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Post by kmkcheng on Sept 3, 2024 22:29:54 GMT
Random few questions & rambling thoughts ? I have been reading up on The excellent London Bus Routes histories website about the 13 and 82 from the 80s (The 14/414 thing made me look into it as it is a similar situation , basically one overlapping route that splits at one end of the route) and saw that at one point the 13 had two operators , BTS (Borehamwood Travel Services) who I believe became Sovereign (Who had the 13 operated entirely with refurbed Dartmasters from about 2000 , used to get amazing thrashes out of those along Finchley road compared to the old RMs on all the other RM routes ), but BTS used to operate it Mon-Sat except evenings and Metroline used to operate it at other times and the N13 ? So just wondered if anyone had any insight on why ? Seems strange and not cost effective to have two separate operators on one route , I imagine BTS didn't have enough OPO buses to cover the evenings and Sundays but then why award to them ? LT couldn't of always been about who puts in the lowest bid when this was the case, I also remember that the 38 used to be operated by East London on Sundays with a extension to Leyton Green and the N38 also aswell ? But brings me to my second question why didn't RM's operate on Sundays not until the Early 2000s anyway ? Yes, BTS didn’t have enough OPO buses to operate the evening and Sunday service, which then got tendered out and operated by MTL/Metroline. The N13 was still a separate contract back then, like most other night buses before it became the norm to have combined 24 hour contracts. I believe it was a cost-saving issue as using RMs and RMLs required 2 members of staff whilst OPO only required the driver. It was quite normal back then to have RM routes where the evening and Sunday services were OPO. It was in 2001 when it was fully RM operated and it was combined with the N13 as one single contract.
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Post by vjaska on Sept 4, 2024 0:50:58 GMT
Random few questions & rambling thoughts ? I have been reading up on The excellent London Bus Routes histories website about the 13 and 82 from the 80s (The 14/414 thing made me look into it as it is a similar situation , basically one overlapping route that splits at one end of the route) and saw that at one point the 13 had two operators , BTS (Borehamwood Travel Services) who I believe became Sovereign (Who had the 13 operated entirely with refurbed Dartmasters from about 2000 , used to get amazing thrashes out of those along Finchley road compared to the old RMs on all the other RM routes ), but BTS used to operate it Mon-Sat except evenings and Metroline used to operate it at other times and the N13 ? So just wondered if anyone had any insight on why ? Seems strange and not cost effective to have two separate operators on one route , I imagine BTS didn't have enough OPO buses to cover the evenings and Sundays but then why award to them ? LT couldn't of always been about who puts in the lowest bid when this was the case, I also remember that the 38 used to be operated by East London on Sundays with a extension to Leyton Green and the N38 also aswell ? But brings me to my second question why didn't RM's operate on Sundays not until the Early 2000s anyway ? Yes, BTS didn’t have enough OPO buses to operate the evening and Sunday service, which then got tendered out and operated by MTL/Metroline. The N13 was still a separate contract back then, like most other night buses before it became the norm to have combined 24 hour contracts. I believe it was a cost-saving issue as using RMs and RMLs required 2 members of staff whilst OPO only required the driver. It was quite normal back then to have RM routes where the evening and Sunday services were OPO. It was in 2001 when it was fully RM operated and it was combined with the N13 as one single contract. I think the evening journeys not using RM's was also down to anti social behaviour towards conductors?
