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Post by ianhardy on Dec 5, 2020 20:39:03 GMT
West ham holds 330 buses, 90 inside & 240 outside. It has 26 Engineering pits in 30 bays! Source, my official 2016 Londoner programme guide.😁 West Ham actually has the potential to hold up to 350 buses but as Stagecoach is leasing the site off TfL, its capacity is somewhat capped to allow buses new to London to get registered there. It's only second to First's Caledonia garage in Scotland which is the biggest bus garage in the UK. It holds a few buses shy of 500. Annoyingly I read a year or so ago that Caledonia expanded to have their capacity heightened by circa an extra 150 buses, but looking online now there is zilch to back that up. Must've been a proposal that inevitably wasn't picked up on. First Caledonia has about 365 buses allocated to it, the other First depot in Glasgow - Scotstoun has about 180 buses allocated to it, which maybe where the idea to expand Caledonia by 150 buses was to close Scotstoun and then concentrate all First Glasgow's operations in Glasgow onto the Caledonia site, as there are a lot of low bridges near Scotstoun depot.
Caledonia actually operates as two separate depots - one running the ex Larkfield routes & the other running the ex Parkhead routes
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Post by capitalomnibus on Dec 6, 2020 13:37:08 GMT
Are covered bus garages really needed anymore? How many people keep cars in garages nowadays? Improvements to bodywork standards have made them largely redundant. The answer is no except for a few days a year when we get deep snow etc. Years ago there was a terrible night at New Cross garage. At the time London buses did not have anti freeze in the coolant. At the time it was thought that buses didn't need it as they were under cover. However, New Cross doesn't have a roof and at the time it had a large allocation of Metropolitan double deckers. The night was very cold and a large number of the buses ended up with cracked cylinder heads. This put some off the road for several weeks as replacements were not available. They are not needed, i don't even think it was covered to protect bodywork @ greenboyAs for engines freezing over due to pure water it has happened at a few garages over the years where they were using pure water, although now many have resorted to using coolant. Also buses parked in the open on cold morning where temperatures hover around 0 degrees C tends to have wheelchair ramp & door failures as they get frozen. The Titans back in the 80's and 90's used to suffer badly from frozen air tanks and engineers used to try to heat them up with blow torches to defrost them!
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Post by lazy_eye_metaphor on Dec 6, 2020 14:47:52 GMT
Anyone have any indications as to which electric buses are being ordered for the 160 and 180 next autumn? Normally Stagecoach go for ADL vehicles but it wouldn't surprise me if their order books are already full for next year.
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Post by vjaska on Dec 6, 2020 14:53:40 GMT
Anyone have any indications as to which electric buses are being ordered for the 160 and 180 next autumn? Normally Stagecoach go for ADL vehicles but it wouldn't surprise me if their order books are already full for next year. No indication yet but like yourself, I think they’ll stick to ADL.
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Post by bertrell on Dec 6, 2020 15:06:26 GMT
Anyone have any indications as to which electric buses are being ordered for the 160 and 180 next autumn? Normally Stagecoach go for ADL vehicles but it wouldn't surprise me if their order books are already full for next year. No indication yet but like yourself, I think they’ll stick to ADL. They'll be ADL BYD and nothing else,no chance of any Optare products ever. Metroline, may order the new MCV Evo Electric which is due out 1 yr from now!!!
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Post by LK65EBO on Dec 6, 2020 15:07:26 GMT
No indication yet but like yourself, I think they’ll stick to ADL. They'll be ADL BYD and nothing else,no chance of any Optare products ever. Metroline, may order the new MCV Evo Electric which is due out 1 yr from now!!! There can always be restrictions - eg length. I wouldn't rule out anyone in my opinion.
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Post by bertrell on Dec 6, 2020 15:14:18 GMT
They'll be ADL BYD and nothing else,no chance of any Optare products ever. Metroline, may order the new MCV Evo Electric which is due out 1 yr from now!!! There can always be restrictions - eg length. I wouldn't rule out anyone in my opinion. There are no restrictions on either route to my knowledge. Stagecoach will not buy Optare/Switch DDS ever...
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Post by wirewiper on Dec 6, 2020 15:30:47 GMT
Anyone have any indications as to which electric buses are being ordered for the 160 and 180 next autumn? Normally Stagecoach go for ADL vehicles but it wouldn't surprise me if their order books are already full for next year. I doubt very much the order books are full - many operators outside London have cancelled orders or put off fleet renewal until the long-term effect of covid-19 on finances becomes clear. Stagecoach has pretty much suspended all its non-London fleet renewal.
