GMT
Noticed most of them in service when I was in Edinburgh at the weekend, including a few 71 reg MMC's too. I presume these have replaced the 57, 08 and 09 reg B9's Lothian had as a lot of them have been through Ensign's recently, and I didn't see a B9 older than an 09 plate this weekend. When I was there last year they still had 57 reg B9's in the fleet. The new Volvo B5TL e400 are still arriving, here is a photo with some being prepared for service (highest fleet number visible is 688). From memory 98 we’re on order, but not sure if a few will go to East Coast buses instead of central Edinburgh fleet More new Lothian buses (photo by Robin Dickson)I think they intend to offload anything not at least euroV
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Post by snowman on Jan 2, 2022 7:56:00 GMT
Noticed most of them in service when I was in Edinburgh at the weekend, including a few 71 reg MMC's too. I presume these have replaced the 57, 08 and 09 reg B9's Lothian had as a lot of them have been through Ensign's recently, and I didn't see a B9 older than an 09 plate this weekend. When I was there last year they still had 57 reg B9's in the fleet. The new Volvo B5TL e400 11.2m versions are still arriving, here is a photo with some being prepared for service (highest fleet number visible is 688). From memory 98 we’re on order, but not sure if a few will go to East Coast buses instead of central Edinburgh fleet More new Lothian buses (photo by Robin Dickson)I think they intend to offload anything not at least euroV Have heard that Lothian might be going to sell the small batch of ex hybrid E400s (which were converted to diesel about 4 years ago). Looks like they are trying to standardise the fleet. In last few years have basically bought Volvo B8 ALX E400XL tri axles and the Volvo B5TL E400 11.2m buses. Prior to that they were buying Wrightbus Gemini 3s The 4 electric E400MMC were provided by external funding, and are more like a trial batch.
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Post by LondonNorthern on Jan 2, 2022 10:12:22 GMT
The new Volvo B5TL e400 11.2m versions are still arriving, here is a photo with some being prepared for service (highest fleet number visible is 688). From memory 98 we’re on order, but not sure if a few will go to East Coast buses instead of central Edinburgh fleet More new Lothian buses (photo by Robin Dickson)I think they intend to offload anything not at least euroV Have heard that Lothian might be going to sell the small batch of ex hybrid E400s (which were converted to diesel about 4 years ago). Looks like they are trying to standardise the fleet. In last few years have basically bought Volvo B8 ALX E400XL tri axles and the Volvo B5TL E400 11.2m buses. Prior to that they were buying Wrightbus Gemini 3s The 4 electric E400MMC were provided by external funding, and are more like a trial batch. I imagine they'll try their hardest to replace more of the 59 reg batch first but yes I do imagine those E400 will be on their way out too. I suppose this does raise the question of whether the 18/171/266/422 batch of B9s will be targeted at some point for withdrawal but I somewhat doubt it given how high spec they look compared to Lothians native stock.
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Post by YX10FFN on Jan 22, 2022 22:41:46 GMT
The new Volvo B5TL e400 11.2m versions are still arriving, here is a photo with some being prepared for service (highest fleet number visible is 688). From memory 98 we’re on order, but not sure if a few will go to East Coast buses instead of central Edinburgh fleet More new Lothian buses (photo by Robin Dickson)I think they intend to offload anything not at least euroV Have heard that Lothian might be going to sell the small batch of ex hybrid E400s (which were converted to diesel about 4 years ago). Looks like they are trying to standardise the fleet. In last few years have basically bought Volvo B8 ALX E400XL tri axles and the Volvo B5TL E400 11.2m buses. Prior to that they were buying Wrightbus Gemini 3s The 4 electric E400MMC were provided by external funding, and are more like a trial batch. Many of the Volvo 7900 fleet have been off the road for a while (particularly the batch allocated to the 30, 36 and 38). Are they on the way out too? Seem pretty young to be sending off.