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Post by capitalomnibus on Sept 4, 2024 1:48:25 GMT
Random few questions & rambling thoughts ? I have been reading up on The excellent London Bus Routes histories website about the 13 and 82 from the 80s (The 14/414 thing made me look into it as it is a similar situation , basically one overlapping route that splits at one end of the route) and saw that at one point the 13 had two operators , BTS (Borehamwood Travel Services) who I believe became Sovereign (Who had the 13 operated entirely with refurbed Dartmasters from about 2000 , used to get amazing thrashes out of those along Finchley road compared to the old RMs on all the other RM routes ), but BTS used to operate it Mon-Sat except evenings and Metroline used to operate it at other times and the N13 ? So just wondered if anyone had any insight on why ? Seems strange and not cost effective to have two separate operators on one route , I imagine BTS didn't have enough OPO buses to cover the evenings and Sundays but then why award to them ? LT couldn't of always been about who puts in the lowest bid when this was the case, I also remember that the 38 used to be operated by East London on Sundays with a extension to Leyton Green and the N38 also aswell ? But brings me to my second question why didn't RM's operate on Sundays not until the Early 2000s anyway ? There was a lot of joint operations between ex LBL subsidiaries before privatisation. Some continued after i.e. the 38. That came about after the 38 was cut back to Clapton Pond. Although I am sure there was OPO buses in the evening on the 38 before this on the weekdays after a conductor got stabbed to death. Most RM routes became OPO in the evening or on Sundays full time. After London Forest ceased, the split operation on the 38 for OPO buses on Sunday continued with East London and Leaside. Eventually this continued after privatisation until the late 90's then the route was permanently cut back to Clapton Pond but OPO out of [CT] on Sunday
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Post by joefrombow on Sept 4, 2024 9:22:06 GMT
Yes, BTS didn’t have enough OPO buses to operate the evening and Sunday service, which then got tendered out and operated by MTL/Metroline. The N13 was still a separate contract back then, like most other night buses before it became the norm to have combined 24 hour contracts. I believe it was a cost-saving issue as using RMs and RMLs required 2 members of staff whilst OPO only required the driver. It was quite normal back then to have RM routes where the evening and Sunday services were OPO. It was in 2001 when it was fully RM operated and it was combined with the N13 as one single contract. I think the evening journeys not using RM's was also down to anti social behaviour towards conductors? I always remember the 11 was a oddity aswell in that the RM's only operated Mon-Fri in the early 2000s and it was fully low floor on weekends .
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Post by redexpress on Sept 4, 2024 11:16:15 GMT
Random few questions & rambling thoughts ? I have been reading up on The excellent London Bus Routes histories website about the 13 and 82 from the 80s (The 14/414 thing made me look into it as it is a similar situation , basically one overlapping route that splits at one end of the route) and saw that at one point the 13 had two operators , BTS (Borehamwood Travel Services) who I believe became Sovereign (Who had the 13 operated entirely with refurbed Dartmasters from about 2000 , used to get amazing thrashes out of those along Finchley road compared to the old RMs on all the other RM routes ), but BTS used to operate it Mon-Sat except evenings and Metroline used to operate it at other times and the N13 ? So just wondered if anyone had any insight on why ? Seems strange and not cost effective to have two separate operators on one route , I imagine BTS didn't have enough OPO buses to cover the evenings and Sundays but then why award to them ? LT couldn't of always been about who puts in the lowest bid when this was the case, I also remember that the 38 used to be operated by East London on Sundays with a extension to Leyton Green and the N38 also aswell ? But brings me to my second question why didn't RM's operate on Sundays not until the Early 2000s anyway ? Yes, BTS didn’t have enough OPO buses to operate the evening and Sunday service, which then got tendered out and operated by MTL/Metroline. The N13 was still a separate contract back then, like most other night buses before it became the norm to have combined 24 hour contracts. I believe it was a cost-saving issue as using RMs and RMLs required 2 members of staff whilst OPO only required the driver. It was quite normal back then to have RM routes where the evening and Sunday services were OPO. It was in 2001 when it was fully RM operated and it was combined with the N13 as one single contract. Just to add to this, when BTS won the route in 1993 they initially ran it with RMLs at all times, even though the tender spec did not require this. Perhaps they had been banking on retaining the 292, which was being retendered at the same time? The combined 114 and 292 fleets might have provided just enough buses for the evg/Sun 13. In the event they lost the 292 so didn't have enough OPO buses.
By 1996 a handful of second-hand Titans had been acquired to support the Olympians. They reckoned they had just enough OPO buses to convert the evg/Sun 13 to OPO, which took place in July 1996. But even with the extra buses in the fleet this proved to be unworkable, so in May 1997 it was agreed that they would surrender the evg/Sun service.
I'm not sure that a separate contract was actually tendered and issued for the evg/Sun service. I remember reading that it was just handed to MTL (subsequently Metroline) as a modification of their existing N13 contract, but I stand to be corrected on that.
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Post by joefrombow on Sept 4, 2024 12:00:45 GMT
Yes, BTS didn’t have enough OPO buses to operate the evening and Sunday service, which then got tendered out and operated by MTL/Metroline. The N13 was still a separate contract back then, like most other night buses before it became the norm to have combined 24 hour contracts. I believe it was a cost-saving issue as using RMs and RMLs required 2 members of staff whilst OPO only required the driver. It was quite normal back then to have RM routes where the evening and Sunday services were OPO. It was in 2001 when it was fully RM operated and it was combined with the N13 as one single contract. Just to add to this, when BTS won the route in 1993 they initially ran it with RMLs at all times, even though the tender spec did not require this. Perhaps they had been banking on retaining the 292, which was being retendered at the same time? The combined 114 and 292 fleets might have provided just enough buses for the evg/Sun 13. In the event they lost the 292 so didn't have enough OPO buses.
