I just wondered if any knew if Diamond were to recieve any new buses or any plans to pick up any dealer stock buses. I read on another thread about why the centro's were taken off the 404E and the cadets put on but the investment on the 404E and 16 seems to have gone backwards from the 08/58 centros to 60 reg mcv's back to 10/11 year old cadets. Would be good to see an investment on these more popular services
i dont see why they bought new Versa's for the 56, they could have got some nice cheap second hand Tridents and bought 4x as many!
Quote from: BU07 LGO on June 18, 2012, 04:07:29 PM
i dont see why they bought new Versa's for the 56, they could have got some nice cheap second hand Tridents and bought 4x as many!
Especially as they don't seem to know where to allocate the Hybrids
The Hybrids were part of a government grant, i don't think the government would have been too happy if they purchased some 12 year old tridents instead ...
Quote from: jc on June 18, 2012, 08:22:02 PM
The Hybrids were part of a government grant, i don't think the government would have been too happy if they purchased some 12 year old tridents instead ...
The government only pays (most of) the additional costs of a Hybrid against a standard vehicles of the same make. Diamond still had to find more money than it would have cost to buy 8 standard Versas
Also 8 vehicles is too many for the 56 so are always going to find their way onto other services they havent been on the 404E for a while but today a centro was on it although from another thread drivers complained about them being used on the service.
Would of thought the 404E would have been ideal for the Hybrids and keep the Centros on the 56.
Quote from: Lukeee on June 18, 2012, 09:40:46 PM
Would of thought the 404E would have been ideal for the Hybrids and keep the Centros on the 56.
Yeah the PVR for the 404E for diamond is 8 aswell i think they would be good to be shared for the 301 and 404E with the wright cadets making up the rest of the PVR on the services with the 02 cadets back on the 417 and the centros on the 56 and 202.
Quote from: Ash on June 18, 2012, 10:08:57 PM
Quote from: Lukeee on June 18, 2012, 09:40:46 PM
Would of thought the 404E would have been ideal for the Hybrids and keep the Centros on the 56.
Yeah the PVR for the 404E for diamond is 8 aswell i think they would be good to be shared for the 301 and 404E with the wright cadets making up the rest of the PVR on the services with the 02 cadets back on the 417 and the centros on the 56 and 202.
Yeah that would certainly make more sense as the 56 needs the Centro's, while the 417 certainly doesn't and cadets were fine on that route originally and the branded buses for the 50 and 002 should try and stay on these routes.
Quote from: Ash on June 18, 2012, 10:08:57 PM
Quote from: Lukeee on June 18, 2012, 09:40:46 PM
Would of thought the 404E would have been ideal for the Hybrids and keep the Centros on the 56.
Yeah the PVR for the 404E for diamond is 8 aswell i think they would be good to be shared for the 301 and 404E with the wright cadets making up the rest of the PVR on the services with the 02 cadets back on the 417 and the centros on the 56 and 202.
I was thinking they could be shared on routes 16 & 301
The 16 would also be a good choice that route seems to see any bus diamond has spare and i dont understand why they put solo's on it, last week i saw a solo on the 56 and suprise to me it wasnt full but i think it was a peak extra.
Diamond will eventually get some investment, the money will just be spent on 53 reg darts from elsewhere! Really Diamond need more 2012 design MCV Evolution0, or some Enviro 200s. Despite all this rebranding it isn't working as the buses still look pretty old and don't usually sound too healthy either. Even the 59 reg Citaro is starting to sound abit tired and the SoloSrs, well, the fact that one kept cutting out for 3 weeks frequently on the S3 tells you everything. It was eventually fixed but now has awful vibration at a stand, very much like a Crusader at times. However Diamond could of course buy some Scanias or Temsa Avenues as they need the orders which I wouldn't mind at all as I love them!
I got on a solo today on the 404E the driver gave it a bit of thrash and guess what warning bells and it broke down in Walsall. And it was a 03 solo so no suprise. With only 1 crusader on the 404E today with mainly solos and the shorter darts not good for one of diamonds key services.
Diamonds fleet except the new buses are dire like someone the centros are ok but I think the dunns have lost interest in the midlands as it all seems to be concentrated on their home town Nottingham with your bus even the management have gone there and some fitters is this a preparation for selling off
Quote from: Discodave on June 26, 2012, 11:36:08 AM
Diamonds fleet except the new buses are dire like someone the centros are ok but I think the dunns have lost interest in the midlands as it all seems to be concentrated on their home town Nottingham with your bus even the management have gone there and some fitters is this a preparation for selling off
A number of staff members/management have followed Scott Dunn to Yourbus in Nottingham, however this happened a good few months ago.
