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Post by PGAT on Aug 26, 2024 18:46:05 GMT
When they finished the electrification, all the chargers now work. I don't know when they will start to install more chargers or if they are leaving it at the amount currently. There is no sign of the new 255 buses yet The first 255 Kite is ready at the factory at Ballymena. Fleet codes “EKL” So does this prove a 10.2m versio has been ordered?
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Post by TB123 on Aug 26, 2024 18:55:40 GMT
The first 255 Kite is ready at the factory at Ballymena. Fleet codes “EKL” So does this prove a 10.2m versio has been ordered? Quite possibly. Guess when they hit the roads on test and get spotted well find out. Unless they’ve changed their fleet code architecture and L means long as in 10.7m…
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Post by DT 11 on Aug 26, 2024 19:00:12 GMT
So does this prove a 10.2m versio has been ordered? Quite possibly. Guess when they hit the roads on test and get spotted well find out. Unless they’ve changed their fleet code architecture and L means long as in 10.7m… What lengths do they build them in? Didn’t someone mention on here they only come in 10.7m?
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Post by PGAT on Aug 26, 2024 19:02:27 GMT
Quite possibly. Guess when they hit the roads on test and get spotted well find out. Unless they’ve changed their fleet code architecture and L means long as in 10.7m… What lengths do they build them in? Didn’t someone mention on here they only come in 10.7m? All the ones in London currently are 10.9m
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Post by DT 11 on Aug 26, 2024 19:03:20 GMT
What lengths do they build them in? Didn’t someone mention on here they only come in 10.7m? All the ones in London currently are 10.9m Just read the brochure online. 10.9m is the smallest size.
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Post by ! ALEED on Aug 26, 2024 19:28:35 GMT
All the ones in London currently are 10.9m Just read the brochure online. 10.9m is the smallest size. Can the 255 even take the 10.9m length?
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Post by DT 11 on Aug 26, 2024 19:35:04 GMT
Just read the brochure online. 10.9m is the smallest size. Can the 255 even take the 10.9m length? Apparently a traffic island needs to be removed.
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Post by PGAT on Aug 26, 2024 19:56:57 GMT
Just read the brochure online. 10.9m is the smallest size. Can the 255 even take the 10.9m length? They have occasionally but reports of clipping the pavement
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Post by LD71YLO (BE37054) on Aug 26, 2024 20:32:50 GMT
I'm sure 143 and C11 are also due the shorter variant so there must be one that is yet to be publicised on the Wrightbus website.
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Post by DE20106 on Aug 26, 2024 20:48:35 GMT
When they finished the electrification, all the chargers now work. I don't know when they will start to install more chargers or if they are leaving it at the amount currently. There is no sign of the new 255 buses yet The first 255 Kite is ready at the factory at Ballymena. Fleet codes “EKL” My assumption is the code will be EKL or EWL Not gonna lie EGL is a pretty good guess and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were to be the actual fleet code What would the ‘G’ in EGL actually mean though? ES is Arriva’s Wright Electroliner DD code ( Electric Streetdeck presumably) I get the ‘L’, that’s what Arriva use at the end of their 10.2m vehicles, like ENL which are the code for 10.2m E200s (although here E means Enviro rather then Electric) I reckon it will be: ’EKL’ for 10.2m Wrightbus Kite SDs ’EKX’ for 10.9m Wrightbus Kite SDs (if they ever order them) SouthLondoner468 snap we predicted the Fleet code back in June!!! 😀 Considering Arriva’s 10.2m vehicles all have ‘L’ at the end of the fleet code I guess this confirms it is indeed the 10.2 variant 😀
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Post by DE20106 on Aug 26, 2024 20:50:52 GMT
All the ones in London currently are 10.9m Just read the brochure online. 10.9m is the smallest size. That must be out of date then as a 10.2m size has become available. The 143 and C11 are confirmed to be getting 10.2m’s (WSEs). I guess Wright probably figured they’d lose a lot of potential London orders considering how many can’t take the longer size, it would just give Volvo and ADL/BYD a stick to beat them with The 153 are getting 10.9m Kites with a WSEL code
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Post by DE20106 on Aug 26, 2024 21:05:52 GMT
Have to say, the facelifted Electroliners do look very good in the flesh! I have to say I think the opposite, I often see these on the 133 and have also seen the ones at NS a few times now and they look far more ridiculous in person than they do in pictures. It's almost like a bus of two halves where the bottom half is at a complete mismatch to the top half. I think it's a lot more bearable on the Kite as there's no mis-matched top deck to go with it, but on the deckers it just looks clumsy and with no actual effort to integrate the frontal panels into the design. I wonder if Wright will come out with a new design anytime soon, probably safe to say that since 2015 when this new design showed up it was a step behind the ADL MMC, and then the City just widened the gap. ADL have since come out with a third design while Wright are effectively still on the same design from 2015 just with a changed lower deck front as they were pretty much forced to. Rumour has it there’s a new Wright design in the pipeline. I read on some website that in 2025 something new might be coming, but as a large caveat I cant remember where I read it or if there’s any truth to it at all. They really need to come up with something though, their current offering has always been substandard even when it came out in 2015, it caused them to go under because of bus operators turning their back on them because of dissatisfaction with their products. I guess seeing as all the money went into reviving the company, the money wasn’t there to come up with something new. If they don’t pull their finger out soon ADL and MCV will just leave them behind. It’s high time they made those bloody upper deck windows bigger! And it needs to be massively better than the crap they make at the moment