By 1996 a handful of second-hand Titans had been acquired to support the Olympians. They reckoned they had just enough OPO buses to convert the evg/Sun 13 to OPO, which took place in July 1996. But even with the extra buses in the fleet this proved to be unworkable, so in May 1997 it was agreed that they would surrender the evg/Sun service. I'm not sure that a separate contract was actually tendered and issued for the evg/Sun service. I remember reading that it was just handed to MTL (subsequently Metroline) as a modification of their existing N13 contract, but I stand to be corrected on that.
Thank you for the knowledge, very interesting insight and very different operation from LT/Tfl where the operators were helped compared to nowadays with the Sullivan's situation for example .
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Post by SILENCED on Sept 5, 2024 18:46:22 GMT
I get it that TfL had IT issues on the 2nd and that is why the BSOD feed is down ...but 3 days later! Is there no monitoring of this feed?
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Post by capitalomnibus on Sept 5, 2024 20:17:23 GMT
I get it that TfL had IT issues on the 2nd and that is why the BSOD feed is down ...but 3 days later! Is there no monitoring of this feed? All TfL systems, should be back up and running next week
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Post by vjaska on Sept 5, 2024 23:52:02 GMT
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Sept 7, 2024 3:44:02 GMT
Nah I got on the 9 last Friday evening and I thought the same thing. It's one of the Central London touristy routes which has the misfortune of really uneven demand. Not too sure what would be easiest, a summer and winter timetable? Enhance weekends all year round? Some other routes could also benefit from a different timetable based on tourist patterns. There were bound to be problems with demand on route 9, as it was hardly enhanced, potentially not at all, when route 10 was withdrawn.
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Sept 7, 2024 3:46:27 GMT
According to LBR the 18 received a PVR increase to 39 from Saturday in a timetable change. And LVF certainly seems to corroborate with this at the moment, even though it’s official PVR still hasn’t been updated in the LBR route list. The 18 now reclaims the title of London’s largest PVR route from the 38. But this is still one short of the largest PVR bus route in the country: Stagecoach Manchester’s monstrous 192 route The 18 should now need at least 4 more hybrids to cover this increase. RP do have some surplus E400s to cover (indirectly) for now, but will be interesting to see what the permanent allocation will be for the 18's new contract. Also noticed that LBR mentions the 310 being contractually allocated E200Darts from the 314/W14. So it seems the ex-165 MMCs may be temporary, and the 165's DD conversion might not be permanent either. But hopefully the 11reg E400s will at least demonstrate how busy the 165 can get, so TFL can award the new contract with DDs. Given that route 365 is derived from route 165. it does seem odd that route 365 is double-deck but that route 165 has recently spent many years single-deck.
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Post by greenboy on Sept 7, 2024 6:29:52 GMT
This appalling behaviour on the 549 is certainly not unusual at school times on many routes. It might help if those responsible were identified via CCTV and had their free travel entitlement withdrawn. vm.tiktok.com/ZGew3mePA/
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Post by YX18KVJ (DLE30221) on Sept 7, 2024 22:17:13 GMT
What happened to NW after H9/H10 fully moved to SO? Could Metroline take over the site to gain more routes in the area? Perhaps the 223/258 (if won, which I think is likely)/H17 or even 18 (maybe) could run from there?
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Post by LD71YLO (BE37054) on Sept 8, 2024 6:46:56 GMT
What happened to NW after H9/H10 fully moved to SO? Could Metroline take over the site to gain more routes in the area? Perhaps the 223/258 (if won, which I think is likely)/H17 or even 18 (maybe) could run from there? If I remember correctly it was a Dial-A-Ride site which TfL temporarily allowed RATP (or Transdev if it was still them) to use while SO was undergoing some or other works. Anyone correct me if I'm completely wrong, but it's unlikely TfL would allow it to be used for a long-term tender gain.
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Post by mkay315 on Sept 9, 2024 7:57:00 GMT
Hi folks
I want to see something here. Growing up I liked the euro 2 dennis trident zf variants. I have sat on the alx400, plaxton president and east lancs lolyne versions.
Come to think of it at least one bus in each corner of London had a route allocated those tridents but I can't remember the full list.
I know they were definitely prominent around North and East London. In South London (I'm going to split it between South East and West). I remembered the 3 and 196 having them in the early 2000s when going to Brockwell Park when they had those summer parties. South east on the other hand I vaguely remembered it on the 161 but I'm not sure if they were on the 261 or 119 as well.
If anyone can confirm this from that part of town that would be great.
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