I'd be surprised if Rotala wanted to sell up just in the West Midlands, however the Diamond op's don't seem to be doing as well as Wessex & Preston Bus. I would have thought a complete takeover of the group would be more likely, if Arriva were the suitor, they may well opt to run Rotala as a separate group business under the Arriva wing as they have done since TGM was purchased
Possible but with wardles you can tell the arriva influence (fleet livery) better taking the whole group and reorganising it dump redditch/worestershire ops leave them to first brum area routes to the blue diamond garage and use tividale and hill top for black country area. Then Arriva maybe a contender in the Midlands as long as the mmc/competetion bodies do not mind
Quote from: Discodave on June 26, 2012, 05:27:44 PM
Possible but with wardles you can tell the arriva influence (fleet livery) better taking the whole group and reorganising it dump redditch/worestershire ops leave them to first brum area routes to the blue diamond garage and use tividale and hill top for black country area. Then Arriva maybe a contender in the Midlands as long as the mmc/competetion bodies do not mind
That's what I said a complete takeover of Rotala Group would be more likely, and run as a separate business unit within Arriva similar to TGM or Wardles (your example). I doubt Arriva would have any issues with MMC in a takeover, now NX that's another matter......
sorry should have said full take over with the corporate livery as long as regulation bodies do not mind with the reorganising of routes
Rotala seem to start off well new investments in terms of new centro's and at one time had 27 of them which quickly reduced in numbers. Then only in 2010 23 new mcv evolutions and some of the key routes had brand new branding and for me the company looked on the up in terms of marketing and investment and now with the sales of vehicles services like the 404E are getting older buses than they did in the petes travel days, in the 2000 the 404E at least had W reg darts then X reg darts now it sees R,S,T reg darts and solo's that are unreliable. Similar with the 16 diamond bus (birmingham coach company) invested using the 51 reg cadets now its lucky to see a a newer or same age vehicle.
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 08:06:28 PM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....
I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?
How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.
Stagecoach in London was a completely different case. Stagecoach London was always profitable, but made lower percentage profits than the rest of Stagecoach. Some Australian bankers came in and made Stagecoach a silly money offer which Stagecoach accepted. The bankers then made a complete mess of running it resulting in losses and Stagecoach came back and bought it for a fraction they sold it for.
Stagecoach therefore made a bigger profit from the sale and repurchase than they would have done if they had just taken the profits from running it continually.
It would be very difficult for Go-Ahead to buy back Diamond for less than they sold it for as I think it was sold for a nominal amount with Rotala taking on some of the debts. Go-Ahead openly admitted they lost several million pounds during there time of running Diamond.
Quote from: Michael on June 26, 2012, 08:29:08 PM
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 08:06:28 PM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....
I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?
How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.
You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!
I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?
Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider.
Ah, you mean like the previous operator, who for one reason or another, dumped the route??
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
Blue Diamond just ignore you
I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
At least NXWM respond!
Yes, as i mentioned above, they decided not to operate your service any more.
Quote from: NEL111P on June 27, 2012, 02:13:05 AM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
Blue Diamond just ignore you
I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....
I would.
I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me. They assume that OAP's only want to use their service along the way. That's a fact.
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 09:21:35 PM
Quote from: Michael on June 26, 2012, 08:29:08 PM
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 08:06:28 PM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....
I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?
How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.
You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!
I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?
Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders
You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?
Quote from: rob@mdc on June 27, 2012, 02:17:08 PM
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 09:21:35 PM
Quote from: Michael on June 26, 2012, 08:29:08 PM
Quote from: Winston on June 26, 2012, 08:06:28 PM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
I wouldn't mind Arriva, Stagecoach or Go Ahead taking over Blue Diamond. We need some of their reliability on the S3 and S2. Once again the S3 at 16:12 failed to turn up. I can complain to this someone at Centro now about if a bus doesn't turn up and he will bring it up and if needed review the contract. But I really don't want to keep complaining as I don't want to responsible for losing driver's jobs and possibly no other company stepping in to take over the services. I'm still in favour of a change back to the 40A and 40C, which a better company like Go Ahead who listens to people might actually consider. Blue Diamond just ignore you, just try using their customer service. At least NXWM respond!
Go-ahead wont be interested in any part of the Diamond business, its a case of been there & done that, and lost a tidy amount of money in the process.....
I don't mean to be rude, but are you Patrick Brown's father?
How do you know if they're interested or not. Look at Stagecoach London. Need I say more.
You're not rude; you just have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way!
I believe Go-Ahead Group lost in excess of £10 Million on the sale of Go West Midlands to Rotala, under Rotala ownership the business has shrunk further still and even now isn't very profitable. If Go-ahead couldn't make it work the first time around, why would they want to come back for a second go? The economy & unemployment levels are worse now than when they were here the last time & passengers numbers are still in decline. Would you throw more money after bad......?
Stagecoach London is in a totally different league to Diamond; Stagecoach sold the profitable London business for circa £250 Million and made a big profit on the original purchase price of East London & Selkent. Under Macquarie profits had fallen substantially & they were looking to offload the business, Stagecoach agreed to re-purchased the East London bus group for £53 Million, with past experience of the business & a low purchase price they could justify its repurchase/change in direction to shareholders
You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?
Rob,
I'm not quite with you? Do you mean The big boys being interested in De Courcey?
Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?
Quote from: hartshill busman on June 27, 2012, 02:55:15 PM
Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?