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Aug 26, 2024 21:20:59 GMT
I have to say I think the opposite, I often see these on the 133 and have also seen the ones at NS a few times now and they look far more ridiculous in person than they do in pictures. It's almost like a bus of two halves where the bottom half is at a complete mismatch to the top half. I think it's a lot more bearable on the Kite as there's no mis-matched top deck to go with it, but on the deckers it just looks clumsy and with no actual effort to integrate the frontal panels into the design. I wonder if Wright will come out with a new design anytime soon, probably safe to say that since 2015 when this new design showed up it was a step behind the ADL MMC, and then the City just widened the gap. ADL have since come out with a third design while Wright are effectively still on the same design from 2015 just with a changed lower deck front as they were pretty much forced to. Rumour has it there’s a new Wright design in the pipeline. I read on some website that in 2025 something new might be coming, but as a large caveat I cant remember where I read it or if there’s any truth to it at all. They really need to come up with something though, their current offering has always been substandard even when it came out in 2015, it caused them to go under because of bus operators turning their back on them because of dissatisfaction with their products. I guess seeing as all the money went into reviving the company, the money wasn’t there to come up with something new. If they don’t pull their finger out soon ADL and MCV will just leave them behind. It’s high time they made those bloody upper deck windows bigger! And it needs to be massively better than the crap they make at the moment The case with Wright is an interesting one. The Bankruptcy and Administration seems to be attributed to many factors. The largest seems to be donations of Jeff Wright to a church that he himself founded using company money which seems to have put a dent on finances, or at least impacted consumer confidence. He owned the company so there's no actual dodgy dealing there that's illegal, but can probably be attributed to the financial state of the company. After this you have the next point that the product offering at some point went very quickly south, with Metroline said to require extra inspections on delivered buses due to quality issues and First up North completely rejecting a batch of StreetDecks due to the state that they were delivered in. You also had general unreliability of buses, the 44s WSDs and Tower Transit's WHs were both probably in constant competition for the least unreliable batch of buses in London. Go Ahead London seems to have ditched Wright after the 44 order and has not ordered any double deckers from them since, even electric ones (although they seem to have some elsewhere in the country), Metroline notably went to MCV around this time and Wright also issued a statement around this time with the impending collapse calling it an 'inexcusable betrayal' or Northern Irish production as manufacturing was being moved by companies to Egypt. Some RATP VHs then got caught in the fallout and we had a while where no London operators ordered Wright for a while until Abellio placed the 111 Electroliner order, I'm not including the 7s WHDs as these seem to be a TFL order. Wright then seem to have had varying success with electrics, their electric production lines were full with the promise to expand if any orders were received, but this doesn't seem to have happened as Wright are now backlogged and many operators multiple sourcing their vehicles. I think some routes got Electroliner orders placed as this was said to be an efficient model, but since then the ADL E400 EV and BYD BD11 have both come up from behind and posted better figures. The SL3 at least probably would have only had the Electroliner as an option if the route was tendered even just a few months prior.
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Post by ServerKing on Aug 26, 2024 21:50:37 GMT
Rumour has it there’s a new Wright design in the pipeline. I read on some website that in 2025 something new might be coming, but as a large caveat I cant remember where I read it or if there’s any truth to it at all. They really need to come up with something though, their current offering has always been substandard even when it came out in 2015, it caused them to go under because of bus operators turning their back on them because of dissatisfaction with their products. I guess seeing as all the money went into reviving the company, the money wasn’t there to come up with something new. If they don’t pull their finger out soon ADL and MCV will just leave them behind. It’s high time they made those bloody upper deck windows bigger! And it needs to be massively better than the crap they make at the moment The case with Wright is an interesting one. After this you have the next point that the product offering at some point went very quickly south, with Metroline said to require extra inspections on delivered buses due to quality issues and First up North completely rejecting a batch of StreetDecks due to the state that they were delivered in. You also had general unreliability of buses, the 44s WSDs and Tower Transit's WHs were both probably in constant competition for the least unreliable batch of buses in London. Go Ahead London seems to have ditched Wright after the 44 order and has not ordered any double deckers from them since, even electric ones (although they seem to have some elsewhere in the country), Metroline notably went to MCV... I think Arriva's SWs which were on the 340 and 329 were vying for title of most unreliable London bus. The edgy design has just become very commonplace and is no longer exciting compared to what ADL and others are offering. Even the Metrodecker looks more sensible. Glad that Tottenham went for something different in the Volvo BZL, I think other operators ordered the Electroliner as a stop gap whilst waiting for other more exciting stuff to come out. I can see Stagecoach going back to ADL for the new E400 EV. The new Wrightbus is better, but do need to bring in a new design, especially for the Streetlite which has not changed since 2012, but operators will just go for E200 BYDs or BZLs. The GB Kite looks very top heavy with that huge battery pod on the roof.
