New vehicle orders secrecy!

[RW]

Nobody seems to know who has the order for the 30 new midi buses. What's the secrecy for? Most of the large groups are more than happy to gain publicity from their new bus orders. Why not NX?

[winston]

I'm not sure an order has been placed for the midis as yet, NXD are trialling a Wrightbus Streetlite at present. However, I agree with the secrecy, as I don't recall seeing anything in any of the trade press about the 100 x Volvo B7RLE's that had been ordered either

[richie]

No order placed as yet just a commitment to order 30 with an october 2012 delivery.

[Stu]

With the deals already taken place with Wrightbus and ADL, it does look like a toss-up between the Wrightbus Streetlite, and the ADL Dart E200.

As National Express currently use the Dart E200s in the Hotel Hoppa division, the smart money is probably leaning towards this one.

But the Streetlites look interesting, the smaller versions could replace the Optare Solos on the few services that only require a mini-bus. However at this time, it looks more likely that NXWM want (or need!) to replace B6LEs on the 636 service, with the remainder to go to Pensnett garage to replace B6LEs on services that serve the Merry Hill bus station.