De Courcey will also start operating the NEC car park shuttles soon with new Citaro's, at the end of the day, the bigger the business the larger the price tag the business should be able to command if it was ever put up for sale. I would have thought any sale of Travel De Courcey will depend on Mike DeCourcey's retirement plans and whether or not he has any family who could continue to run the business on his behalf, should he wish to take a backseat. If he hasn't and he decided to retire, I would have thought that both Stagecoach & NX would be interested and possibly Arriva & Rotala
Quote from: Michael on June 27, 2012, 12:08:36 PM
Quote from: NEL111P on June 27, 2012, 02:13:05 AM
Quote from: Liberator9 on June 26, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
Blue Diamond just ignore you
I wouldn't be so sure of that if i were you....
I would.
I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me. They assume that OAP's only want to use their service along the way. That's a fact.
I took Liberator9's comment as inferring that Blue Diamonds customer services weren't interested in genuine complaints, which is why i corrected him.
Quote
I tried to get their 37 at least 5 times in the bus stop and they ignored me.
Hmmm, they're more intelligent than i thought ;)
Quote from: hartshill busman on June 27, 2012, 02:55:15 PM
Rob. nice one to hang out there.. :-\...but if in the great scheme of things would you open a new operating centre in miller st etc?
I would imagine the Miller St oc is considerably cheaper than the Garrison Street premises. Added to this, the Miller St yard is better suited size wise.
Quote from: rob@mdc on June 27, 2012, 02:17:08 PM
You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?
I'm PRETTY sure Rob meant something along the lines of "why is no one mentioning deCourcey?" in the Blue Diamond takeover chat, not that they may be taken over.
Quote from: Mr Wood on June 27, 2012, 05:42:25 PM
Quote from: rob@mdc on June 27, 2012, 02:17:08 PM
You mention the big boys taking over Blue Diamond services, Arriva, Stagecoach etc. What about de courcey?
I'm PRETTY sure Rob meant something along the lines of "why is no one mentioning deCourcey?" in the Blue Diamond takeover chat, not that they may be taken over.
It may be that the Travel De Courcey business appears to be going form strength to strength and growing. Where as the Diamond business is shrinking year on year and has been further weakened by Arriva winning a whole tranche of Centro tenders that Diamond operated
I think it would be all the diamond operations as a whole if someone was to take over and pull out the area completely
DeCourcey is one to watch definitely. I think theyd be interested in Diamonds commerical routes and the Solihull stuff. Tho Travel de Courcey are an innovative, high quality company with great buses and great staff who are polite, helpful and I think it helps that TDC seems as if the management are very hands on-Mike De Courcey driving the hybrids etc and I hope that they start in Birmingham. Also, Green Bus are one to watch as theyve shedloads of money and a guaranteed source of income. I wouldnt be surprised if there was some takeover/rationalisation in the WM region. Just think-a group of Central Buses, Blue Diamond, Black Diamond, Red Diamond, VIP, Claribels, Central Buses, Midland, Hansons, Arriva's bus operations, Green Bus, De Courcey who combined would really be able to rip into National Express. Tho a thought-would de Courcey really want to compete with NXWM through Diamond when they operate NX contracts and recently withdrew a competing cross city service in Coventry.....
Sorry, I forgot about the Go Ahead previously owning Diamond! Anyway NXWM didn't dump the route, Network WEst midlands changed the services completely in January 2009 and changed it to the S3 and S2 which failed! NXWM then under the S2 and S3 then couldn't afford to run it due to the stupid plans of NWM! Research the history and NXWM were tons better in most cases than BD, other than the state of some of the buses. But by now we could've had the 12 reg urbans.
Quote from: Peter123 on June 27, 2012, 07:21:10 PM
DeCourcey is one to watch definitely. I think theyd be interested in Diamonds commerical routes and the Solihull stuff. Tho Travel de Courcey are an innovative, high quality company with great buses and great staff who are polite, helpful and I think it helps that TDC seems as if the management are very hands on-Mike De Courcey driving the hybrids etc and I hope that they start in Birmingham. Also, Green Bus are one to watch as theyve shedloads of money and a guaranteed source of income. I wouldnt be surprised if there was some takeover/rationalisation in the WM region. Just think-a group of Central Buses, Blue Diamond, Black Diamond, Red Diamond, VIP, Claribels, Central Buses, Midland, Hansons, Arriva's bus operations, Green Bus, De Courcey who combined would really be able to rip into National Express. Tho a thought-would de Courcey really want to compete with NXWM through Diamond when they operate NX contracts and recently withdrew a competing cross city service in Coventry.....
It's unlikely that DeCourcey could consider buying a business the size of Diamond, as the target would be much larger than the acquirer (i.e. a reverse takeover) and it would no doubt be difficult to finance even if a deal of that size was possible. I like your thinking of forming a group of all WM independents to go head to head with NXWM, however I couldn't see the MMC/Centro being very happy about the prospect, you would have just two groups controlling the entire WM bus market, competition for Centro contracts would be reduced to just two bidders, therefore prices would be much higher due to lack of competition.
I believe DeCourcey & NX have quite a good working relationship these days, therefore I would have thought it would be unlikely for DeCourcey to set up commercial operations against NXWM in Birmingham as you wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds you. That said, there is nothing stopping them bidding for tendered / contract work