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Post by DE20106 on Aug 26, 2024 21:59:02 GMT
Rumour has it there’s a new Wright design in the pipeline. I read on some website that in 2025 something new might be coming, but as a large caveat I cant remember where I read it or if there’s any truth to it at all. They really need to come up with something though, their current offering has always been substandard even when it came out in 2015, it caused them to go under because of bus operators turning their back on them because of dissatisfaction with their products. I guess seeing as all the money went into reviving the company, the money wasn’t there to come up with something new. If they don’t pull their finger out soon ADL and MCV will just leave them behind. It’s high time they made those bloody upper deck windows bigger! And it needs to be massively better than the crap they make at the moment The case with Wright is an interesting one. The Bankruptcy and Administration seems to be attributed to many factors. The largest seems to be donations of Jeff Wright to a church that he himself founded using company money which seems to have put a dent on finances, or at least impacted consumer confidence. He owned the company so there's no actual dodgy dealing there that's illegal, but can probably be attributed to the financial state of the company. After this you have the next point that the product offering at some point went very quickly south, with Metroline said to require extra inspections on delivered buses due to quality issues and First up North completely rejecting a batch of StreetDecks due to the state that they were delivered in. You also had general unreliability of buses, the 44s WSDs and Tower Transit's WHs were both probably in constant competition for the least unreliable batch of buses in London. Go Ahead London seems to have ditched Wright after the 44 order and has not ordered any double deckers from them since, even electric ones (although they seem to have some elsewhere in the country), Metroline notably went to MCV around this time and Wright also issued a statement around this time with the impending collapse calling it an 'inexcusable betrayal' or Northern Irish production as manufacturing was being moved by companies to Egypt. Some RATP VHs then got caught in the fallout and we had a while where no London operators ordered Wright for a while until Abellio placed the 111 Electroliner order, I'm not including the 7s WHDs as these seem to be a TFL order. Wright then seem to have had varying success with electrics, their electric production lines were full with the promise to expand if any orders were received, but this doesn't seem to have happened as Wright are now backlogged and many operators multiple sourcing their vehicles. I think some routes got Electroliner orders placed as this was said to be an efficient model, but since then the ADL E400 EV and BYD BD11 have both come up from behind and posted better figures. The SL3 at least probably would have only had the Electroliner as an option if the route was tendered even just a few months prior. Yes I remember the quality issues that Metroline had specifically very well that caused them to move over to MCV. Also no surprise GAL said au revoir with the state of the WSDs. MCV EvoSetis are still not great but at least they were priced accordingly. I know as you very eloquently stated there were other factors at play too, but Wright’s shocking build quality of their StreetDecks and Gemini 3’s were a significant part of it. Wright was being abandoned in droves by operators and Volvo completely giving them the cold shoulder when it came to the BZL, were all consequences of that. Those rejected StreetDecks - with mostly SO19M** regs - were eventually scooped up by Diamond North West (who are utter cowboys btw, like the TrustyBus of the north), so no wonder they wanted them as they probably bought them for next to nothing. They’re now with Go-North West as 3402-3414 and I’ve been on them in Manchester and my god they’re utterly shocking, appalling vehicles. Absolutely no surprises why First rejected them, apparently the roof was sagging on them when First, er first received them. The MX70 vehicles are also absolutely awful but those 19-regs are on another level of diabolical. They’re about as diarrhoea as the 125’s service is commonly referred to as. I know the Electroliner is considerably better than diesel StreetDecks but that’s not exactly a high bar. Hell, one would even think it’s impossible for the bar to get lower. They’re still not great quality wise and I certainly wouldn’t go for them if I was the owner of a bus company in the market for new EV vehicles. The First Norwich ones are certainly nothing to shout about. Apart from the even more naff MetroDecker, the competition pees all over them EDIT: ServerKing has just taken the words out of my mouth for how I think orders of the Electroliner are viewed. Generally okay, the impressive range (which yes is one of the few good things about them) and non availability of everything else
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