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Post by ServerKing on Jan 23, 2022 4:55:47 GMT
So B&H, Lothian and the various other operators who make the effort to promote their products have got it extremely wrong as well? Or maybe it's you that's extremely wrong? Do any of these operators have anywhere near the amount of electrics London has? Londoners are quite accustomed to electric buses now. They're hardly a wow factor. The fact is London is ahead of these cities and we are past the point of electrics being anything special. Joe Public doesn't care what powers his bus, he just wants it to turn up, not to have too many discarded copies of the morning's Metro along with KFC and Morleys boxes on the floor left by schoolkids... sadly London's attempts at branding have been so poor, they generally ignore it we treat USB charging as a luxury, which has been elsewhere for years Interesting that a lot of the Lothian B9TLs were Voith... are the new B5TL buses on ZF? I would have thought they would be a little underpowered for the hills around Edinburgh. TfL could learn from Lothian, the rush to electrics will be useless without proper charging infrastructure at garages. I can't see Wood Green or Tottenham getting electrification for years yet, for instance. Interesting that Lothian are replacing hybrids with straight diesel buses again 🤔
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Post by snowman on Jan 23, 2022 6:39:20 GMT
Do any of these operators have anywhere near the amount of electrics London has? Londoners are quite accustomed to electric buses now. They're hardly a wow factor. The fact is London is ahead of these cities and we are past the point of electrics being anything special. Joe Public doesn't care what powers his bus, he just wants it to turn up, not to have too many discarded copies of the morning's Metro along with KFC and Morleys boxes on the floor left by schoolkids... sadly London's attempts at branding have been so poor, they generally ignore it we treat USB charging as a luxury, which has been elsewhere for years Interesting that a lot of the Lothian B9TLs were Voith... are the new B5TL buses on ZF? I would have thought they would be a little underpowered for the hills around Edinburgh. TfL could learn from Lothian, the rush to electrics will be useless without proper charging infrastructure at garages. I can't see Wood Green or Tottenham getting electrification for years yet, for instance. Interesting that Lothian are replacing hybrids with straight diesel buses again 🤔 Lothian never had many hybrids. I think they converted the few they had, and upgraded them to euroVI diesel about 4 or 5 years ago. I think the fuel savings didn’t really offset the maintenance and cost of replacement hybrid parts. From what I understand Lothian have been investing in diesel buses because its garages aren’t very well laid out for installing chargers. Of course same problem has happened in some London garages, where parking capacity drops if have to be parked in certain way to plug in. I think Lothian are now reaching a point where they can pause fleet renewal for couple of years, I know they are currently disposing of 841-850 (57reg B9TLs) and possibly other buses of similar age. But Scottish Government policy is now moving towards zero emission future, so might not be more diesels going forward
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 23, 2022 10:06:27 GMT
Joe Public doesn't care what powers his bus, he just wants it to turn up, not to have too many discarded copies of the morning's Metro along with KFC and Morleys boxes on the floor left by schoolkids... sadly London's attempts at branding have been so poor, they generally ignore it we treat USB charging as a luxury, which has been elsewhere for years Interesting that a lot of the Lothian B9TLs were Voith... are the new B5TL buses on ZF? I would have thought they would be a little underpowered for the hills around Edinburgh. TfL could learn from Lothian, the rush to electrics will be useless without proper charging infrastructure at garages. I can't see Wood Green or Tottenham getting electrification for years yet, for instance. Interesting that Lothian are replacing hybrids with straight diesel buses again 🤔 Lothian never had many hybrids. I think they converted the few they had, and upgraded them to euroVI diesel about 4 or 5 years ago. I think the fuel savings didn’t really offset the maintenance and cost of replacement hybrid parts. From what I understand Lothian have been investing in diesel buses because its garages aren’t very well laid out for installing chargers. Of course same problem has happened in some London garages, where parking capacity drops if have to be parked in certain way to plug in. I think Lothian are now reaching a point where they can pause fleet renewal for couple of years, I know they are currently disposing of 841-850 (57reg B9TLs) and possibly other buses of similar age. But Scottish Government policy is now moving towards zero emission future, so might not be more diesels going forward Reading Buses has also converted some of its hybrids to straight diesel. When they first operated hybrids they were reporting fuel consumption savings of 22%, which is considerably lower than London operators were reporting and reflects the amount of time London's buses sit stationary in traffic. Reading Buses had planned to replace the vehicles on its yellow 26 route (Calcot) towards the end of 2020, when they would have been ten years old, but covid put paid to that. The vehicles have instead been converted from hybrid to diesel, refurbished and repainted in the latest livery style. Refurbished Reading Buses yellow 26 (not my photo): flic.kr/p/2m1Pze1
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Post by TB123 on Sept 20, 2023 11:30:40 GMT
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Sept 30, 2023 13:35:36 GMT
I expect these to replace the ex London route 18 batch of Volvo B9TLs, being the oldest sizeable batch of double-deckers with Lothian Buses.
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lg
Cleaner
Posts: 40
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Post by lg on Oct 1, 2023 11:17:35 GMT
I expect these to replace the ex London route 18 batch of Volvo B9TLs, being the oldest sizeable batch of double-deckers with Lothian Buses. I wouldn't be so sure just yet. The indigenous 11 plate examples could also be considered for replacement as I would imagine resale would be easier. There's also some older stock at East Coast Buses that will need to be replaced at some point
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