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Since First Group have announced that they intend on making £100million worth of disposals in UK bus, does anyone have any thoughts on whether First Midlands will still be under First Group ownership for much longer?

As I understand it, they are one of the subsidiaries that doesn't contribute much to First Groups profits

If they were to be sold on who could potentially acquire them?

You may find that there may not be that many withdrawals, the Arriva black country operation is only 14 vehicles. Already out of the Diamond Fleet are a quantity of MAN / MCV's, in are Optare Solo's ex Preston Bus & new Optare Versa Hybrids. Not sure how those moves effect the fleet requirement.

The 142 has certainly gone down hill in terms of vehicle quality since the Red Diamond MAN's have gone, on Saturday it was being run by elderly S & T-reg Dart SLF's

Does anyone know if there will be a large withdrawal of buses in the diamond fleet from the 22nd April due to the loss of all those contracts or will they keep them for possible introduction of new commerical services.

As Michael has already said, there are 23 new Eclipse potentially replacing 25 elderly B10L's, either the number of spares can be reduced as they are brand new or if AG need the additional 2 single deckers may be they will have two more of the 6 outstanding Omnilinks still due to come down from Dundee i.e. 7028-7033 or 2 more Presidents. Can't see them keeping just 2 B10L's due to having to stock spares etc

Because there are several B10's that run the 37 alongside the omnilinks aswell as the the 5 and S1 so even though they are getting the new urban eclipses, which will mainly be used on the 71/72 will that leave enough buses for the routes that are currently B10 operated. It's why I wondered if they would transfer all the B10's as it would be ashame if they all left as they are the best SD in the fleet (in my opinion)!

My local depot: Pensnett
My favourite depot: Quinton

Just thought I'd get the ball rolling in this area of the forum and see what depot is the 'favourite.'

Feel free to answer everyone:

My local depot: Acocks Green
My favourite depot: Acocks Green

What is yours? :)

Any idea how many will transfer to WA in total?

WA was the major B6 stronghold, glad to see B10L's are being retained in favour of withdrawing further B6

Some Volov B10L`s will return to Walsall
EX-Acocks Green Examples

1421
1446
1459
1474
1477
7129

are at Walsall to be re-instated there to replace Volvo B6`s

Is the 238 still being run with B6's even after PE have withdrawn a load following the introduction of the Volvo B7RLE's in to service? The only one I haven't seen in service or in the depot is 2097

I also saw 604, 615 & 616 parked huddled together on Wed on double yellows outside of the perimeter fence, never seen anything parked there before. They looked as though they may be heading for Miller St as 604 was missing a headlight surround, so don't think they were for PM peak workings

Does anyone have any idea what the PVR of the 120/120E, 140 & 241 is? Trying to establish how many B7RLE's may be spare each day for other routes

i blooming agree with the 238, why on earth they kept moving it from wb to pe all the time droved me crazy. When they took of the 129 which was used a hell of lot were i live, they upped the 238 to every 20, so with the 128 we would have a bus every 10 mins, perfect, at the time opperated by wb mercs they would get full and croweded but hey at least you got a seat. And occasianly you would get the deckers which were even better.

Now Some body has had the wisdom, o lets reduces it back to every half hour, have a b6 run it, it will be fine. Is it heck,

people are waiting longer as they are never on time, they are over crowded nearley every journey, they struggle to get up the hills, and to be quite honest the buses are just awful.

Its funny when wb were opperating them cause they were actually on time, the sunday they went back to pe, bang late.

Not having a dig at pe, but why suddenly change the the garage and the bus type when they were fine, to something which cleary aint.

I want the 129 back LOL

It's never really changed that much since Phase 1 of the shopping Centre was originally built. It's always been just a parking area with a few bog standard bus shelters, the stop by Matalan doesn't even have a shelter, you have to use Matalan's canopy to protect you from the elements. They should sacrifice more of the car park in front of Halfords & build a proper bus station that is totally undercover & you can walk straight through in to the shopping centre, bus lanes & priorities is a good idea. If people see the buses getting in/out much quicker than cars they may be more inclined to give them a try

There may well be more chance of that & potential new routes after Merry Hill bus station gets rebuilt & capacity is increased. Merry Hill isn't very bus friendly at present, it's not really surprising that the majority choose to travel by car

I think it would be a good idea to run the 404H weekdays too it would only mean one extra omnilink as it would be the 404A just extended to merry hill then there would be a 15 minute frequency to merry hill from West Bromwich aswell as a weekday link from walsall to merry hill

For a large shopping centre I have to agree the bus station is outdated and the shelters two people cant pass each other also its strange how buses like the 222/X96 pull in with passengers on whilst changing the drivers as theres no room to park around the bus sation they use the bays in the middle.