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Post by SILENCED on Dec 6, 2020 15:39:56 GMT
Anyone have any indications as to which electric buses are being ordered for the 160 and 180 next autumn? Normally Stagecoach go for ADL vehicles but it wouldn't surprise me if their order books are already full for next year. I doubt very much the order books are full - many operators outside London have cancelled orders or put off fleet renewal until the long-term effect of covid-19 on finances becomes clear. Stagecoach has pretty much suspended all its non-London fleet renewal. Might not be ADLs, but BYDs capacity to deliver more is questionable/unknown
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Dec 6, 2020 15:59:27 GMT
There can always be restrictions - eg length. I wouldn't rule out anyone in my opinion. There are no restrictions on either route to my knowledge. Stagecoach will not buy Optare/Switch DDS ever... Quite a bold comment, do you have any backing to this? Stagecoach do have a plethora of vehicles from Optare already out of London.
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Dec 6, 2020 16:01:28 GMT
I doubt very much the order books are full - many operators outside London have cancelled orders or put off fleet renewal until the long-term effect of covid-19 on finances becomes clear. Stagecoach has pretty much suspended all its non-London fleet renewal. Might not be ADLs, but BYDs capacity to deliver more is questionable/unknown Alongside the report that RATP have already ordered around 130ish BYD buses for next year could put a lot of strain on them for next Autumn, unless Stagecoach also prepared a provisional order I could see a hefty delay to a Stagecoach BYD order or they'll be forced to go elsewhere. Would be quite funny if they end up going for the Caetano Decker or maybe even the Volvo electric MCV Decker. Despite being a solid ADL company they did take the first production Gemini 3s for London so would be funny if similar happened with electrics albeit with a different type.
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Post by bertrell on Dec 6, 2020 16:17:14 GMT
Might not be ADLs, but BYDs capacity to deliver more is questionable/unknown Alongside the report that RATP have already ordered around 130ish BYD buses for next year could put a lot of strain on them for next Autumn, unless Stagecoach also prepared a provisional order I could see a hefty delay to a Stagecoach BYD order or they'll be forced to go elsewhere. Would be quite funny if they end up going for the Caetano Decker or maybe even the Volvo electric MCV Decker. Despite being a solid ADL company they did take the first production Gemini 3s for London so would be funny if similar happened with electrics albeit with a different type. The reason why they bought those 32 weights now with Arriva London was due to a huge ADL order book at that time. ADL, now build Electric DDS at Falkirk as of the 173/174 batch.. They'll use the current buses, but they won't go outside there family...
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Post by snowman on Dec 6, 2020 16:27:04 GMT
Might not be ADLs, but BYDs capacity to deliver more is questionable/unknown Alongside the report that RATP have already ordered around 130ish BYD buses for next year could put a lot of strain on them for next Autumn, unless Stagecoach also prepared a provisional order I could see a hefty delay to a Stagecoach BYD order or they'll be forced to go elsewhere. Would be quite funny if they end up going for the Caetano Decker or maybe even the Volvo electric MCV Decker. Despite being a solid ADL company they did take the first production Gemini 3s for London so would be funny if similar happened with electrics albeit with a different type. I have no evidence, but I heard (and could be canteen talk garbage) the RATP order was placed months ago, in form of about 30-40 buses confirmed plus large numbers of options. If so they might start arriving as early as April. I suspect Stagecoach are a VIP customer for ADL, (due to volumes) so probably get some of the build slots, even if RATP have now ordered nearer 150-160 buses (adding the spares and 49 requirements) they would not have been given production line exclusivity. Quite simply ADL would have left a proportion of build slots free, I am guessing 30-40% were not allocated to RATP simply because it is commercial suicide to have to turn away all your regular customers because you can’t deliver even small requirements. What will become a problem is if companies like Stagecoach also want dozens of new electric buses for cities like Manchester, or National Express wants follow on orders for Birmingham etc. If the rumoured maximum 400 BYD chassis per year are a limiting factor then total orders could exceed 400. I suppose ADL could ration electric single decks if more profitable double decks orders exist.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2020 16:52:37 GMT
Alongside the report that RATP have already ordered around 130ish BYD buses for next year could put a lot of strain on them for next Autumn, unless Stagecoach also prepared a provisional order I could see a hefty delay to a Stagecoach BYD order or they'll be forced to go elsewhere. Would be quite funny if they end up going for the Caetano Decker or maybe even the Volvo electric MCV Decker. Despite being a solid ADL company they did take the first production Gemini 3s for London so would be funny if similar happened with electrics albeit with a different type. The reason why they bought those 32 weights now with Arriva London was due to a huge ADL order book at that time. ADL, now build Electric DDS at Falkirk as of the 173/174 batch.. They'll use the current buses, but they won't go outside there family... But they may not have any choice of the backlog of electrics becomes a issue. As others have said ADL have a huge amount of buses to complete for London in 2021.
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Post by wirewiper on Dec 6, 2020 16:57:09 GMT
The reason why they bought those 32 weights now with Arriva London was due to a huge ADL order book at that time. ADL, now build Electric DDS at Falkirk as of the 173/174 batch.. They'll use the current buses, but they won't go outside there family... But they may not have any choice of the backlog of electrics becomes a issue. As others have said ADL have a huge amount of buses to complete for London in 2021. And precious few to complete for anywhere else
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