There may well be more chance of that & potential new routes after Merry Hill bus station gets rebuilt & capacity is increased. Merry Hill isn't very bus friendly at present, it's not really surprising that the majority choose to travel by car

I think it would be a good idea to run the 404H weekdays too it would only mean one extra omnilink as it would be the 404A just extended to merry hill then there would be a 15 minute frequency to merry hill from West Bromwich aswell as a weekday link from walsall to merry hill

It's destined to become Dundee's 2030 and will be joined by another ex Demonstrator BK10MGE which will become 2031. 1908/2030 is only in the West Midlands for a refurbishment/repaint @Walsall

Hi all,

does anyone know what the plan is for 1908 (BG59FYF) whilst its withdrawn? Is it to be moved to Dundee or will it be staying down here at NXWM?

Cheers

tomjusttom

Suprised you haven't seen it on here that the 1 (WN) is due the 21 x Hybrid deckers announced last week as part of the Green Bus Fund 3, these are due Early 2013

Whether these will be used to see off the Spectra's who know's

The 1 in Wolverhampton could do with some new buses. One of my friends uses it regularly and usually comments to me on how bad some of the buses used are. I know she'd appreciate some new buses on it!

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

[Might]

A £2.2 million investment in new buses (split between NXWM & Rotala) unfortunately isn't going to buy that many new buses for the Brierley Hill area, therefore, it looks as though only a couple of the core routes mentioned will benefit from new stock

18 x Enviro 200's @ approx £125k /each
14 x Volvo B7RLE's @ approx £160k / each

Winston, that's what I think the Centro document Might be referring to!

I believe it has been suggested / rumoured that the 222 could be due some of the new Midi's later in the year.

According to http://www.centro.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=7711&sID=4284, the following is meant to happen in the Brierley Hill area:

- £2.2.m investment in brand new euro 5 buses

So presumably PE/WN might end up having more new buses.

I believe the new buses already introduced at WN and PE are Euro5 compliant. And that total figure includes other operators too.

And the 1 doesn't go to Merry Hill.  ;D

[might]

Non of PE's / WN's new buses serve Brierley Hill or Merry Hill, I believe it has been suggested / rumoured that the 222 could be due some of the new Midi's later in the year.

Would have thought the 222, 246, 276 & X96 must be good contenders for any further new vehicles deliveries @ PE

According to http://www.centro.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=7711&sID=4284, the following is meant to happen in the Brierley Hill area:

- £2.2.m investment in brand new euro 5 buses

So presumably PE/WN might end up having more new buses.

I believe the new buses already introduced at WN and PE are Euro5 compliant. And that total figure includes other operators too.

And the 1 doesn't go to Merry Hill.  ;D

None are on order for this year. I would have thought a quantity of double deckers would be ordered for Spring 2013, these should include the recently announced 21 x Hybrid double deckers from Green Bus Fund 3.

As WN has just had 25% of its fleet replaced in the matter of months, I'd be suprised if they were to receive any further new vehicles in quantity

I think that's a complete non starter, as I'm sure Coventry signed up to some quality partnership scheme and therefore doubt they'll be able to transfer out newer buses on mass to be replaced by 12/13 yr old Presidents. I'm sure the good people of Coventry would be really impressed, not....

Basically it comes back to the point that NXWM do not have sufficient Euro 2 & above double deckers, Birmingham may well benefit from newer buses, as a result of the quality partnership scheme being introduced within the City Centre, but this will be at the expense of other areas which will have newer vehicles transferred out to be replaced by 12/13 year old Presidents. The Presidents have been heavily refurbished, but this was back in 2007/2008.

Leaves the enviro's for the 21 and other routes when spare and the presidents for the rest of the double decker routes, coventry hasn't been mentioned as a possible solution so thought i would mention it, suprised someone thought it may be a good idea was expecting loads of negative comments :(

That's actually a great idea
All BC, and the major of WB, and a few AG presidents > CV
CV tridents > BC
CV geminis > AG
CV ALXs > WB

Do the gemini's/alx400 have similar controls to the presidents meaning not much type training is needed if at all due to them both being volvo. Or are they completely different just that certain garages operate all three types of vehicles or at least 2 and not tridents or enviro 400. (WB,PB and AG). If so it wouldnt take much type training if at all, if the presidents returned to Walsall. This would be a huge task but transfer the tridents at Coventry to BC and replace them with the presidents from BC as the red would be changed to sky blue and vice versa so could be quite easily repainted and training on the vehicles would have to be learnt just as if they went to Wolverhampton.